Unknown error -208

Today I experienced the same symptoms. First my ibook froze while trying to import a CD to itunes 5; next, I did a force reboot but to my surprise when I opened itunes instead of having over 2000 songs I had 522 songs. I trashed all of my itunes prefs and library data files which forced itunes to search for all music files on my mac. That fixed my library archive problem; however, there were still only 522 songs on my ipod. As I went to update my ipod, I recieved an error message that said "unknown error occurred (-208)." I restored my ipod to factory condition and re installed itunes but it all failed to prevail. I still can't update my ipod someone please help.

Thank you,
nukefish50

I'm also getting the same error 208. Ive done the whole delete itunes and associated files and reinstall itunes and restore my ipod but nothing seems to work. When I go into itunes preferences and go to the ipod tab, if I choose contacts and/or ical, it tells me that I don't have any contacts or events and opens those programs up. When it opens those up I can see my 300+ contacts and all 15+ calendars with events pretty much every day. Help please.

12" PB 1.5ghz
Mac OS X (10.4.2)
itunes 5.0.1 (4)
ipod 60gb color - fw 1.2

Same problem here, with identical efforts made to reset iPod. This syncing problem occurs on my PowerMac. Somebody out there has to know how to solve this problem.

Thanks.

Using an 20 GB iPod with colour display I also got the error message "unknown error (-208)". I'm using a powerbook G4 1.33 ghz. with absolutely no pirated sofware installed.

Everything in my ipod was deleted. I tried all options on the Apple iPod support site and nothing worked. Reinstalliing iTunes 5.01 made the music and playlist transfers work but I still get an error message every time I update. Transfer of photos, iCal calendars and Adress book info is not happening.

As the "-208" is on this discussion board I expect the error to be caused by software code, and not hardware failure. (I take good care of my iPod with the hardsided Apple carry clip case) So I hope the nice folks at Apple can find and fix the faulty bit in the iTunes app. or in another place and get this sorted asap.

I have the same problem -208 and have tried all the same things to fix this, it was working fine until last night.....surely someone knows what this code means??? C'mon Apple give us a reply!

I, too, am having the same problem. It started after I went from OS X 10.4 to 10.4.3
The guy at Apple's Genius Bar restored by ipod; reinstalled iTunes 6.0.1, checked HD disk, but the error continues. I found that if I don't sync my contacts, the error (usually) doesn't appear. Even when the error occured, my ipod is updated. Internet search found no solution.

Me too. Can't sync calendars or photos or address book. Can't find a solution.

It sounds to me that some of you may have corrupt iPhoto libraries. See, what happened to me was that I recevied the -208 error, but when I went into the iPod options and unchecked 'Synchronise photos from: iPhoto' I did not receive the error anymore.

My only conclusion is that we have messed iPhoto libraries and/or iPhoto is possibly out of date. However, this still does not resolved the issue of not being able to upload photos... I used iLife '04 for iPhoto and all the iLife apps, but is there a way I can individually reinstall one application from the iLife suite?

Cheers,
Josh

Well, I fixed my problem, so I may as well post this up, it might be helpful:

It was iPhoto, although the problem was that I had about 40 or so photos whose thumbnails were visible in the library but the actual photos were missing. It would be like having a song title in your itunes, but then a message asks you to locate the actual song file since it cannot be found. Well, I deleted the old thumbnails (have no idea why they did not head to the trash with their originals when I deleted them) and now my iPod updates as it did before, photos and all.

Hope I helped 🙂

Josh

This error can occur when the iPod photo cache is corrupted. A very simple solution to this is to delete the directory USER/Pictures/iPhoto Library/iPod Photo Cache and then to re-sync your iPod with iTunes. It wil go through an "optimization" phase where it re-generates the iPod photo cache and then will copy your photos to your iPod successfully without the -208 error.

For some reason, the iPod photo cache directory is even larger than your main iPhoto directory (my iPhoto files are 3.46GB while the iPod Photo cache for these same directories are 5.02GB). I'm not sure whether iTunes will clean this up after it finishes syncing so beware that you could watch alot of disk space disappear. I think there are some other posts in the discussion around cleaning up this cache.

Two weeks ago my ipod crashed and erased all my
music, photos, address and contacts. I was able to
restore my itunes library to where it sync my songs
and play lists back on my ipod photo but it also
brings up and error " can't be updated. An unknown
error has occured -208" It won't update my photos,
contacts and calendar even though my settings for
syncing are correct. I have already tried archiving
and installing my OS and resetting and restoring my
ipod. No luck.

I got it sorted as the iPHOTO library file totally copped out, everything works again but I lost all my notes that I entered to each picture.

FINALLY Deleting the "iPod Photo Cache" worked. It took about 40 minutes to optimize my 2100+ iPhoto library and copy the thumbnails & full-res pictures. The new cache is about 1.77 GB, about half the size of the iPhoto Library.
Now I have all of my pictures on my iPod video & nano.
Thank you