First generation shuffle won't play music

i found the solution! i had the same problem with my shuffle, turns out the buttons were disabled- how you fix that is by holding the "play/pause" button down for about 5 seconds until the light blinks green. was so angry my ipod hasn't been working for months now. hope everything works out!

What happens when you try to play the music? Does the iPod appear to be powered on when you disconnect it from iTunes? What have you done so far in terms of troubleshooting?

Perhaps it would helpful to just simply do a hard reset of the Shuffle.

Resetting iPod shuffle

Otherwise, you may want to consider restoring the iPod to factory settings in iTunes.

This process wipes all content from the iPod, resets all settings back to their defaults, and loads a fresh copy of the iPod's software onto the device. So doing a restore would help eliminate the possibility of a software error/glitch and/or corrupted data.

Restoring iPod to factory settings

B-rock

What happens when you try to play music?

B-rock

Have you tried another set of earbuds? Considering the age of the iPod, the battery may be shot and unable to stay powered on unless connected to an external power source. A restore would have cleared up any sort of software issue/glitch or corrupted data. So at point is safe to say that the issue is hardware related and you will need to have your iPod serviced or replaced.

B-rock

Your welcome. 🙂

B-rock

I'm having the same problem with mine. Planb77 said the battery may be shot... if the battery is shot, would the lights still come on indicating it's charged and powered on?

Yes, but they would only come on/flash when it was connected to an external power source.

B-rock

I am having trouble with my Ipod shuffle. I found it while I was walking to class, so it is not my original Ipod. It won't show up on my computer but the day I found it it worked. Until now it has sat in my mother's drawer and it has charged for an hour and a half. It won't show up on Itunes but I have the Windows 7 and have heard that the Ipod shuffle won't work for Windows 7. My Ipod is the second generation. Can anyone help me?

First of all, you should have posted this in your own thread, but let's see if we can figure out what is going on.

Secondly, the 2G Shuffle IS compatilble with Windows 7.

I assume you have iTunes installed and running on this PC and it is update to (10.7 is the latest version at the time of this writing.

Are you using a 2G cable versus a 3G/4G Shuffle cable? If you are using a 3G or 4G iPod Shuffle cable, it will not work with the 2G Shuffle as the connectors are different.

I assume you are plugging the iPod into a high powered USB 2.0 port located directly on the PC and through a hub?

B-rock

My iPod had this same problem and all you have to do is hold down the menu and select button on your iPod for about 8 seconds or until the apple logo shows up on the screen.