Blank screen, music still plays

My wife's iPod did something similar this morning. She can turn it on, she can turn on the back light, she can navigate menus, adjust the volume, and listend to songs; however, she has no idea what she is doing because nothing is displayed on the screen. It worked fine when she got home from work last night, and this morning nothing.

Can anyone tell if this is a software problem that could be solved or if this is a hardware issue? If its hardware, unfortunately, we aren't paying $250 to get it repaired.

Must be a full moon for ipods. Mine was functioning perfectly, and has been for 18 months, but screen was dead this morning. Cannot navigate, but can play on random (as that was the setting last used). Went through the restart procedure, backlight came on, but still no text on screen.

Can anyone shed light on the problem, or is it a costly fix ?

well, she was running late for work, so I didn't have a chance to restore the iPod. I had intended to, but since she could still listen to it she took it to work anyway. she was just going to listen to, well, whatever playlist she could find. 😝

And, she just called to say that she was listening to her iPod and happened to glance at the screen to see the display restored. Weird. So, hopefully this won't happen again..

Thanx for the quick reply, though!!

I have the same problem: 4G iPod. It's still within warranty.

I tried several restores... none helped. I'm downloading the latest update and will try restoring it again. If nothing helps, I'm sending this iPod back to Apple for replacement.

I've been having the same problem, it's happened to me twice now. Each time, after a random period of time, it'll restore the screen. But its still freakin' irritating. Anyone else noticed that it also affects sound quality while the screen is off? I get crazy static, and sometimes the song paces get erratic. Then when my screen comes back, so does sound quality.

The iPod is an old model (4 buttons & Click wheel), 20GB, the first time it happened, I'd just loaded some new 'tunes onto my iPod.

My daughter called me with the same problem. She says the IPOD works - but just a Blue circle appears in the display. She tried to restore and this did not work. She has a Compaq laptop with Windows XP. If someone finds a solution - please post it. Thanks.

Just to keep the discussion going, I've never found any reference to such a problem in the various self-help and FAQ pages on the Apple Website here, and tried a google search as well. All I got was ads for "Free iPods" (Already have one, that's why I'm troubleshooting...) and sites advertising various gadgets to add onto my iPod with (As though I want MORE ways to confuse the already unstable unit...), so there's no other refeneces to this problem that I've found.

This is apparently a common problem, it has happened to me again just the other day, but I was unavailable to get to my warranty, and couldn't get it replaced. While it was happening, my songs came out all static-ey, or distorted. They would play at varying speeds, sounding vaguely like alvin & the freakin' chipmunks, or slowing down so much it sounded cow-opera... The screen stayed off the whole time, and it came back on briefly when I plugged it into the charger. Died again shortly after, and stayed dead for about 12 hours. The wierd sound quality stayed until the screen came back... Have any of the other topics on this resolved it, or a possible cause?

Same problem here. Durnit, I've already sent my Ipod back to repair 3 times witch has made me without my Ipod over two months. I assumed this wasn't a hardware probem though, since the apple logo flashes when I turn it on (after been completly emptied for bettery). And so great that I made my playlist with music from different computers, its a **** to get the music back on. Espechially since the ipod always
a. restarts my computer
b. freezes my computer
c. Bluescreens my computer

Bluescreen is usually when I connect, freeze is random and restart is when I copy songs. What can I say, Im an Ipod fan <3<3<3<3<<3<3 😟

Tried to press menu+select for 6-10 sek while connected to my puter and it made my screen come back on. Waaaai waaaaai.

Btw. This happens to my screen every time I turn the contrast up to about 70%.

Its a great idea, but it'll kill my warranty... I'm trying to find out if anyone else has less drastic solutions out there...

And I'm still curious about whosits post... Before you fixed it, had you messed with the contrast?

My screen came back, and I immediately set the contrast to about 60%... Still having trouble reading the display (Apple's default contrast should be darker, and the unit really should be able to take the additional stress), but there has been no recurracnce of the problem.

It certainly appears that this is at the root of the problem.

I have the same problem. I had the iPod in the dock from one moment to the other the displays go's out. I have already played with the contrasts, but it doesn't help.
But I there is on difference to your posts, if I press the case with much strengh together, I can see the text.

My iPod was dropped 5 feet onto a hard floor 2 weeks ago and SEEMED to work fine... a yesterday I picked it up and all I got was a backlit blank screen. I could get music, the drive was working, but just a blank display. Later I tried it, and the display suddenly worked, though the contrast was turned down very low. Today I used it most of the day and it worked fine. Awhile later I had turned it on and the same problem, the backlit blank scrreen. I tried restarting it numerous times, updating software, nada. I got the help mesage above, and did the squeeze of the upper part of the case and the display came back on, though the conrast was again low and had to be adjusted. Is this related to the drop or an iPod problem??

Nix the contrast theory. Was a great idea, and would've been a nice & easy fix. Apparently not the cause...

My contrast came back, got darker without me messing with the adjustor after setting it to approximately Factory Standard 50%, and then I lost the screen again. However, it fell out of my shirt pocket the other day hitting the floor on its top-right corner, and my screen came back, good as new. So I suspect it has something to do with loose connections or something inside.

I suppose we'll have to keep looking for the actual cause. If any of you get this in for service and they fix it, ask them what was wrong so the rest of us know what to ask them to fix...