Ipod Updated and now it says my passcode and password wont work, my info is correct

last night around midnight i was on youtube then all of a sudden my ipod stops working and shows a Hello screen, same screen you see when you get a new ipod or update, I think it updated to ios 15.5. I've had this ipod for over a year now. I don't even recall having my ipod on automatic updates, so this happened out of the blue. It asked to sign in or to use passcode. i tried to sign in and it says wrong id/password, but my info is correct. I then tried my passcode to my ipod and it said that is also incorrect, but my code is correct. Then when those didn't work it sent me to a screen that said this: "unable to activate" "your ipod touch could not be activated because the activation server cannot be reached. Try connecting your ipod touch to a mac or to a pc with Itunes to activate it, or try again in a couple of minutes." i pressed try using wi-fi and that doesn't work. i tried pressing "try again" and it was connected to Itunes and that didn't work. My itunes works, its connected to my account but my ipod wont connect. i'm not sure what to do at this point besides go to the apple people and see what they can do, i don't want to reset my ipod, i have stuff on there that i don't want to lose. Help?