My songs disappeared from my ipod!

It would appear that the iPod hard drive has become corrupt and unreadable. This doesn't mean that the songs are not on your iPod, hence the fact that the iPod reports used space and iTunes may show them.

You should restore the iPod and then reload the songs from iTunes.

I had the same problem as the first person, all of my songs dissapeared. i did what it says, and tried to update it but it didn't work. i have my songs on different computers and it took me ages to get all of them on there. is there no other choice for me or do i have to restore my ipod to factory settings? HELP!

The Five Rs.

If the first 4 don't help, then the last R is restore.

This happened to me, too. With it happening simultaneously to this many people, my money says it's a intentional bug put into the new updates by Apple.

OK I have a different version of this problem. Clickwheel iPod. Only my ITS songs disappear. Actually, these songs are shown in succession, rapidly on the screen but won't play. However, all of the songs I ripped from CD are there, and do play. This happens sporadically. Seems to happen when I charge the battery from the wall socket. Synch with iTunes, and my ITS songs are back. Or, this happens when a few days have passed since the last synch.

I have done all of the Fives R's, but this just keeps happening. Any clues?

"Only my ITS songs disappear. Actually, these songs are shown in succession, rapidly on the screen but won't play"

If you have made sure that both the iTunes and iPod software are current and have deauthorized and reauthorized your computer, try this:

1. Deauthorize the computer.
2. Create a new user in the system.
3. Download the free song of the week from the iTMS in the new user account.
4. Play the song in that user account to authorize again.
5. Restore the iPod (using the iPod updater) in the new user account.
6. Sync just the free song of the week and see if it plays on the iPod.

If it does, you appear to have a corrupted iTunes library file, and you should recreate the iTunes library file in your normal user account, and then sync your music back to the iPod and all should be well.

The following articles will help you.

Authorization and Deauthorization.

How to create a new user account on a Mac.

How to restore the iPod.

How to recreate your iTunes library.

The same thing is happening with my iPod Mini (4GB, 1st gen). Does anyone have any ideas?

Actually, what is happening to me is not exactly the same. If I reset the iPod and then sync it, the songs appear on my iPod and play. A few days later, they won't play and the song titles just appear briefly before going to the next song. I can't say for sure, but this doesn't seem to be limited to songs from the music store. Will deauthorizing and reauthorizing fix this as well?

I am back. I tried your suggestion. I even did the five R's again, then followed your steps. Same problem is occuring. My iTMS songs disappear, but my ripped songs are there. As I described before, the iTMS songs are listed in the menu. When I try to play them, each song's title, etc. flashes on the screen for a second, then the next title flashes, and so on in quick succession. As soon as my iPod finds a song I ripped, that song will play.

I guess another way to describe this problem is that my Protected AAC format songs disappear (aren't playable), and my Non-protected AAC songs don't (are playable). Like another message poster, I am beginning to suspect this is part of Apple's DRM :-[

I have also done the hard drive reformat dance! iTunes works just fine on my iMac G5. It is just my iPod that is giving me problems. One detail I failed to mention. This iPod was originally used with a windoze machine. I followed the steps for reformatting it for use with my iMac. In accordance with those instructions, my iPod's About screen confirms it is now in Apple compliant format. Could this have caused the problem?

The only cludge I have found on my own is to synch my iPod each and every day. Kind of hard to do when I am on the road three or four days in a row!

iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

De-authorizing then reauthorizing my iMac with iTMS finally worked. We will see if the fix holds. Been a couple weeks, and my iPod is still playing all of my songs.

Same problem here. I've restored twice, but the problem showed up again both times (last time, just a couple of weeks after the restore).

So the drive is corrupted and unreadable. Any way to avoid that becoming a habit?

I sometimes wish LinuxPod was already afoot for my 4th gen...