Blinking Green and Orange Light

The one point that has not been made in this thread (and which is contained in many other older threads in this forum about the problem of alternating blinking orange and green lights] is that some time ago, Apple changed the default setting on Podcasts to "Skip when shuffling". As a result, if a Shuffle is loaded with Podcasts and set to 'shuffle' mode, it will flash it lights in that way, which indicates 'no playable files'.

If you move the switch from 'shuffle' to 'play through', or disable the Podcasts' setting of 'skip when shuffling', then this won't happen.

Same problem here. It's charged and loaded with songs. When I remove it and hit Play, blinky lights & no music. Plug it back in and it sees all the songs. Unplug it, it thinks it's blank.

same here but i went to shuffle and it didnt play still i tried everything

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Have the same problem. iPod content shows up fine in iTunes (latest version), but when playing the iPod, the lights flash: green-red-green-red-green-red. No music plays.

I reset the iPod in ITunes, reloaded it and retried, but still the same.
I downloaded the Reset Utility 103, installed it, reset the iPod with it, reloaded the Music in iTunes, but still the same.

What now????

Update:

Reset the iPod a second time with the Reset Utility described in my previous post. Then dragged in manually two items: a song and a podcast. The song plays, the podcast doesn't.

At least one step further. So we know now that the Utility might have worked ok for music items. Now I need to find out why the podcast is not playing.

Background info: podcasts played fine on this iPod Shuffle until about 2 days ago, when suddenly during regular playback, the ipod stopped (I thought the battery was empty, which wasn't the case). Wonders above wonders.

Haha:

I loaded two more podcasts on the ipod, then moved the shuffle lever from "shuffle music" to "play one after the other" (that lever next to the off/on switch with the two arrow symbols).

In shuffle mode, the iPod won't play the podcast. It just keeps repeating the one song that is on the IPod and ignores the two podcasts that are also on the iPod. But in "play one after the other" mode, I can use the arrows to move back and forth between the two podcasts and the one song on the ipod. It recognizes all items and plays them.

It's like in the X-Files. Case solved, but a puzzling feeling remains.

I too suffered from this issue with my 2nd gen shuffle. Tracks did not play, but did however show up within iTunes when connected to my Macbook Pro.Reset/Restore did not fix the issue. This worked for me though:

Try selecting a track from your shuffle's playlist in iTunes. If it refuses to play within iTunes, highlight the track and press command i, or right click on the track and choose Get Info. Press OK to close the Info window and try playing a track. If it plays, eject your shuffle see if it works.

I haven't figured out why this solution works, but have been able to recreate the issue using 2 separate iPod Shuffle 2nd gens connected to my Macbook Pro, a Mac Mini, and an Early 2008 iMac and the solution seems to work 100% of the time. iTunes version used on all Models: iTunes v8.1.1. Give it a shot... hope that helps.

Bill H. wrote:
Same problem here. What can it be?
Is there a utility program that we can run on it to fix it?

Yes: http://support.apple.com/downloads/iPodReset_Utility_1_0_3_forMac

Okay, I found this thread after struggling for two days (multiple resets, reinstalling the Apple mobile drivers, etc.) to get my shuffle to play anything. And indeed, toggling the "shuffle" button on the bottom seems to have taken care of it. Thank you!

Same problem here. What can it be?
Is there a utility program that we can run on it to fix it?