My ipod nano won't stop talking.

This is going to sound really strange and also frustrating after all these suggestions and things we have tried.

I saw another post, where someone said that you should try different headphones or clean the headphone jack.

I had done all of the suggestions on here and was also thinking it was time for a new ipod.

I blew into my headphone jack, I will try and clean properly somehow later, but that bleeping woman has now shut up and my songs arent skipping anymore!!

It appears to be some kind of short.

Please, please, anyone that is having problems, give it a go. It takes a few seconds and for now at least, I have no more problems.

Hope it helps someone!

That's a good tip. And not so strange. Many iPod models can receive remote control signals through the headphones jack, from headphones with control buttons on the cord. Faulty headphones (with or without control buttons) may send false signals. Or (like you said) it could be debris in the headphones jack causing a short circuit. Or, if the headphones plug is not fully inserted, the connection points along the plug may not be properly aligned.

Among the things that you can control through the iPod's headphones jack is VoiceOver (including enabling VoiceOver) and skipping (like pressing Next) for songs. If the iPod is receiving false control signals from the headphones jack, that could explain "out of control" VoiceOver.

I visited an Apple Store in early April to try to resolve this problem. Apparently, the voice over can be activated by randomly sliding your finger around on ANY screen, regardless of whether the feature has been turned off in the Settings. This is a feature not a bug! (Is this documented anywhere?). That plus the absence of a lock that was available on previous generations means that if you carry your ipod anywhere that anything can brush up against whatever screen you have left on top (like in your pocket) the odds are that the voice over will be activated. The Genius suggested getting a case, which he said they don't sell at the Apple Store. In theory, a case would protect the accidental movement across a screen. I contacted a case vendor before purchasing one and asked if he thought his case (with a gatefold cover) would prevent this. He said no, so I saved the money. I have been resorting to desperate measures - I cut off the end of a sock, covered the ipod with it, and loosely wrapped the speaker cord around it to keep the sock in place. This is, needless to say, a real pain and not 100% successful. However, it has reduced the occurrence of the problem, depending on what's in my pocket, whether or not I bend over, etc. It occurs slightly less frequently if I carry it in my shirt pocket and not a pants pocket. The claim is that this is for enhanced Accessibility, but there should be some way to permanently disable this feature if you NEVER want it to turn on, and also to lock the screen, so that Voice Over does not turn on AND the selection you are playing, be it podcast or music, does not change randomly. I tried various solutions, including a reset. It was easy enough to reload all of my podcasts, but reloading any music that was NOT from iTunes was also problematic. I had switched to an iPod touch when my old Nano died, but this had problems of its own and so I switched to a new Nano.

The problem could be your headphones. I encountered this on an iPod nano 6th gen after a few years with a set of Monster headphones with inline mic. Out of the blue, the iPod would start reading out song titles and artists. I noticed that coating on the headphone connector had started to crack, causing some wires to become exposed. The problem disappeared once I swapped headphones.

I had this problem too and it seemed to be my headphones.

My old headphones made the ipod talking and switching songs. When I used another wired headphones or bluetooth headphones the problem disappeared.

Well spoken! I think it was a different thread with same f'ing problem:

Same problem. Plus my device also turns itself on/wakes up on its own and starts playing music.

Yes, I have the same problem. This is clearly a software and/or hardware bug, not a user mistake regarding settings.