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5th Gen iPod w/video, 60 GB songs keep stopping in the middle of play

I have an older iPod w/ video and it has served me well over the years, until just recently.

I use it in the gym and on my bicycle in a neoprene sleve so its always protected.

Now it has started to pause the songs during play by itself, so I have to hit play to restart them. It stops at varying intervals but it is such a pain to keep unlocking it to hit play.

It has not been dropped or exposed to water and it passes all the diagnostic tests in iTunes as well as Copy Trans Dr with flying colors.

(I cannot get it to go into the onboard diags as described on methodshop.com)


I have reset and restored it numerous times, but it doesn't fix the problem.


Please feel free to ask questions or make suggestions.


Thanks,


kdolph237

5th Gen iPod w/ video 60Gb-OTHER, Windows XP Pro

Posted on Dec 6, 2013 5:51 AM

Reply
5 replies

Dec 11, 2013 10:49 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Hello Kenichi,


Thank you for your reply and questions.


Q. Do you use any type of remote control buttons on the cord?

A. No, there is no remote of any kind used with it, on the cord or off.


Q. Does the problem occur if you place the iPod on a table (so it is not moving), without the "neoprene sleve," and play it?

A. Actually it did, but since I restored it, the problem no longer occurs when the iPod is sitting on my desk, not moving. Only in the sleve, my hand or pocket, basically when it is moving.


Q. Does the problem occur if you use a different set of headphones?

A. Yes, I have tried other headphones and the problem persists.


If you have any more questions/suggestions, please feel free to ask and thanks for your interest.


KD

Dec 12, 2013 12:25 AM in response to kdolph237

The part about the problem not occurring when the iPod is stationary is interesting. iPods that use a hard drive for storage "cache" song data (into its operating memory) at intervals. I think it caches about 20 minutes of the upcoming music each time, but the amount (of music time) depends on the "bit rate" used to encode the songs (for MP3 or AAC). Higher bit rate (less compressed and higher quality) song files take up more space per minute, so less music time can be cached. Songs that use a "lossless" format are the highest quality but take up MUCH more space; not very much can be cached by the iPod.


The caching is done to (1) save battery power and (2) allow continuous playback. (2) may be relevant here. For iPods that use a hard drive for storage, when the iPod is being jostled about during use, the hard drive (because it has sensitive moving parts) cannot always access its data. But because upcoming song data is cached (and the iPod is playing from its cached data), the playback is normally continuous.


So, if the caching is not working properly, or if the hard drive is becoming less reliable, the iPod may be running out of cached song data because it cannot access the hard drive to cache the next portion of song data. That's when it stops playing. When the iPod is stationary, the hard drive is accessible when needed, so this problem does not occur.


If you recently did something to your iTunes library, such as replace all of your lower bit rate 128 kbps song files with 256 kbps (or higher) versions, that may also contribute to this issue, because the iPod is now caching fewer minutes of music each time.


"Normal" movement of iPod is fine (normally), so it may help if you can carry the iPod in a way that minimizes exposure to repetitive strong movements (or vibration) that continue for extended periods.


NOTE: iPods that use flash-based storage (such as the nano) do not need to cache song data. Flash storage has no moving parts. They are better suited for wearing during exercise.

Dec 13, 2013 9:54 PM in response to kdolph237

I had this problem too, occasionally. I have the same iPod as you but 30GB.


I fixed it by connecting it to my Mac, , Utilities, Disk Utility, selected the iPod, then Check Disk Permissions, then Repair Disk Permissions.


It takes a couple of minutes to finish, I had quite a few error permissions, once repaired its been as good as gold.


I see that you are using Windows, have you tried a disc error check, then a full defragment?


hope this helps.

Dec 23, 2013 2:09 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

To Kenichi,

Ok, well due to the fact that yes the collection was made up of songs of varying bitrates, I took your advice and converted all the higher bitrate songs to 128kbps to keep from overloading the cache but since there are only 350 tracks on it, it didn't really seem to make any difference at all, but there is no way to benchmark it, who knows, at the very least it made every track uniform and certainly didn't make the issue any worse.


To agd,

Checkdisk, the windows equivalent of the Mac utility may have just enough differences to render it ineffective when it comes to "Disk Permissions", but I took your advice and did it anyway. Since there are only a small number of songs on the disc it was not very time consuming to check and defragment. Though the utility found no errors, it was a much overdue maintenance however, much like the previous action mentioned above, it didn't really seem to make any difference.


To All,


I tested the ipod for improvement the following day after performing each task and the problem remained.


Then a funny thing happened a few days later when I reached into my bag to pull the earphones from the 5th Gen to use on my newer Nano, while fumbling through my bag I must have accidently turned it on and hit play, because when I got home and took it out of my bag it had played continuously through 88 songs without (the earphones plugged in or) any interaction on my part. I guess one or even both of the procedures fixed something, now if I can just get to work while moving...lol


So now my question is, does a definitive diagnostic tool exist for the ipod? or is there another method of accessing the onboard diags and are they reliable?


Thanks to both of you for all your help and Merry Christmas!


K

5th Gen iPod w/video, 60 GB songs keep stopping in the middle of play

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