My iPod Nano has a white screen with messages I've never seen

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rossfrom1985 Author

Level 1

4 points

My iPod Nano has a white screen with messages I've never seen

Hi,

I’m having an issue connecting my iPod Nano (5^th generation 8GB) to my Macbook Pro (mid 2009 with El Capitan OS). I tried to restore my iPod nano using iTunes. The restore failed, and my iPod Nano screen changed to a white screen with a ‘Do not disconnect’ message. I wasn’t able to eject the device, so I had to unplug the iPod with that message displayed. When I disconnected the iPod a black check mark appeared on the white screen with an ‘Ok to disconnect’ message. The only way to get this message to go away is to lock the iPod nano screen, then unlock it. Then I hold down the centre button and menu button simultaneously for 8 seconds and the Apple logo appears. Then shortly after, a ‘Use iTunes to Restore’ message comes up on the iPod nano. I plug the iPod back into my Mac and the white screen with a ‘Do not disconnect’ message comes back up. iTunes doesn’t recognize the iPod. I’m not sure what else I can do to get my Mac to recognize the device and add songs to it using iTunes. This iPod Nano was working fine a few hours ago and my Macbook recognized it until I tried to restore it in iTunes. This is very frustrating. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Below are pictures of the messages my iPod Nano is displaying.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Mar 12, 2016 10:33 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 12, 2016 5:05 PM in response to rossfrom1985

This iPod Nano was working fine a few hours ago and my Macbook recognized it until I tried to restore it in iTunes.

What was the (initial) reason you needed to do that Restore (before this problem occurred)?

Try putting the iPod into Disk Mode.

Putting iPod into Disk Mode - Apple Support

Run iTunes and connect iPod to the Mac. If iTunes picks it up, it may prompt you to do a Restore with a message about "recovery." Tell iTunes to proceed with doing a Restore. After the Restore complete, see if iPod is working normally.

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Answer 2

rossfrom1985 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 13, 2016 9:32 AM in response to rossfrom1985

Ok, so what worked for me was updating iTunes and updating the OS. The iPod Nano is now restored and working well. I did the update with the iPod plugged in the whole time and then when the updates were finished, the "Restore iPod...." button worked in iTunes. Before the update, I was getting the message I posted below.

Follow the steps in this link:

Resolve iOS update and restore errors in iTunes - Apple Support

This is the message I was getting when I initially tried to restore the iPod (before I updated iTunes and the OS)

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Answer 3

rossfrom1985 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 13, 2016 9:35 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

The initial reason for restoring my iPod was that I couldn't delete songs or add songs when it was plugged in. For some reason, the list of songs was greyed out and I couldn't make any changes to the music library.

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Answer 4

Mar 13, 2016 9:56 AM in response to rossfrom1985

The reason for this was probably because the iPod was set to Sync Music (use automatic syncing). When set to Sync Music, iTunes is keeping the iPod "in sync" with your iTunes library (or a selected portion of it). Therefore, you cannot go to the iPod's song list and manually make changes directly, such as remove songs. If you set the iPod to Manually manage music and videos, then you CAN make changes on that screen (so the song list is not greyed out).

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Answer 5

Mar 13, 2016 10:13 AM in response to rossfrom1985

Glad to hear it's working properly. 🙂

After a Restore, the iPod is set by default to use the Manually manage music and videos setting (which is a checkbox on the iPod's Summary settings screen in iTunes). If you prefer to manually add and remove songs from the iPod, do NOT set it to Sync Music (a checkbox on the iPod's Music settings screen). Sync Music turns on automatic syncing, so the iPod's song list will become greyed out again, which you said was the reason for doing the Restore.

However, you should consider using the Sync Music setting (instead of the manual setting), and set it to sync one or more playlists in your iTunes library (with the songs you want on the iPod). You can then manually maintain those playlists in your iTunes library (add/remove songs as desired) and then let iTunes automatically keep the iPod "in sync" with those selected playlists. That way, the playlists exist in your iTunes library (not just on the iPod), so it takes just a few mouse clicks (and a few seconds) to set up syncing again (after a Restore or getting a new iPod) instead of manually re-loading songs on the iPod.

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