apple icon, sad face, and low battery symbol (not charging) what's going on

dude, i'm having exactly the same problem with my 4g ipod: lots of resets recently, then suddenly the sad face and pluginto charger icons. did you figure out anything good? help!

Hi. I was just wondering if you had found anything out. I am having the same problem. It won't even reset. I just get the apple, sad face and battery symbols. I have a 40g. I am hoping that it is not gone! Thank you!

See these troubleshooting articles.

My iPod is sad.

iPod displays a "sad iPod" icon.

What does this picture on my iPod mean?

Also, there is a pretty comprehensive post written by another forum member which is about the sad iPod icon or the folder and ! icon.

The Sad iPod/folder and ! icon.

Hi,
Something similar is happenning to My 4th generation (20G) iPod. It was working fine until recently.
It started to freeze from time to time, and then it was kept on until the battery discharged completely & then I could plug it to the power adaptor & off it went again fine after charging.
This time instead of being patient I tried to reset the iPod (hold menu +select button) & then the sad face appeared with the link:
www.apple.com/support/ipod/
I tried to “force iPod into Disk Mode” & “restore your iPod” without success.
The iPod wont charge plugged into the power adaptor: it shows the dead battery icon for a second & then goes back to the apple logo & then to the sad face.
On the PC in windows XP & Vista, as well as on the Mac (Panther & Tiger) the iPod is not recognized & it shows the battery icon without being animated with a static lightning bolt : “Very low battery
(non-animated screen for color and monochrome models)”
Any hints, clues or “bright ideas”?
Thanks.

Hey man...I have the EXACT same Ipod with the EXACT same problem. I went to the apple store and they told me I had to wait 3 days to make an appointment with a "Mac Genius" to look at it and that with all the repairs done it would probably cost me $150. Frustrated, I went home and did some research and heres what I found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ljPhrFUaOY
http://notpopular.com/blogs/josh/2006/03/29/fix-your-ipod-by-spanking-it/
I kid you not. So basically I put the wall charger on, let it charge for 3 hours. Took it off the wall plug and then slapped the $#!t out of it 4 or five times. Then turned it on. Same sad face. Tried a combination of the reboot procedure and slapping around and now it works! Good luck and hope it works for you too!
I feel like going to the apple store and slapping the crap out of "Mac Rip Ppl off Genius"

I just saw the youtube video... I said to myself what the heck... You know what? It worked!!! I've spent I don't know how many hours trying to fix it. Thank you Thoko, I laughed so much, I found it so ridicoulus but when I saw the screen light up again OMG. Thanks again!!! By the way, I slapped it once

Message was edited by: danielle992002

Thanks for the encouragement! I had already tried the 5 R's and was on the verge of giving the thing a sharp pat myself, but was holding back because I wasn't sure how delicate it was inside. The posts here and the video got me past my reluctance. It took just two sharp pats to get me going again. I'm fully charged and ready to rock! Sunshine on an otherwise cloudy day.