Help!!! iPod won't sync with iTunes, iTunes freezes!

I'm going to give that dll register thing a shot. Even though I have a completely different error message (-53), its worth a shot.

Whenever my iPods sync gets to exactly 35.97GB it breaks down and throws the error. Regardless of order I am syncing. Whats weird is if I let Windows reformat it to ntfs and run chkdsk it says there are no problems whatsoever, as soon as I restore it to fat32 and let itunes have its wicked way with the device it breaks down at that magical 35.97GB.

Does anyone know exactly what error -53 means? I don't really understand how a number can be helpful to a consumer when there is no database of error messages to refer to!

mistilayne wrote:
But what if your computer doesn't even recognize the iPod? I've tried in disk mode and regular and my computer will not even see it. Itunes is 64 bit on a Vista 64. I don't want to erase anything because then I truly have a paper weight.

If Windows can't see the drive in disk node then my guess is some form of USB driver clash. I'd power off the computer, disconnect all USB devices except keyboard & mouse. See it it fares any better. Otherwise take a look at the DLL registration steps mentioned earlier. Windows should be able to see the iPod in disk mode as just a regular USB mass storage device.

tt2

I've updated all of my drivers as well. I just tried resyncing after reregistering my dll files. It failed again at 35.97gb.

I've been trying to find our what error -53 means. I found this;

error -53 volOffLinErr: volume not on line error (was Ejected)

After itunes throws the error I cannot access the ipod drive. If I double click the drive it says "Insert a disk into drive E:" or something to that effect.

No idea why the ipod would eject itself. Is there a fix for this problem? I'm not even sure replacing the hard drive will fix it, so even sending it off to a 3rd party repair shop is not guaranteed to fix my problem!

Message was edited by: mlahero

Hmm I tried just copying files onto the hard drive through Windows to see if I could replicate the problem (to rule out software issues). I get this error at the same spot as before at 36GB;

"error 0x80070022: The wrong diskette is in the drive. Insert (Volume Serial Number: ) into drive ...(name of file)..."

This sound identical to the -53 error to me.

I'm fairly confident that it is a hardware malfunction. But because I don't know which part of the ipod is broken I can't send it off for a hard-drive replacement with full confidence that a new drive will fix this.

Looks like my trusty classic is down for good.

Power saving settings shutting down the hard drives after a set interval perhaps? The power saving timers respond to keyboard & mouse activity, so if you leave your computer to do an intensive disk operation the clock starts ticking, regardless of how busy the computer actually is.

Have you managed a chkdsk with surface scan on the iPod and/or source drive?

When you did the NTFS format did you do a full or quick format? A quick format assumes a perfect drive with no bad sectors (or at least none that aren't already marked bad).

Might also pay to check the HDSmartData

Hold Menu+Select > 6 sec to reset iPod
Hold Rew+Select > 6 sec to put iPod in diagnostics mode
Select Manual Tests > IO > HardDrive > HDSMARTData

For comparission my current readings are:

Retracts: 515
Reallocs: 6
Pending sectors: 0
PowerOn Hours: 1535
Start/Stops: 651
Temp: Current 24C
Temp: Min 10C
Temp: Max 50C

tt2

Nope, nope and nope. It isn't the USB-tried it. Isn't the .dll files-tried it. Isn't iTunes 64-tried it and all the other things I've read. Unless Apple looks at these posts and does an update that doesn't just make it easier to buy songs and stuff then I have an iPod frozen permanently in time. They take away basic things like updating photos and contacts but leave us with this. A Zune is looking awfully good right now.

Well, this 1 thread had pretty much convinced me not to buy an Ipod even though I just installed the full speed Ipod cable to my Alpine touchscreen in my truck.Then I found this link: http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?postid=2453339 I have used winamp several years ago before I found Music Match and it worked really well. I think I will get the 120 Gig Classic and experiment with this. I have 30 days to make it work right or the Ipod will become a theirpod at the store again. If anyone else tries this with success, maybe you could let us all know. I love the Ipod products but I really loath the thought of Itunes. This might just be the answer. Itunes kind of reminds me of Beta vs. VHS except unfortunately Apple has done a decent job of getting market acceptance for Itunes.

Im having the same problem, I have an 80gb ipod, And i can only get about 115 songs on it beore everything freezes up. t must have to do with itunes. Has anyone figured out ho to fix it? Does tech support even have an idea at what they're doing?

this is a joke now , ive got the same problem with my gen 4 40gb i was having problems with battery so replaced it , then i updated itunes and now it wont sync just freezes until disconnected and show the "itunes can format your ipod " thing but then still does nothing

I'm very new to both the iPods (just got my first one for Christmas) and these discussion forums, but I've found a way to get my "frozen" iPod Classic working so I thought I'd share it. (Thanks much to the post from Gregori Rasputin for his help.) Hopefully we don't have to use our iPod Classics as expensive paperweights afterall.

Problem:
1. iTunes won't recognize my ipod - after a certain sequence of events
2. iPod "freezes" - after a certain sequence of events
3. Certain songs won't play on my ipod - the songs would appear on the music lists, but it would skip right over them if we tried to play them.

Findings:
We found all of these errors to be the result of trying to play 'corrupt' songs on my iPod. Turns out that the 'corrupt' songs were all stored in the "MPEG Audio file" format within Itunes. Not all of our files in this format caused a problem, but most of them did. We had to 'unfreeze' our iPod, convert the MPEG Audio files to ACC format within iTunes, delete the MPEG files from our iPod and iTunes, and then load the ACC versions onto the iPod.

*Steps we took to fix:*
(NOTE -- my iPod Classic is NOT set up to auto sync in iTunes. You may need to turn off the auto sync or change the sequence of these steps if yours is set up that way.)

1. Unfreeze the iPod by holding down the Menu and Center button until the apple logo appears. (This may take 6-10 seconds.) Once the apple logo appears, let go and then wait for the iPod to 'restart'. It will bring up the menu screen when it's done. (I've seen several posts on how to do this step. Seems like there might be slight variations for different types of iPods.)

2. Identify and convert the bad file types within iTunes. I have iTunes version 8. Within the View menu, choose view options and check the "Kind" option. This will show you the file type. Sort by this file type to identify all of the MPEG Audio Files. Select all of the MPEG Audio files (or at least the ones that you believe are causing the problem) and right-click. Choose the option to "Create an AAC Version". This is also under the Advanced menu option. You will now have both the MPEG and AAC version within iTunes.

3. Remove the bad file types from your iPod after connecting your iPod to iTunes. We have always found that the iPod is recognized after performing the restart as described in step 1. In my experience, it took longer than I would have expected for it to be recognized (possibly one minute).

4. Delete the bad file types from iTunes.

5. Copy the songs in the AAC file type back to the iPod.

6. All is well....hopefully -- at least it has been for us.

*Additional Notes:*
If I haven't lost you yet with my long post, here are a few other comments...

In the trial and error process of trying to figure out what was happening, we did a restore on the iPod. I don't think think this step was essential because we had the problem many more times afterward and we managed to fix it without another restore. However, if you don't have a lot of songs on your iPod, you may want to restore and reload the songs onto your iPod from scratch.

Interestingly, all of the MPEG Audio File songs that we had a problem with had data in the Comments section (choose to display under the "View Options" menu). The MPEG Audio File songs that did not have a problem, did not have a comment. Clearing out the comment did not fix the problem -- we still had to convert to AAC format. Anyway, I'm wondering if the comment is causing a conversion error, or if the comment is just a common thread to the source of the bad MPEG Audio File formats. I'd be curious if you find a similar problem.

This is working for me.
Convert all the tracks to ACC and they sync fine with my ipod.
Although the process to convert to ACC takes AGES.

i speak to soon. Its still stalling on sync

Does Apple even look at these boards, it would seem that they would give us an update on what is going on. Such a big problem that is affecting so many people and it seems as if they don't even know what is going on.

Here is my problem. I have OS 10.4 and Itunes 8 already installed. Two weeks ago, everything worked fine, and everything was syncing correctly. My logic board went out, and I had to get it serviced obviously. I got it back tonight. Now, my U2 Ipod will not even show up in iTunes! It refuses to recognize it. I even switched cables, but to no avail. I think it might be a hardware issue. I re-installed iTunes, updated it, and no solution again. I am extremely frustrated. I have read the whole Itunes 8 problem thread, but since it worked before the repair, I am almost certain that its not that problem. I don't know what the deal is, and I hate that Apple does not have a 24 hour free support line like almost every PC manufacturer out there. Anybody experiencing this???

Message was edited by: italianstud86

Message was edited by: italianstud86

Hi turing,

I dont think its the power saving settings, I've held my ipods hand all the way from restoring to the error -53 you see. Afterwards CHKDSK reports errors and is able to fix them correctly (or so it says). Upon resyncing at 36gb error -53 pops up again.

Here is my smart data;

Retracts: 24
Reallocs: 296
Pending sectors: 16
PowerOn Hours: 178
Start/Stops: 175
Temp: Current 19C
Temp: Min 15C
Temp: Max 51C

I could do with a hand deciphering what those numbers mean! Seems like a lot of reallocs though.

This is running on vista 64-bit but the fact that it fails to sync back on OSX and XP machines leads me to believe that its a genuine hardware failure.

Thanks again,

Steven.