I have seen several postings regarding this topic, but mine is somewhat unique and I was hoping someone could help. I have a 5th gen 30 gb video Ipod that was working smoothly until recently. When I plug in my Ipod, the computer recognizes it as a plug in device on the system tray ,and lists it as my E: drive. However, when I plug it in to the computer, this Autoplay window pops up and the flashlight goes searching for some file and I have no idea what it is looking for. It apparently never finds the file it is looking for, because Itunes never recognizes the Ipod. I tried to restore the Ipod, but when I click on the updater, it freezes the updater function as when I scroll the cursor over the Updater window the hourglass always shows up and it never indicates that it has recognized the Ipod. Any ideas? Thanks.
i tried out your steps and finally something happend:
I got my iPod yesterday:
got it out of the box and the troubles started; no connection to iTunes as well no reactions on the iPod (only this dam folder with the exclamation mark).
What i did then was:
1. reseting the pod
2. restart my laptop
3. set the usb hubs as you suggested
4. start the iPod updater
5. plugged the pod in when requested
6. updated the pod per usb 1.1 (quite slowely)
7. finaly the iTunes recognized the iPod and syncronized my music (very slowely cause of usb1.1)
8. ejected the pod
9. set the usb ports back to normal
10. reconnected iPod
11. troubles started again
12. start with step 1
finaly i can say there is a serious problem in the software somewhere: apple should react somehow and let us know what we can do to solve the problems for real. otherwise i will just go to the shop again, give this machine back due it's not working (i consider 20 hours in front of a laptop to get 2 hours of music on to a pod is not realy working) and get myself a handy and cheap mp3 player.
Anyway thanks for the ideas and hope you manage your pod somehow...
I bought an my ipod about 3 weeks ago and everything was fine. I added some new music yesterday and was going to sync it and itunes would not recognize the ipod (Windows recognized the ipod). After several hours of trying to figure it out and reloading itunes, to no avail, I decided I would restore the ipod. I pulled up the updater and the box popped up but it told me that I needed to connect the ipod and could not go any farther.
I then decided to try and sync my Motorola SLVR cell phone and itunes no longer recognized the phone either.
OK, I talked to the apple tech guys and they worked through a solution and so far, so good . . .
It's pretty complicated and I might miss a step or two, so you might want to just call customer support. They had to upgrade me to a product specialist to get this solution, but he knew just what to do and it worked.
Basically what seems to be happening to a lot of people when they try to update to the 6/28 ipod updater, it doesn't install correctly and leaves the ipod where itunes doesn't recognize it, the computer thinks its a disk and the autoplay flashlight thing keeps looking for something.
Anyway, so, what we did was go in and reformat the ipod so it could be recognized and then restore with the 6/28 updater and it worked like a charm.
The process: Go to start, my computer and right click on my computer. Then select Manage. Then click on disk management. You should see a disk there that is the size of an ipod (3.73 or so). That is your ipod. If yours is like mine was, under type of system, it didn't have one listed. That is a problem. So we formatted it to FAT32. I can't remember exactly how, but it was from this screen. I think we right clicked on the disk (make sure its the ipod!!!) and choose format. The status went from healthy to format and then back to healthy. When it got back to healthy that meant it was done.
This is where I really forget what we did next. I think we unplugged the IPOD and plugged it back in again. This time, it still showed up as a disk drive, but it was called IPOD. We right clicked on it to eject it, unplugged the ipod. Then I chose the right language on my ipod, connected it again and it was recognized by itunes. (its a little slow, don't lose patience) Or something like that.
Anyway, if you call customer service, at least you know what the basic process ought to be.
I had this problem. I took the iPod to the Apple store to get them to try to restore it for me (from the "R" instructions)
They couldn't restore it either so I was promptly issued a new one. If there is an Apple store near you, I recommend going there to see what they can find out. I didn't buy my ipod from Apple online or the Apple store and didn't even have a recipt for purchase with me since I wasn't planning on returning it.
Didn't matter, they looked my registration up online and took care of it. I don't have enough good things to say about the experience of going to the store for help.
I spent time researching answers and looking at my computer for problems when those weren't the problem at all.
I am having the same problem as others. I have had my 4 GB nano for 3 weeks. Last night I updated to the latest ipod software. As soon as I finished, neither windows nor itunes would recongize the nano. The autoplay flashlight would come up and swing back and forth, but it never recognized the nano. I plugged my nano in another computer and it is recognized which suggests a software conflict in Windows. Something in the updater creates the conflict. I followed all Apple's suggestions, the 5 r's including uninstalling both i tunes and the ipod software and reinstalling. I cannot restore the ipod because the ipod software cannot see the i pod. When the ipod is plugged in, I cannot even open i tunes. Obviously this is a huge problem for Apple and they are ignoring it.
i have the same exact problem.
with me though, i get a delayed write error, which leads me to believe that its a pc problem. i know it isn't though, because my other ipod works fine on this computer, and this ipod doesnt work on any computer. please shed some light
I've had two Ipods and both of them have had lock ups, got my first 5th gen Ipod lock up today and thought it was gone. This is what I've learned.
There will be frequent problems that look like you have to send them in, but can be fixed with the right up to date (or less of an updated) software. Resetting is the way-to-go. I suggest once a month restoring your Ipod, it's no biggie and it's like reformatting your hard drive, except faster and probably easier. With my Ipod mini, it was acting up a little bit, and got worse when I put new software on it, but I do not know if it was the software because the hard drive read was the problem.
Take it easy on your Ipod: Don't click a whole lot when your trying to get to a destination on your Ipod, if you click however many clicks you know it takes to get there, I find it slows it down, which is also probably not good for it.
My iPod seems to be even worse than anyone's here. I unfortunately left my iPod at a train station about two months ago and just had it posted bck to me today. When i connected it to my aptop it cam up with the charging icon, but nothing on my laptop, iTunes didnt recognize it was there neither did My Computer. I went onto the Apple site and tried the 5 R's however i couldnt even do them as on the screen of my iPod it still says 'Do NOt Disconnect' even though it is disconnected. I tried to restore it but my computer froze, so then i went through the hassle of disabling my USB enhanced thing. It still wont allow me to restore my iPod to factory setting it just says connect iPod. I have also tried this iPod on another computer, after twenty minutes the autoplay came up and after about a further 5 minutes it said it had detected an iPod but there was no software (however the computer already had iTunes). I have lost the iTunes disc and so cannot even try re-installing it. I am severely frustrated with this as i had to wait two months to get my iPod back and now its not even working.
I just bought a Nano yesterday and spent 3 hours last night and 4 hours this morning trying to get the thing to work properly with the software, to no avail. Arrrgh! I had all the symptoms of everyone listing comments before,i.e the searching 'Autoplay' flashlight, 'Ipod server error' message when trying to get the iPod updater software to recognize the Nano was plugged in, the Nano not showing up at all in iTunes. It started as soon as I tried to upgrade the Nano software version to 1.2 so I can use it with the Nike + receiver/sensor.
Trust me,once your iPod is not being recognized by any of the software, NONE OF THE SUPPOSED FIXES ON THE APPLE SUPPORT WEBSITE WILL RESOLVE THE ISSUE !!! I say it in caps because I just spent 7 hours removing/re-installing iTunes and iPod updater software, doing the 5 'R's, and every other thing that the website support section says, and it was VERY frustrating. Then I went to this discussion string and started reading. The post by 'superrunner' on August 28, 11:33 a.m. was the one that steered me to an ultimate resoulution. I called Apple Technical Support, (800) 275-2273, and after a 1/2 hour wait on hold (be patient) I got connected to a tech named Mike who immediately understood what my issue was and walked me through the resolution, which was NOTHING that is mentioned on the web support pages. He took me through the same process that 'superrunner' went through, more or less. We were on the phone 45 MINUTES going through the various steps! It's a VERY detailed process. But in the end, I have the correct version of software on my Nano (1.2), the latest & greatest version of iTunes (6.0.5), and both iTunes & the iPod updater software recognize the Nano. THERE IS NOTHING PHYSICAL/HARDWARE WRONG WITH YOUR iPOD IF YOU ARE HAVING THIS PROBLEM. (Although, you might be having other issues that an Apple tech can identify.) I kept Mike on the phone and rebooted the PC a couple of times just to make sure, and it's working fine, and he even made sure my Nike + receiver was functioning properly before we got off the phone. Very professional service, I'm an IT guy by profession, and I was satisfied with the clear way the process was explained. Deep down I DO believe there is a software glitch/bug between the Apple software & the Windows software/drivers, but Mike didn't admit to it, neither did I expect him to.
The only cavaet is that you only get one free telephone support call during the 1 year of your Apple warranty and since I bought my Nano yesterday, I received a free call. Hope this helps some folks get going in the right direction.....
In response to Polite, can you elaborate at all on the process you used to restore all of this? Is superruner's process correct? Certainly doesn't seem like a full 45 minutes or so.
I'm having this same issue as well on my wife's IPOD nano. As soon as the new update (6/28) was installed (or tried) everything went south. I have the Autoplay problem, IPOD not recognized in iTunes or with the updater. Windows sees it as E:, but that's all, etc. Same resounding problems as everyone else here. I will try some of the options as outlined here, but if someone could elaborate more on the process given to them by Apple support that would probably work wonders for tons of extremely frustrated people, many of which, including myself, have just purchased this product within the past few weeks or months.
This is the process that was posted on another thread by user 'sab4712' on September 4th. This closly mirrors the process I went through on the phone with Apple tech support. Hope this helps...
sab4712 writes:
The same thing happened to me earlier in the week. Between information from the Apple I pod helpdesk (an hour on the phone) and some information on this forum I was able to fix it. Bear with me. This will take time and patience to fix. There are two problems. It is an Apple screw-up but they don't have the decency to post the fix. Apparently, when the ipod is updated the computer does not recognize it and sets up a new usb connection. Then you have two connections "warring with each other." In addition, the software on the ipod itself gets jumbled.
1.The first step is to put the i pod in its "disk mode." To do this hold down menu and select (the center button) until the apple logo appears (it will be faint), then immediately hold down select and play/pause until it enters disk mode.
2. Reboot your computer
3. Connect ipod (still in disk mode) with usb cable.
4. Click on "start" in Windows XP, then select "control panel," "administrative tools" and then "computer management."
5.Under "computer management in the listing on the left of screen, you should see "device manager". Click on it. A listing of devices should open on the right.
6. Toward the bottom of the listing, you should see, "universal serial bus controllers." Click on the + sign next to usb controllers and a listing of them should open. One or more should indicate "mass storage device." When you click on them, it should indicate what device they are connected to. Two of them are likely to indicate the ipod. You want to right click on those mass storage devices that show "ipod" and select "uninstall." Uninstall both of them. If you accidentally delete (uninstall) others, don't worry. As soon as you connect a usb device your computer will re-recognize them.
7. Turn off the computer and disconnect your ipod.
8. Turn on the computer and when windows has finished loading, reconnect your i pod. In "my computer" or "windows explorer" you should now be able to "see" your ipod. It will probably show up as "drive e" or drive "g" depending on how your computer if configured. (it could be other letters; the letter itself is unimportant) It is important that you note the drive letter of the ipod. You will need it for the next step. If you are unsure which letter is the ipod, right click on the letter and select "properties." You should be able to find one that indicates it is the ipod.
9. Next you will reformat your ipod drive (this works with flash drives in nano's which is what I have). Until you do this, I tunes will not recognize the ipod. Click on "start" and select "run." In the box that comes up, enter "cmd" and select ok.
10. A black dos box now will open. If you don't know what dos is, don't worry, it predated windows and oldtimers are used to it. After the > type the following exactly using "format E;FS:FAT32/Q". "E" is the drive letter of the drive name that is your ipod. If yours is a different letter then use that one.
11. When the dos box asks you for for the disk, just hit enter.
12. If it ask you for the "disk label" just leave it blank (hit enter again.)
13. Formatting make take several minutes. When it is finished, use system tray to safely remove your ipod or turn the computer off and disconnect the usb cable.
14. Restart and connect the ipod after the computer boots.
15. Launch ipod "updater." If you don't know where it is, go to your main drive (probably "c", go to "program", click on ipod, and you should see a file listed as ipod updater. Click on it.
16. When ipod updater starts, and after it has recognized your ipod, select "restore."
17. Let it completely restore your ipod.
18. Disconnect your ipod using the sytem tray or after turning computer off.
19. Restart your computer again (sorry about that!).
20. Launch itunes, and connect your ipod. Itunes should recognize it!!! It will reinstall your music.
I realize this is a lot of steps, but it worked for me. Apple should be ashamed that its update causes this problem. If you have not updated your ipod, and it works fine, DON'T UPDATE IT!!!!
