ipod classic won't sync to itunes 11

I've found that whatever happened has stopped an ipod classic and a Nano from syncing- they simply stop on the 2nd track with the completion bar moving very slightly but never quite getting there.

I operate 2 iphones & 3 ipods off the same itunes library and I manage the music by having a separate list for each device. The ipod classic had about 17, 000 tracks on it - all at 128kps.

What I've found that sort of works is that I create a new playlist and I transfer the tracks from the old classic playlist to the new one, but I do it only a 100 tracks at at time, In between each transfer I sysnc the classic,

At this rate it will take me days to transfer but it's the only thing that works.!!!!

Hopefully the Apple solution will appear soon

Glad to learn that my frustrations are shared by the community at large! My 2011 Ipod Classic also refused to sync after updating Itunes (laptop with Win 7 64 bit). It did not show up in the "source" list and did not automatically start I-tunes. Apple diagnostics showed that all seemed well apart from the sync function.

I chose the simple-minded solution: on my desktop I had at one time downloaded the previous I-tunes version. After copying my music libary there via my home network (and refusing the I-tunes update!) everything now runs smoothly again.

I find it unbelievingly stupid that Apple has released a software update without adequate testing.

Fix it quickly!

How do I do this? When I connect the IPod, nothing comes up on ITunes, which then freezes and I can't do anything at all. The IPod doesn't register either, though it does on Windows. Help!

As someone stated before, the only answer that I could find was to delete iTunes ver.11 and install an earlier version 10. My ipod classic syncs just fine now.

Only problem I have now is losing my playlists...

Any way to get my playlist back into the older version?

Thanks. Yes I did uninstall itunes 11a nd went back to 10.7. with some IT help I have finally got iTunes to recognise my iPod but now have a different problem. It installed a few tunes then stopped and when I tried again it just erased everything I'd managed to add so far, which wasn't much. Any thoughts on that, please?

Hi sorry I didn't respond to your playlist question. When I switched back to iTunes 10.7 I uninstalled 11 completely then used my 10.7 library to repopulate iTunes. You do however need to delete the library from 11.0 and replace it in your current music library with previous one in previous iTunes libraries, renaming it without the date. Then any playlists you had before should reappear. There has been another, more comprehensive thread on this but I cant find it right now, but try on uninstalling.

I've also rematches with what I'd got in iCloud.

Good luck.

This is crazy that we should have to go through all of this trouble just becasue we updated when they suggested we update! I really don't have time right now to go through all of that, so I'm hoping there will be an easier fix soon!

I may have figured out why this occurs and a way around it.

I just bought an iphone 5 and an ipod nano 7th gen. Neither would sync. Suddenly realised, id not synced any device to itunes since upgrading to version 11. Got my ipad 3 and ipad 1 out, neither would sync.

The problem is using the convert to a lower bit rate, so, ask yourself this :

"If you were to sync everything you are trying to sync without using the lower bit rate option, would it exceed the limit of the ipod?"

If the answer is yes, then it confirms my theory that itunes is struggling to perform the space calculations required. Its almost as if its thinking "im going to copy everything to the ipod first, then im going to compress it". But it cant do that, you dont have enough space, so it just fails over.

To prove my theory, i chose to sync by artist and synced them batches at a time (using the lower bit rate option i need). Each time the sync ended, the songs were there correctly, nothing went wrong and the space used on the ipod updates. Then i did another batch of artists, and another and another. You will find you can sync your whole library this way because you are freeing up the required compression space in batches, rather than asking for more than you have all in one go.

Everything i have tested with my devices seems to support this, if its true and this is the logic itunes is using then i guess Apple will fix it. Of course, i could be completely wrong, but i have now confirmed this on a PC running Windows 8 64bit, a 2011 Macbook Air, an ipad1, ipad2, ipod nano 7g, iphone 5. Am yet to try my work iphone 4. If i am wrong, its odd that my solution seems to work for every device i have, even on different computers.

Hope this helps somebody

xands, I believe you're exactly right. Even iTunes 10.7 didn't sync properly while down-converting - but at least it actually synced. iTunes 10.7 would never think there was enough space on my iPod because it would always look at the full size of the files being transferred and compare that with available space. Stupid I know, but at least I could force the sync to work by hitting sync again. Now with 11, the sync just fails with no obvious reason.

xands has the work-around until Apple can fix it. Funny, the bigger that Apple's customer base becomes, the more like Microsoft they become. More customers, more problems. And now they can't react quickly enough to pretend that they never have problems. Maybe people will realize now that Steve Jobs was not a god. I guess us Windows users just have more patience waiting for fixes. Hopefully within a year or so everything should be ironed out. 🙂

agree with xands. I have to convert to 128 kpbs. I was able to repopulate my iPod classic 160 GB by dragging and dropping in phases. I did the first 700+ songs, then the next 2700+ songs, then finally the remaining 15K+ songs. It took some time but, I was successful. Thanks for your post.

I have now solved my problem. ITunes10.7 helped but was not the solution per se. My supposedly new iPod was in fact preowned so I took it back to the shop and obtained a brand new replacement. This works perfectly!

I can only imagine the 'pre owner' of my original one had also returned it because it didn't work.

However, I have spent over a week solid trying to make the original one work, and I certainly don't dare trying to load the latest iTunes until Apple have sorted out all the glitches.

Good luck, everyone.

I have a 160GB ipod classic (brand new for Christmas,latest version) and recently downloaded iTunes 11. I have tried several times to sync certain albums/playlists from my iTunes library but it just seems like a massive waste of time. I get a message saying the sync is complete but then when I look at the iPod it has only copied across about 25 albums. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to get what I actually want copied over to my iPod? I need it to be as simple as possible as a) I'm not great with "techy" stuff and b) I haven't been using Apple products for very long! 🙂

Apple REALLY need to step up here- what is the point of encouraging users to download the lateset version of iTunes if it's full of glitches??

1. How many songs are you trying to sync.

2. What is the bit rate you are using.

3. Try to copy in phases. This has been pretty much the only solution that works irrespective of bit rate. Try songs alphabetically. Ex. A-F, G-L, M-T, U-Z... Depending on how many songs you have it could take an hour... maybe a a full day (15K plus songs). Also when I say copy, I mean select the songs you want and drag them to your iPod.

I was having success by readding my library step by step, but now, I am stuck. I have some albums at 320 that no matter what I do, itunes refuses to sync with 128 conversion on...

Unfortunately for all of us this problem has been around for some time and continues to be ignored by Apple. Been a loyal user for many years but not much longer.