"...cannot be synced. The required file cannot be found"

I have had the same problems as everyone here, and what I am wondering is whether this is something wrong with the iPod or my PC? I took mine to the Apple store today and it worked fine for them, but I still get this message, does Apple do any sort of Geek Squad type thing where they come over and look at it? I hope so, if not, SOMEONE PLEASE ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS!

Message was edited by: drummer4christ02

I am having the same issues as everyone else as well. I stopped by Best Buy and brought my iPod with my laptop to the Geek Squad there. They plugged my iPod into their computer and it worked fine as well, and then they plugged it into mine. They tested to see if it worked by converting one playlist, which ended up working. When I got home, however, I started getting the error again and it still won't let me restore my iPod.
It used to crash my computer when I plugged it in, it's not doing that anymore at least.
My iPod is now making funny noises and heating up really quickly though.
And the 'do not disconnect' message on the screen never vanishes unless I reset it.

I believe the issue is in the IPod firmware...why? (1). I synch other pod's in this household successfully (2)..both older models the use IEEE 1394 FireWire connections and newer models that use only USB2.0....(3.).all other pod's in the household run firmware version 1.2.1............THE PROBLEM SEEMS BE TO BE THAT IPOD REQUIRES A DISK DRIVE LOGICAL (IE, C,D,E,F,G, etc.)TO BE ASSIGNED 'on the fly' (your dandy plug n play feature of Windows XP) for each pod you (or any other external 'drive')'plug' into your Windows PC or laptop. To illustrate open MY COMPUTER and then plug your pod in.....a logical device letter appears (albeit briefly) and disappears followed by the error message we've all come to love so much....I don't have an answer to this yet!!...but I hope this additional info will help...some .....???!!

I fixed the problem I had by resetting and restoring my iPod. I lost all my music but I kept a back-up file on the hard drive of my iPod (Back Door). To do this you'll have to save a copy on your "C" hard drive first. I.E. Go to My Computer and select the corrasponding letter drive. Then create a folder (you can name it anything). Copy and Paste to that folder. That's it.
If you still have a problem, I would suggest reinstalling iTunes software.

I have had this same problem for weeks maybe even months. I had received various errors - 'required file can not be found', 'error-48' disc can not be written too. After trying EVERYTHING that I possibly could to resolve this problem on my own (with help from these boards) I took it to the Apple store. They said that my hard drive was broken - there is a faulty sector within and can not be repaired. If you are under warranty and can get to a store this is the best solution as nothing else worked. Everytime I thought I had fixed it (updating windows, uninstalling itunes, updating the version of itunes) it would ultimately fail. I just got back from the store, so hopefully I will not have this problem again!

Message was edited by: ncm12

i have the same problem and it happened when i got my new iphone! see i live in Canada and they don't sell them here but i got it on my birthday as a gift! now my iphone and ipod is giving the message that " the ipod cannot be synced. The required file is locked." and to make it worse my ipod's warranty is expired and my ipod isn't covered by anyone! so im screwed and Apple is my life!

please someone help! Im going crazy!

No solution yet. But, here are some results that might get us closer to solving this issue. I've reset the iPod, thereby turning it into a paperweight. I've re-installed itunes as well. No amount of resetting or changing of USB ports is changing the results.

But, here is, more specifically, what is happening. If you have Win Explorer open at the same time as iTunes, the iPod will appear, then disappear as soon as iTunes mounts it. This is very consistent. I've also tried forcing the iPod to be a unique, unused drive letter (P:) in order to avoid conflicts with my other drives, including my SAN. It consistently mounts it to letter P:, and then disappears as soon as iTunes mounts it. Also, you cannot use a command line to get to drive P:. Any further action with the iPod using iTunes will fail (copying, syncing, etc). Basically, the system cannot find the drive. Additionally, the iPod screen looks as though it has been ejected and there is no "bong" sound when removing it manually without a software ejection. The system seems to have bounced it off without any error message. But, in the "Safely Remove Hardware" screen, the iPod is still mounted even though the iPod screen says "OK to Disconnect."

I uninstalled iTunes and enabled the iPod for Diskmode (Center + Menu buttons for 10 secs, then Center +Play buttons until "Disk Mode Enabled" appears). When connecting to the system without iTunes installed, it remains mounted and acts like a new drive. With iTunes installed, the same failure sequence occurs as above.

I've also run the appleipod.bat file suggested elsewhere on this forum in order to reset the registry entries. No change to the above failed results.

I believe that iTunes is forcing the iPod to unmount from the OS.

Some progress....

I was able to force a restore again. I unplugged all USB devices - including my mouse - while I was connecting the ipod. I re-connected the mouse after the iPod appeared in iTunes.

There is a screen during the restore process that allows you to name the computer. I had a ' in the name, which may have been an issue. Not sure, but worth mentioning. I renamed the iPod to a simple name. I also unchecked all boxes that allow auto-start of iTunes and disk usage. After i hit submit, it mounted the iPod and showed the Summary tab with the "Open iTunes..." "Manually manage...." and "Enable Disk Use" boxes checked (very annoying as I had just de-seected that option during the previous screen). Meanwhile, the iPod had not yet disappeared from Win Explorer, which always happened before.

I unchecked the "Open iTunes when this iPod is connected" and hit "Apply". It seemed to work, which it never did before. I then went to the music list and dragged one song onto the iPod icon. This copied successfully. I ejected the ipod to verify that it was on there. I then re-connected the ipod and it connected successfully. Big progress! Then, I unchecked the "Manually manage music and videos" box, unchecked the sync-photos option on the other tab, and hit "apply". The iPod stayed connected. I then hit Sync and it is now in the process of syncing - which will take an hour.

It seems that the settings during the Restore process are critical. Uncheck everything on that initial screen and (maybe) use a very simple name for the iPod with no funny characters. Then, copy at least one song manually to the iPod. One or more of these steps may be the solution. I'll bet that the apostrophe in the original name was causing the problem.

Message was edited by: jurban1997

I may have found a way to fix this. I have a 1.1.4 iPod Touch and I was experiencing the same problem. It happened while iTunes was trying to sync my photos, so I assumed that there was a file missing in the photos. Since iTunes converts all photos to an iPod format, I thought there might be a corrupt file in the converted photos. So I deleted the iTunes photo cache.

Basically go to the folder from where you syncing your photos and delete the folder named "iPod Photo Cache" This will require iTunes to reconvert all the photos. This solved the problem for me.

ps this worked on my Windows XP SP2 computer.

Same freaking story from me. It froze while I was listening to it and stated it needed to be restored and plugged into my computer.

It now crashes my computer when plugging it in and I get that same error The Ipod for .... cannot be synced. The required file cannot be found.

Anybody know what to do? I've called apple several times and they are useless. Act like they've never heard this before, despite thousands of us having this issue since the new update ! I'm so freakin ****** !

Hi,
give this a try if your ipod is not set to manually manage music videos, set it and then click on apply after that the music should be accessible in itunes of your ipod.

I had exactly this problem with my BRAND NEW Nano. Also it was intermittent, and it affected my wife's Nano too, though oddly not her Shuffle.

I tried all the reinstalling tricks and driver replacement advice; all to no avail.

But the I hit on the answer this weekend, for my particular situation anyway.

It struck me that I had been periodically "losing" other USB devices - a disappearing drive, missing scanner etc. Also we have recently been having trouble getting the PC to notice a digital camera when photos needed to be uploaded.

And the problem for me was:- Power: my PC just did not have enough power to drive all of the devices in the chassis and connected externally.

Putting all the USB stuff onto powered hubs did not help.

Luckily I have lots of spare power supplies in my basement. I took a spare 230W power supply and used it to drive my graphics card and one of the SATA drives in my chassis. With that load gone, the 105W power supply in my PC has enough power for the USB ports.

Since making this modification neither my wife nor I have had any problems syncing our Nanos.

If you do not have a PC power supply just hanging around they can be had for $30 or so from any reused computer seller or electronics supply store. Look for one that has a mechanical on/off switch wired directly to it - older ones are like this. The newer ones are switched electronically from the motherboard and would be much harder to use as I have described.

Message was edited by: Spearhavoc

Message was edited by: Spearhavoc

I also suffer from this problem. Reset and Restore of the iPod and re-installation of iTunes did not help.

I had recently installed a trial version of Microsoft Office 2007, and my iPod was set up to sync calendars and contacts with Outlook.

On a whim I turned off those sync options, as well as all photos and video. All of my 4400 songs are syncing now with no issue. Now I'll try adding pictures and then video back in and last try to sync calendars and contacts. If that fails again, I guess I get rid of my Office 2007 trial.

- jej1216

when i try to sync my ipod i am being told that there are two unknown errors (-48 & -50) with my ipod/itunes.

does anyone know how i can fix them?

THANK YOU!
You are my hero for posting this solution. I disabled my photo sync, movie sync, TV show sync and just synced the music.
When that worked, I enabled the photo sync again.
It worked! Now I am enabling the movie sync.
Takes a while to get the movies to sync, but if it doesn't work, at least I will have my tunes, and that is what I am addicted to!

Thank you very much!