Why does my iPod touch randomly stop playing music?

Question

Why does my iPod touch randomly stop playing music?

I have had a 64GB iPod touch 5th generation since February. I have done all updates (as of August 3rd), it currently has iOS 6.1.3. Since about April, it has randomly stopped playing music either when a song ends or as a new one tries to start. Sometimes it stutters at the beginning of the song, I'll hear the very first sound in a song two or three times, then it will stop. Sometimes the screen freezes for up to 30 seconds after the music stops. I've tried going back to the same song and starting it again, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't; it sometimes either "stutters" on that first sound and goes back to the playlist screen or just freezes at 0:00 then goes back to the playlist screen. I've tried restarting it again with a different song, which does the same thing. It is not isolated to just one song, it happens with just about any song, including songs I never had a problem with before April or on my previous iPod.

Additionally, my girlfriend has the same music files on her 32GB iPod touch 5th gen and has never experienced this problem. The only difference is that she has never done any updates of her ipod and I've done every update.

So far I've tried:

1) Resetting the iPod.

2) Removing all of my music from the iPod and resyncing it.

3) Removing all of my music from the iPod and resyncing it one playlist at a time.

4) Restoring the iPod from a backup.

5) Restoring the iPod as a new iPod.

6) Visiting the genius bar at the apple store, but I cannot reproduce the problem whenever I want, it seems completely random.

This would normally be a minor inconvenience, but I work in a biochemistry lab that requires me to wear gloves and work with infectious bacteria, so if the song stops while I'm working, I sit in silence for extended periods of time and that just makes me sad 😟

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated!

iPod touch, iOS 6.1.3

Posted on Aug 3, 2013 1:14 PM

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Answer 1

lllaass

Level 10

210,423 points

Aug 3, 2013 1:18 PM in response to HoorayFerSocks

Seems to be a intermittent hardware problem based on the troubleshooting you performed. All you can do is pursue it further with the Apple store. Talk to the manager if necessary.

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Answer 2

Aug 18, 2013 9:50 AM in response to HoorayFerSocks

I just wanted to add an update in case anyone else runs into a similar issue. I seem to have found a solution to the problem. Here's what I did:

1) Plugged in to my computer and removed all music from my iPod (just unselected "sync music" then allowed the iPod to sync).

2) In iTunes, under the summary tab of my iPod, I selected "convert higher bit rate songs to 256 kbps AAC" in the options section.

3) I synced my iPod. This took a REALLY long time, as I have just over 52GB of music that I chose to put on my iPod. This is 52GB AFTER the conversion to 256kbps. Anyway, it took a couple hours to sync the first time because it had to convert almost every song. After the first sync, it doesn't take long to sync unless I add a lot of songs and even then, it only takes a few minutes.

I've listened to my music on a variety of devices (in my car, different types of headphones, computer at work etc) and haven't noticed any degradation in quality, despite the fact that nearly all of the original music files on my computer are 320kbps. I'm not sure if the problem I was having was due to the higher bitrate or the fact that the original music files are a variety of formats (aac, mp3, wav, and some others).

I did this later in the evening after I posted the original question and have not had a problem since (about 15 days). Skipping songs seems to go a lot faster as well. I use my iPod a good 6-10 hours everyday, so I think that having no problems in the last 15 days is pretty good evidence that this is a good solution.

Hopefully this is helpful to anyone that stops by here 🙂

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