9. Troubleshooting

I regret to report that—except for you, dear reader, and me—nothing is perfect. No, not even the iPod. Whereas it may tick happily along one day, the next day, its menu structure is a mess; it refuses to start up when you’re sure it has a full battery; or when it does start up, it displays an icon indicating that it’s feeling far from well. In this chapter, I look at the common maladies that afflict the iPod and what, if anything, you can do about them.

iPod Problems and Solutions

Unlike a computer, which can fail in seemingly countless and creative ways, the iPod exhibits only a few behaviors when it’s feeling poorly. Following are the most common problems and (when available) their solutions.

Failure to boot

There are a few possible reasons why an iPod may not boot beyond the Apple logo, some benign and others not so:

• Engaged hold switch. Go ahead and smack yourself in the head (and then breathe a sigh of relief) if your iPod won’t start up because the hold switch is on.

• Drained battery. Among the most benign problems is an iPod battery that’s drained. If the iPod is functioning normally otherwise, switching it on when its battery is very nearly drained causes a low-battery icon to appear on the display. If the battery is completely drained, the iPod can’t even muster the energy to display this icon; the screen remains black. Plug your iPod into a power adapter or your computer, and let it charge. If everything’s hunky-dory after that, pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

In some rare cases, the battery may not be charged enough for the iPod to be reset. If you’ve tried other solutions and failed, unplug the iPod from a power supply for 24 hours; then plug it into a power source and attempt to reset it.

• No charge going to iPod. If you’ve plugged the iPod’s data/power cable into a computer that isn’t currently charging it—one that’s turned off or asleep, for example—unplug the iPod. Some people have reported that when the iPod is plugged in but isn’t being charged, its power can dissipate quickly.

• Computer port problems. If your computer won’t charge your iPod, something may be wrong with its USB port or (in the case of very old iPods) its FireWire port. Try plugging your iPod into a different port or power adapter. If the iPod charges, it’s time to cock a suspicious eyebrow at your computer.

Skipping during playback

Songs played on the iPod may skip for several reasons, including these:

• Large files. Large song files (long symphonic movements or those endless Grateful Dead jams, for example) don’t play particularly well with the 32 MB RAM buffer on some iPods with hard drives. (Recent high-capacity iPods have a larger RAM buffer and do better with long files.) Large song files race through the RAM buffer, requiring the iPod to access the hard drive more often. This situation can lead to skipping if the iPod is pulling the song almost directly from the hard drive. If possible, reduce the sizes of files by employing greater compression, or chop really long files (such as audiobooks) into pieces.

• Damaged files. A damaged song file may skip. If you find that the same song skips every time you play it—and other songs seem to play back with no problem—go back to the source of the song (an audio CD, for example), rip the song again, and replace the copy on the iPod with the newly ripped version.

• iPod that needs to be reset. Yes, an iPod that needs to be reset may cause songs to skip. For an iPod shuffle, a reset entails simply switching the iPod off for 5 seconds. For a click-wheel iPod, hold down the Center and Menu buttons for 6 seconds. If you have a 1G, 2G, or 3G iPod, plug it into a power outlet, and hold down the Play and Menu buttons for 6 seconds.

• iPod that needs to be restored. If a reset won’t do the trick, make sure that all the data on your iPod is backed up, and restore the iPod from the iPod pane’s Summary tab.

The frozen iPod

Just like a computer, the iPod can freeze from time to time. To thaw it, attach your iPod to a power source—a power adapter, a powered FireWire port (for 3G and earlier iPods), or a computer’s high-powered USB 2.0 port—and, on the first three generations of the iPod, hold down the Play and Menu buttons for 6 seconds. For click-wheel iPods, hold down the Center and Menu buttons for the same 6 seconds.

Failure to charge

An iPod may not charge for several reasons, including all of the following:

• Sleeping computer. The iPod may not charge when it’s attached to a sleeping computer. (Some sleeping computers will charge an iPod; others won’t.) If you suspect that a sleepy computer is the problem, wake up your computer if you want the iPod to charge.

• Frozen iPod. An iPod that’s frozen (see the preceding section) won’t charge. Reset it.

• Faulty cable. Cables break. Try a different data/power cable, just in case yours has gone the way of the dodo.

• Faulty iPod data/power port. This problem is more common on 1G and 2G iPods than it is on later iPods. As you plug and unplug the FireWire cable from the iPod’s FireWire port on these old iPods, it’s possible to put too much stress on the internal connectors that deliver power to the port, breaking the bond between those connectors and your iPod’s motherboard.

• Dead battery. Like all lithium-ion batteries, the iPod’s battery is good for 400 to 500 full charges. When you’ve exhausted those charges, your iPod needs a new battery. See the sidebar “Assault on Batteries” later in this chapter for more details.

• Broken iPod. iPods occasionally break (see the following section). If none of these solutions brings your iPod back from its never-ending slumber, it may need to be replaced. Contact Apple at https://selfsolve.apple.com.

The broken iPod

An iPod is a machine, and regrettably, machines break. If none of these solutions brings your iPod back from the dead, it may need to be repaired. If you live near an Apple Store or another outfit that sells iPods, take it in. If such a trip is impractical, contact Apple at https://selfsolve.apple.com for instructions on how to have your iPod serviced.

When you take a misbehaving iPod to a Genius at the Apple Store, said Genius will run a couple of tests on it. If the iPod fails to respond, the Genius may try to restore it (which is why you should always have a backup of your music and data).

If that doesn’t work, and your iPod is under warranty, you’ll probably get a replacement on the spot (provided that Apple still sells the same iPod model, with the same storage capacity, as the one you bring in). If Apple has changed the iPod line—you’ve got a 3G iPod nano, for example, and Apple now sells the 5G iPod nano—according to Apple, your iPod “will be replaced with functionally equivalent new, used, or refurbished iPod equipment.” In other words, you may get the new model, but if there’s an available refurbished version of the iPod you bring in, you’ll likely get it. If the iPod is out of warranty, you’ll have to pay for the repair.

iTunes Problems and Solutions

Given the number of tasks that iTunes is tasked with, it’s remarkable that it works at all. Yet most of the time, it does and does so flawlessly. When it doesn’t, there’s often a simple fix that will put things right.

The dreaded gray question mark of confusion

You launch iTunes, click a track, and attempt to play it. Instead of the lilting (or hammering, I suppose) sound you expected, you get a gray question mark next to the track’s name—the iTunes equivalent of “Huh?!?”

The question mark indicates that iTunes can’t find the track you’d like to play. In all likelihood, if you attempt to play other tracks in your iTunes Library, you’ll see more of this terse punctuation. If you do, you will because you’ve unmounted the drive that contains your iTunes Library or moved the folder where the track once lived, or because the track has been vaporized in some way.

First, open iTunes’ Preferences, click the Advanced tab, and check the iTunes Media folder location. Is it pointing where you expect it to—to an external drive where you moved your iTunes Library? If not, and if iTunes has reverted to the default location for the iTunes Music folder (within your Music or My Music folder), the drive that holds your music has gone missing. Mount it and restart iTunes, and all should be well.

If the location is correct, and the drive and folder are where they should be, search for the track. Did something happen to it? If it’s indeed missing, use your computer’s Search function to look for it. Return it to its original location or drag it into your iTunes Library.

Dealing with duplicates

Over time, it’s possible—even likely—that your iTunes Library will be crammed with duplicate files. Yet weeding out duplicates can be a chore. iTunes offers a rather broad way of dealing with them: Just choose File > Show Duplicates. The iTunes window will display a list of files that it believes are duplicates.

Before you start trashing these “duplicate” files, however, check the albums they come from, and compare their times. iTunes checks only track title and artist when it checks for duplicates. If you have both the studio and live versions of a track, iTunes may deem them duplicates.

Because iTunes isn’t terribly discerning about duplicates, if you have a serious duplicates problem, turn to a third-party tool. For Windows users, one of those tools is MarkelSoft’s $35 Dupe Eliminator for iTunes (www.markelsoft.com). Mac users get a better deal with Lairware’s $20 Song Sergeant (www.lairware.com) or Doug Adams’ $15 Dupin (http://dougscripts.com). All of these utilities use far more exacting filtering than iTunes does; thus, they’re better at identifying duplicate files. They also provide ways to select and remove those duplicate files.

Files misfiled

If you followed some of my tips in Chapter 8 for moving videos into your iTunes Library, you may find that they aren’t filed where they should be. TV shows are listed under the Movies heading, for example, and audiobooks make their presence known in the Music area. The secret to filing these things correctly is the Options tab within an item’s Info window. To put things right, do this:

1. Select the misfiled items, and choose File > Get Info.

2. In the window that appears, click the Options tab.

3. From the Media Kind pop-up menu, choose the kind of media you have: Music Video, Movie, TV Show, Video Podcast, or iTunes U for video files, or Music, Podcast, iTunes U, Audiobook, or Voice Memo for audio files.

4. Click OK.

The file you were working on will be filed correctly.

You can do this with multiple files—a series of audiobook chapters, for example. Just select all the files that you’d like to change, choose File > Get Info, confirm that you really do want to work on multiple files, click the Options tab in the window that appears, choose the media type from the pop-up menu, and click OK.

Sluggish iTunes

If iTunes is slow to start up or slow to respond when it’s running, one of these fixes may help.

Where’s your iTunes Library?

If you have the contents of your iTunes Library scattered across multiple drives or on an external drive that has to spin up before iTunes will run at its best, it may take a while for iTunes to get its house in order. You can put up with that behavior, or you might consider consolidating your library so that everything is on a single drive—one that doesn’t have to spin up. Look in Chapter 8 to learn how to consolidate your library.

Also pay attention to the Home Sharing discussion in Chapter 8. Home Sharing lets you gather together all the media you have scattered on two or more computers.

Launch in Safe Mode

You can launch iTunes 9 so that visual plug-ins are disabled. Older plug-ins used with a new version of iTunes can cause problems; disabling them gives you an idea of whether a plug-in is an issue.

To launch in Safe Mode on a Mac, hold down Command and Option while launching iTunes. On a Windows PC, press Shift+Ctrl and launch the program. You’ll see a dialog box telling you that you’ve launched into Safe Mode.

If third-party plug-ins appear to be the problem (those from Apple should be OK), you can remove them manually. On a Mac, you’ll find them by following this path: user folder/Library/iTunes/iTunes Plug-Ins. On a Windows PC, they’ll be in Program Files/iTunes.