iTunes can't read iPod contents after Archive & Install

Question

Level 1

4 points

iTunes can't read iPod contents after Archive & Install

Hi,

I recently had to replace the hard drive in my Mac Mini, and now that it is back up and running again iTunes will no longer sync with my iPod. When I start iTunes, I get the following error message:

iTunes cannot read the contents of the iPod "Timothy
Macinta's iPod". Go to the Summary tab in iPod
preferences and click Restore to restore this iPod to
factory settings.

I would prefer to avoid restoring the iPod so that I can retain the play counts, ratings, etc. which I have changed on my iPod over the course of the last week when my computer was under the knife. It won't be a disaster if I can't do this and end up needing to restore the iPod, but I thought I would ask in case anybody had any tips.

For what it's worth, /Applications/iTunes.app is identical to what it was before the Archive & Install. So is ~/Music/iTunes/ . Are there other files or directories where iTunes keeps track of what iPods it knows about and which I could try restoring from my backup?

Thanks,
- Tim

iPod Classic 80G and Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Mar 25, 2009 8:55 AM

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Answer 1

macinta Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 25, 2009 12:14 PM in response to macinta

I figured out how to fix the problem and I figured I would post a follow up in case anybody runs into the same problem. Since I originally posted, I discovered that iTunes had additional problems. Specifically, when I tried to play songs which had been downloaded from the iTunes Store, it asked me for my iTunes account and password and entering them produced an error that was something like: "A required iTunes component is not installed. (-42401)" I downloaded the latest iTunes directly from Apple:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

and then reinstalled it. Now I can play songs from the Store again and my iPod happily syncs. I don't know why it wasn't working before given that I had updated everything on the system, including iTunes, to the latest version with Software Update.

- Tim

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Answer 2

alyseg2

Level 1

0 points

Mar 26, 2009 2:55 PM in response to macinta

Tim,

Thanks so much for that simple solution! I thought I was going to have to restore my phone, but when I installed iTunes directly from the apple site, it fixed everything perfectly. Like you, I had everything u p to date, and have no idea what happened. But thank you so much for your post, it really saved me!!

Alyse

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Answer 3

Apr 18, 2009 9:30 AM in response to macinta

Just to add, there are probably lots of reasons this error pops up and a few people said that deleting their own MP3 (that they'd ripped or downloaded outside iTunes sorted) the problem.

In my case, resetting iPod etc didn't work. I only had a couple of 100MB free on C so I freed up more space (to about 1.5GB free), closed and reopened iTunes and it worked fine. Not sure if that was the fix but it was the first time it started working after about 5 goes. (I get this error about once every month but I've had low disk space that whole time... so thought I'd throw my hat in).

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