ipod classic skip/drop out during play back

I have been having exactly the same problem, and I'm not the only one (according to the iLounge forums known bug list for iPod Classic).

I have noticed that the problem occurs more frequently on tracks ripped at a higher bit-rate (256kbps or Apple Lossless) than on tracks recorded at 128kbps.

I've taken my iPod back once and got a replacement which, if anything, was slightly worse. I reckon that in an album (70 mins) recorded with Apple Lossless, I get on average 2 pauses. Sometimes it's better, sometimes worse, and it never occurs in the same place twice.

I imagine it's probably some kind of buffering issue, and I'd be very surprised if Apple don't know all about it. To date, they seem unable to fix it with software updates (I'm on 1.0.3), so perhaps it's a hardware fault, in which case we might have to wait until the 7G iPod!

I'm going to take my iPod back again after Christmas and keep doing so until somebody takes notice.

I also have been seeing this issue on my new classic 160. It seems to happen most often with .wav and apple lossless tracks. I'm also hoping that Apple has a fix in process that will show up in an update.

Sorry, no more information here but I would like to mention that I have the same issue with AAC 256 VBR tracks encoded from CD or lossless files with the latest release of iTunes/Quicktime while playing these on a iPod 160Gb 1.0.3

= Started with the 60 gig (which worked great) and replaced with the 80 (which also worked great) and then moved to the 160gig due to expanding library. Started noticing songs that were skipping (didn't matter if it was playlist, specific song search, or just by artist). Did the restore/sync.. Same issue. Did as other posts mentioned, converted to mp3 (went fairly quick as most are mp3), restored and sync'd. Still skipping. The few songs that I could remember were deleted from both iTunes and iPod, ripped the CD back into iTunes and re-sync'd.. And of course it still skips. But here is the kicker....

When I started going through the artists, noticed some of them were missing. iPod shows 11481 songs and iTunes show 11481 songs. Searched by specific songs and see they are there as well as checking iTunes and they are there as well.... But when I try to play it thru artist, nothing! GETTING VERY FRUSTRATED AND NEED SOME HELP!!! Have tried everything in here with no success... Was gonna exchange it but everyone who has stated they are still having the problem... What am I to do?

I have the same problem with my new ipod classic 160GB.

I purchased an iPod 160GB because I wanted to store a lot of songs in a high quality format. Therefore I use the Apple lossless format when I download songs from my CD's to the iTunes library.

When I play the songs on the iPod, the iPod intterupts sometimes.
It does this, almost always when the screen switches from operating mode, to the screensaver clock mode while a song is playing. But also on unpredictable moments during playing while the screensaver is on, and the hold switch is on. It pauzes a few seconds and then continues.
It does it also when the ipod is lying still on the table, without moving.

I tried some things to solve the problem :


I made sure the iPod had the last software update installed.
I have completely reset the iPod from scratch.
I downloaded all the songs in on time to the iPod.

I still have the same problem.
Can anybody help me?

I have a similar problem. The only way I have been able to avoid it is to remove the album art from my ipod which is an option when syncing. No problems since, but then no pretty artwork either...

The whole idea was full WAV playback. The skips are waaay too annoying given what I paid for this thing. Especially stinks because my old one which I lost didn't have this problem. I patiently waited for and made the updates, and now that the latest software didn't make a fix I want a replacement till they get it right. Every hour is way too often for this. Every few days would be one thing, but this is borderline constant.

You know, I've had my iPod classic 160 since Christmas. I had updated it with firmware 1.0.3 then just last night to 1.1.1. Quite honestly I've only had one instance when it had paused in the music and that was months ago and only 1 particular song. I notice the size of the song was 20 MB encoded as 320 KBPS. I re-encoded it to 256 KBPS VBR dropping the size just below 16 MB. It never skipped again. I really don't know if there was something wrong with the original MP3 or if it had something to do with the filesize. I guess I could always re-encode the original CD track back to 320 KBPS and see what effect that would have on performance...

Actually that's a good idea, I'll do that and write back to this thread.

Keep in mind that the iPod Classic has only 32MB internal memory (as opposed to 64MB in the Video). If you are playing WAV files, chances are good that skipping is caused by information caching to memory in the middle of the song. Apple has always said that optimal performance is achieved with MP3 or AAC files between 4MB and 7MB in size.

But what is the point of ripping songs as Apple Lossless if the ipod is not going to handle it? And if we mp3 what is good enought but not too big, 320?
Apple, can you get in on this thread with some solutions? any suggestions?

My comments are only a guess. If the issue is caching large files, Apple should be able to figure out a way to make this non-intrusive and seamless to the user.

Don't expect Apple to see comments in this forum. Comments / complaints should be posted to the iPod Feedback Page

thanks, will do,
hope they "react"