This procedure will fix Error -48

Hello,
I've not tried this yet but as the long term -48 fix is likely to be firmware has anyone tried reformatting to fat 32 (restoring on a pc) and then tried installing an older MAC firmware version?
The older firmware insallers should still be on your machine if you search..I stupidly deleted mine when i discovered them..:o/
I tried reformatting my whole machine and going back to itunes 6. When i plugged in the 2nd gen nano it said it could not sync with this itunes version and forced me to upgrade to version 7!...gnnh.
I'm sticking to the disk utility fix for the time being. Anyone tried the US english switch and rebuilding their library? The posts do seem to be from people with the UK date format dd.mm.yyyy
Cheers.

Tim

Hello,
I've not tried this yet but as the long term -48 fix
is likely to be firmware has anyone tried
reformatting to fat 32 (restoring on a pc) and then
tried installing an older MAC firmware version?
The older firmware insallers should still be on your
machine if you search..I stupidly deleted mine when i
discovered them..:o/
I tried reformatting my whole machine and going back
to itunes 6. When i plugged in the 2nd gen nano it
said it could not sync with this itunes version and
forced me to upgrade to version 7!...gnnh.
I'm sticking to the disk utility fix for the time
being. Anyone tried the US english switch and
rebuilding their library? The posts do seem to be
from people with the UK date format dd.mm.yyyy
Cheers.

Tim

Tim

I have tried reverting to an older firmware. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a pre-1.2 firmware for the 80GB iPod. The installer for 1.1.2 says that it doesn't support the 80GB model. I have seen people with earlier models have success by reverting to 1.1.2 and iTunes 6, but they lose the gapless play option. I think the 2nd gen iPod Nano is in the same boat as my 80GB iPod, you need iTunes 7 and a recent firmware.

You asked this question: "Anyone tried the US english switch and rebuilding their library?"

As a recent switcher from Microsoft (beginning to regret this more and more as each day goes by), could you elaborate on this? Presumably there is an option to switch the regional settings in Preferences, but how would I rebuild the library? Is this an option, or do I just empty the library and reimport everything?

I noticed last night that Apple have pulled the 1.2.1 update for the Nano... iTunes now states that my Nano now has 1.1.1 software & is 'up to date'.

I also spent four hours last night trying different formatting procedures in 'Disk Utility' & then restoring the iPod. After a full iTunes/iPod sync, I'm still getting the -48 errors, & a second sync without fixing the headers in D.I result in the iPod magically switching to manual update instead (which I hadn't selected).

So, even with 1.1.1 software, I'm still getting the -48 errors. I made a few interesting discoveries though during the four hours:

If you Erase/format only the iPod's partition in D.I (i.e. not the icon in D.I called 'iPod Media' but the icon called 'Jason's iPod' for example), the iPod still retains the software already loaded on the drive. i.e. you end up with a empty iPod, but one that wakes up after disconnect with menus looking like a fully operational iPod (albeit no audio).

If you Erase/format the iPod's 'iPod media' icon in D.I, you're left with an iPod in full recovery mode containing NO iPod software, thus rendering the iPod to no more than a storage device. (The iPod's display reads 'Restore in iTunes' or something similar.) HOWEVER, when the iPod is in this state, ejecting/re-connecting it does not result in a -48. Nor does copying a load of random files & re-deleting them.

So... doing an erase in D.I the second method above is the first towards ridding the -48 problems.

Then restoring in iTunes but NOT sync'ing the library still results in a stable iPod, i.e. with no -48 error on ejecting/re-connecting.

Letting a part-sync happen, say about 5 files, then interrupting it, STILL resulted in an iPod that would eject/re-connect with no -48 error.

It was on the next sync', when adding further files, that D.I began reporting disk directory structure problems....

Interestingly, I also tried 2 complete syncs without interruption. One of them produced a -48 error after ejecting/reconnecting straight away (from what I recall), but the other did NOT produce a -48 until erasing one of the songs from the iTunes library, syncing the iPod, then adding the song back to iTunes, then syncing again, when once again the -48 appeared.

At the moment, I'm not sure if it's a second-writing of files that's causing the problem, or simply certain files during the transfer that are causing the problem. What was very interesting though is that the first sync to a 'clean' restored iPod did not usually seem to cause the -48 error (after ejecting/reconnecting of course...)

Anyway, back to repairing in D.I before each sync for the time being. It's interesting, though, that Apple have pulled the 1.2.1 update for the Nano, & I'd be interested to learn if all you 5th-gen iPodders (rather than Nano-ers) experience a back-step in software too.

Cheers,

Jason

As a recent switcher from Microsoft (beginning to
regret this more and more as each day goes by),...

I appreciate and understand your frustration with
Apple and the iPod -48 debacle. However, as a user of
XP, Vista and OS X, I know you are in the right
computing space with your Mac.

I'm not so sure. I have a lot of experience of XP having rolled it out to many thousands of users across Europe. With the right configurations and precautions, XP can be made reasonably secure and very stable. The Mac is inherently more secure, but is not perfect. As Mac's market share goes up, so does the interest of the hackers as indicated by the "Month of bugs" planned for January:

http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/startingjanuary_1st_month_of_applebugs/

As a bit of a techie geek, I enjoy learning a new OS and am broadly happy with the Mac. But when I get asked by my non-technical friends whether they should switch to Apple, I advise against it. A totally newbie to computing might find the Mac easier to learn, but the majority of people have existing Windows experience and use Windows at work. The response of Apple to this -48 error has undermined my faith in the company. Admittedly I am used to having access to Microsoft TAMs so get pretty darn good service through them, but I can only call it as I see it.


(After re-reading my rant, I want to be clear that my gripe is with Apple and not with anyone on this board! We are all in the same boat here, we just may react a little different!!)

Hey this is interesting.

I'd been getting -48 errors with new 30GB I've jhust bought for wife's birthday.All our other iPods have been flawless so was frustrating to get problems when (secrertly!) syncing up her library, photos etc.

Had to restore a couple of times. Last thing I tried was to change name from Jo's xxxx to Jo xxxx and this let me reconnect without the error, but I didn't push my luck by adding anything new to sync as I wanted to wrap it soon!

have just checked for duplicates and thepointer to end of track the c
re were a number of John Martyn tracks which appear on 2 albums but not 'real' duplicates so I left them.

But a classical Schubert track showed up as a dupe from same album but different times for same track! When I played the 'longer' track the wrong time showed at end of progress bar. If I then dragged the pointer to end of track the time changed to correct length (as per other track) but still showed wrong in library list. I then deleted this tarck and hope this cures the problem.

Wonder how the dupe got there, and how the length went wrong?

I won't try a sync yet, maybe wait till my wife has it!

Adrian

P diddy,
Afternoon.
I've been racking my brain looking for a connection.
I and many others have noted that the posts seem to be predominantly non US date format dd/mm/yyyy localised.. Australia, UK and Ireland..The xml library files will be written with this format as default. I was wondering if anyone had tried switching their MAC OS to US English where the date format isn't mm/dd/yyyy?
If we then trash the itunes preferences and the library files stores in your music folder the xml would be written with U.S date format right?
Its clutching at straws but it cannot be a coincidence that we are all non U.S…If anyone that’s up on their XML coding knows of any other U.S/UK differences…Or even if someone is able to confirm that firmware upgrades are localised?
I am aware that the EU has implemented a volume limiter where as US based firmware is not.
I'll try this later when i'm home and let you all know if it makes any difference.

Men, Eh! They always buy other people the toys they
secretly want (to play with) themselves.

Well in my defence m'lud she loves her 3G iPod (though I admit I bought that too!).

Recently she returned from evening with old friends complaining she couldn't show them any photos of our kids etc. I bought the 5G mainly with this in mind, and I must say the photos look gorgeous on the screen, which is easily big enough for 'social' photo shows.

Have also loaded episode of one of her fave TV shows, recorded/converted using the excellent Elgato software so it's interesting that my main motives for upgrading her (sounds like Dr Who and the Cybermen) were the photo/video features.

If we then trash the itunes preferences and the
library files stores in your music folder the xml
would be written with U.S date format right?

I'm thinking of this for a clean test. Log on to my iBook with my normal account, switch the settings to US English. Create a new user account, log off and log on with the new account. This should then be a machine set to US and with a completely empty iTunes library. Does that sound about right? A lot less drastic than yet-again reinstalling OS X!

I switched to US english and trashed my itunes prefs and library xml...Made no difference.
I'll be honest, I work in tech support for a procurement product and am happy to go down the long laborious process of elimination to resolve an issue for a client . After all, like anything else its evolving, code is code and subject to flaws. But for Christ's sake it'd be nice to come home and not have to wear our tech support hats and for things to just ******* work! I'm going to get drunk and watch some comedy.
Let the people that are paid to fix this **** do it. We do enough of it 9 to 5.
Merry Christmas all! Enjoy the holidays!

Tim

P.S Apple! pull your finger out! Or it'll be a long detailed email to 'The Register' frankly they hate you anyway!

I switched to US english and trashed my itunes prefs
and library xml...Made no difference.
I'll be honest, I work in tech support for a
procurement product and am happy to go down the long
laborious process of elimination to resolve an issue
for a client . After all, like anything else its
evolving, code is code and subject to flaws. But for
Christ's sake it'd be nice to come home and not have
to wear our tech support hats and for things to just
******* work! I'm going to get drunk and watch some
comedy.
Let the people that are paid to fix this **** do it.
We do enough of it 9 to 5.
Merry Christmas all! Enjoy the holidays!

Tim

P.S Apple! pull your finger out! Or it'll be a long
detailed email to 'The Register' frankly they hate
you anyway!

Tim

I agree with you 100%. But I have a techie streak and am still giving this a shot. This is what I found tonight.

I went in to System Preferences and International. I select the Formats tab and changed the Region to "United States". I then created a test account and logged on with it. I found the error recurred as soon as I downloaded a single podcast. I then switched Region to "United States (Computer)" (no idea what the difference is). Same thing, -48s all over the place.

But....

I then did an Erase and Install and select US as the location and US keyboard. Finished the install (I only installed the core system) and downloaded all the updates. Lo and behold, I have been unable to replicate the problem. I have done all the things that instantly give me -48s and I have been unable to reproduce it. That's not to say that maybe I'm just being lucky, but at the moment, I would say that US-configured machines do not experience this problem.

Interesting stuff, P Diddy....

Incidentally, I've done some further tests tonight, & can confirm:

a) a 'dumb' erased/formatted iPod prior to restoring will NOT result in any errors when copying/erasing various documents to the iPod, using it as though it's a flash storage device, & then ejecting/remounting.

b) A restored but totally empty iPod does not result in -48's when ejecting/re-mounting.

c) The first transfer of files (be it sync'ing w/iTunes or just transferring random docs) & an eject/remount doesn't seem to cause -48's...

d) ..BUT a SECOND copy of files, be it syncing with iTunes, OR just using the iPod as storage alongside an empty iTunes WILL result in the -48 after an eject/remount.

Okay... I'm done - off to bed.

JC