IPod Sync problems / Backup advice needed

A few months ago I had some kind of crash in iTunes and lost all of my playcount information. Fortunately I was able to restore most of what was missing by backing it up from my iPod, but as my iPod was set to auto-sync at the time, I had to connect it and quickly block the auto-sync and set it to manually update (I can't remember exactly what key combination makes this happen, but a very kind person on here told me about it and I don't have the hyperlink to hand at the moment).
The problem is that now I want to set it to auto-sync again, but whenever I go into the settings and uncheck the "Manually manage playlist" option and hit Apply, it automatically rechecks the box and doesn't accept the changes. Does anyone know how to get around this?
Also, my computer is getting sluggish and basically needs a complete rebuild soon. Can anyone advise me on the best way to back up all of iTunes, including my library and all of the playcount information?
I'm a Windows user, if that makes any difference. Many thanks.

Hi E4monn,
It sounds like you can see all of your music purchases in iCloud but they are not syncing from your Windows computer to your iPod. In this situation, I would recommend making sure that all of the music you are trying to sync has been downloaded into your iTunes library prior to syncing. Please reference the Download previous purchases on Mac or PC section of the attached article to download all of your purchased music to your computer.
Download past purchases - Apple Support
Have a great day,
Joe

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Ipod syncing problems...?

Im having several ipod syncing problems. I have an Ipod touch, 4th gen with the standard USB cable that comes with to charge it and sync it with. Today, i plugged it into my computer like normal to sync some new songs onto it from itunes. But, it started acting up. First, it kept syncing on and off, and the sync sound wouldnt stop- it wouldnt stay synced. then, later, when it finally did, not long after it said "this device does not support charging," and itunes didnt recognize my ipod anymore, so i couldnt sync my songs. is there any way i can fix this? thanks in advance.

- See:
iPod touch: Hardware troubleshooting
- Try another cable. Some 5G iPods were shipped with Lightning cable that were either initially defective or failed after short use.
- Try another charging source
- Inspect the dock connector on the iPod for bent or missing contacts, foreign material, corroded contacts, broken, missing or cracked plastic.
- Make an appointment at the Genius Bar of an Apple store.
Apple Retail Store - Genius Bar

Ipod sync problems ipod 2.2.1 touch OS10.6.8 itunes 10.6.1 The photos sync but the calendars and contents will not. I keep getting this error message... «iTunes could not sync information to the iPod «name of iPod» because a sync session could not be sta

ipod sync problems
ipod 2.2.1 touch OS10.6.8 itunes 10.6.1
The photos sync but the calendars and contents will not. I keep getting this error message...
«iTunes could not sync information to the iPod «name of iPod» because a sync session could not be started.»

Greetings,
See this post: https://discussions.apple.com/message/12799057#12799057
Cheers.

IPOD sync problems - are the new ones just as crappy?

Like everyone who uses an IPOD shuffle on a Windows computer, I constantly experience sync problems with the IPOD either not recognized or recognized as a different USB device. Constant plugging and unplugging into different USB ports usually solves the problem but what a freaking headache!
I'm thinking of getting a new music player and I want to know if the newer IPOD's (nano, shuffle, etc.) are as crappy with regard to USB port recognition and syncing as the 2nd generation shuffle?

You are obviously extremely dedicated. Just how long did it take you to talk to 30 or 40 million iPod Shuffle users and find out all of them had these issues?
Actually my guess would be your computer has an issue. I am assuming you are using a desktop computer? If this is true make sure you are using the full power USB ports in the rear of your computer.
Misidentification of your iPod would indicate a drive assignment problem, a problem that has been an issue since Windows was released. Make sure that all of the drivers for your other USB devices are current. If necessary use Device Manager and manually change the drive letter on the iPod.

Some playlists don't show up - weird iPod syncing problems

Apologies if this question has been answered elsewhere - couldn't find the answer when I was searching the boards last night. Don't know if this is an iTunes problem or an issue with the touch...
Last night, I plugged my iPod touch (1G) into my MacPro to add some new music. This is when things got weird!
First, I noticed that my iPod's name had mysteriously changed since the last time I synced it. It used to be called "Christine's iPod" and now it has reverted to the default "iPod touch."
Next, when I went to add some different playlists to the iPod, I noticed that one of the playlists I wanted to add didn't show up in the Music tab, so I couldn't "tick" it for inclusion on the iPod. This isn't a new playlist, and I have successfully synced it with this iPod in the past. I tried renaming the playlist and making a new playlist with the same songs, and neither of these playlists showed up either. BTW, I definitely don't have too many playlists - I probably have 100-150 playlists total.
Anyway, I restored my iPod and starting from scratch - and the playlist still didn't appear to be available to sync. I ended up adding the playlist by "manually managing" my music, but this isn't an ideal solution. I'd like to be able to sync the playlist!!
Don't know if it's relevant, but my bf also has an iPod touch that he syncs to the same iTunes account. We have separate computer logins, and our iTunes Library is on a shared disk on our MacPro (to prevent needlessly wasting HD space due to song replication) and occasionally we both get messages saying we don't own or don't have permission to access the Library when opening iTunes. To solve this, we alter the permissions on the disk and apply to enclosed items. Maybe this happens after updating iTunes or adding new songs? Not certain what triggers it.
Thanks in advance - this is really bugging me!

This isn't foolproof but there are usually two things that contribute to songs not appearing under Artist on the iPod, both due to information either in or missing from the Get Info>Info tab against the song in iTunes. 1) the song has no album name associated with it or 2) the song is marked as part of a compilation.
If tracks are missing an Album name (as mentioned above) in the Info tab, this information needs to be filled in. The no album one is a bit quirky as the songs will appear under certain circumstances but the simplest remedy is just add None or Miscellaneous in place of a title. See this link for more detail: I don't see some of my songs when browsing by artist on my iPod
Also if the tracks are ticked in the Get Info>Info tab as part of a compilation, they will not appear under Artist on the iPod. Highlight a song in iTunes that you know is not appearing correctly on your iPod. Right click on it and choose Get Info and click the Info tab (alternatively choose Get Info from the File menu), if "Part of a Compilation" is marked untick it and afterwards update your iPod, you should find it now appears as normal. Compilations are stored in a separate folder in iTunes so the songs don't appear inside the normal Artist>Album folder which may be why this happens.

Multiple Users, Multiple iPods sync problem

At home my iMac is set up with multiple accounts for my family members, 2 have iPod Nano's and I've an iPhone. Each of us has our own iTunes library. Now, a lot of the time I will stay logged in and just return to the log in window. Same goes with the kids who do the same (Time limited accounts means this happens quite often as they don't get logged off automatically).
Up until 9.1 iTunes (I think, could have been 9.0) everything worked fine. I would leave my iTunes running constantly - this allowed me to stream over to our Airport Express units using the iPhone Remote app whenever I felt the need.... However, we've now run into a problem.
More often than not my daughter will log in, dock her iPod and it won't show up on her iTunes - instead I have to switch to my user account where I'll find it showing up on MY iTunes! I then have to shut down my iTunes to allow her to sync her iPod with her iTunes.
This didn't used to happen, it used to be that the user who was CURRENTLY logged on would get the plugged in iPod but that appears to be totally broken - I can't find any documents that say this is the way it was meant to work, searching the 'net for multiple users, multiple iTunes turns up so much that it's impossible to find any related issue.
Is anybody else noticing this? Am I doing something daft wanting to use iPods & iTunes like this? Any suggestions on how to fix the issue?
Thanks for any help!

Chris CA wrote:
it used to be that the user who was CURRENTLY logged on
But according to your post, other users are still CURRENTLY logged on.
Ok, so 'logged on' is vague, the other users are still logged on. I mean the user that has the desktop focus. The active user.
a lot of the time *_I will stay logged in_* and just return to the log in window. Same goes with the kids who do the same (Time limited accounts means this happens quite often as *_they don't get logged off_* automatically).
You can set System prefs - Security to log users off after xx minutes of inactivity.
Yes, you can, but that does not solve the issue on 2 levels:
1. If I did that then I couldn't leave my iTunes logged in to be able to stream from it to my Airport Express units. I'd have to manually go to the iMac and log myself in - which would kinda defeat the benefit of being able to control this all remotely as I've been doing perfectly happily for the past couple of years. 9 times out of 10 I don't want to be logged off for any number of reasons.
2. As I said, some members of the household have Time Limits on their accounts via Parental Controls. This does not log users off, it merely drops them back to the login window. There is no way that I know of setting this up to actually log off. As a side issue, it'd be great if I could specify that for certain members of the family who use up all their time and get pushed back to the login window with Flash games running in a browser window consuming CPU unnecessarily... but that's a side-issue.
You can send suggestions for iTunes here -> http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html
Um, ok, great, suggestion: Make iTunes work the way it used to work please . Seriously though, this is not a new feature request, I want to see if other people have experienced this and if there is a work-around out there.

IPod Sync Problem - syncs songs, but then no songs on ipod - space taken by other

I recently got a new computer with Windows 7. I installed itunes (64 bit for windows 7) and imported my songs from my external hard drive. I automatically synced my ipod classic and once it completed got the instructions that it was ok to disconnect. When I did, my ipod shows no music, but the space taken in memory is the same as the amount of music I have (around 8,000 songs). When I reconnect, I get a message that I need to restore my ipod since the files cannot be read and they show up as other on the bottom of itunes. I've tried multiple times - restored ipod, uninstalled/reinstalled itunes, deleted ipod driver, reinstalled driver, cleared the ipod in disk mode, but no luck. Please help me solve this problem! It's driving me crazy having a new computer with itunes that does not work!

Antivirus has a tendency to freeze iTunes sync Operation with iPod Classic, causing a timeout, which corrupt your iPod filesystem, so when iTunes cant read the iPod, it is pointing to this problem. Other causes is when your iPod hardisk is dying, or your battery is dying causing hardisk crashes.
My suggestion.
Connect your Ipod to the PC and run chkdsk, to fix any iPod diskerror, then disconnect it, after chkdsk complete.
Disconnect your PC from Internet. (just to make sure no nasties creep into your system while you syncing.
Stop the Antivirus program
Connect your Ipod to the PC
When Itunes Open up, Restore your iPod please, this is for iTunes to map correctly, to fix the corrupted filesystem.
When Restore complete, eject the iPod and reconnect again.
Sync your iPod, preferably Manually Manage in small batches and disconnect after every batch, to check that all is well, since you got quite a huge library.
When all sync is complete, and iPod disconnected, start back your Antivirus and connect back the Internet.
Good Luck! and have a Nice Day!

Ipod syncing problem new computer

first I am not very familiar with ipods and itunes, but this if for my daughter.
Old computer crashed windows xp, bought new computer windows vista, downloaded itunes to new computer, connects to ipod and authorized new computer, WILL NOT SYNC, notice old computer has different version of itunes, and when connected to new computer it says "Upgrade software to ipod", Will this correct the problem?
Please help, I have been looking in this discussion forum for about 2 hours now and can't find any solution.
Thanks

Whatever you do - DO NOT UPDATE THE IPOD FIRMWARE! Itunes has ruined my two iPods and I cannot restore them...Worked fine for two years and now nothing, all because of a simple firmware update. My best advice to you is to get rid of Windows Vista and put XP back on your system...Vista has major compatibility issues with any older hardware - I wiped it out and put XP back on, no problems with hardware, just my iPod is ruined.

ITunes to iPod Syncing problem. PLEASE HELP!!

I own an MacBook Pro and a 60GB iPod (both of which are about a year old) I'm running iTunes 7.2 (34), OSX 10.4.10, and iPod SW 1.2.1 for Macintosh.
Up until about a week ago my entire library of music of 6205 songs synced nicely to my iPod.
Recently I got an error message: "Some of the songs in your iTunes library, including “<Song Name>”, were not copied to iPod “<iPod Name>” because they cannot be played on this iPod." - 112 total problems, with a list of about 63 song titles under the message.
Well the first thing I did was look up a few of these songs to see if they played in iTunes, and the did, they were ALL MPEG audio files (MP3), ALL encoded with iTunes v7.1 at 192 kbps. - So I figured I needed to restore the ipod, basically just a waste of time.
After the restore I got the same message. That's when I decided I had to transcribe the list of songs from the error message and create a playlist of these songs that needed to be fixed. I then figured I'd convert them to AAC files. From the advanced tab in the import section of the preferences i changed the encoder to AAC and under the advanced menu in iTunes, i converted these songs to AAC.
When I synced the iPod after that, I got the same message, ONLY now a whole NEW set of songs, some of which i had listened to ON my iPod just yesterday!
So, does my iPod just have a problem with my taste in music, or am I overlooking something? I am really getting nowhere with this one.
Thanks in advance, to anyone who can shed some light.
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.10) original post = http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=4809060#4809060

It's certainly not true that only the newer iPods support mp3s. There seems to have been a number of problems with 7.2 and the release of the non-drm tracks from iTunes. It most often crops up with tracks that started out in life as drm tracks purchased through the iTunes store that were subseqently converted to non-drm tracks. Depending on how they were added to the library, it appears that iTunes thinks they are still the drm tracks but corrupted. Deggie's suggestion has worked for most folks, as best I can tell.
Best of luck.

ITunes to iPod Syncing problem.

I own an MacBook Pro and a 60GB iPod (both of which are about a year old) I'm running iTunes 7.2 (34), OSX 10.4.10, and iPod SW 1.2.1 for Macintosh.
Up until about a week ago my entire library of music of 6205 songs synced nicely to my iPod.
Recently I got an error message: "Some of the songs in your iTunes library, including “<Song Name>”, were not copied to iPod “<iPod Name>” because they cannot be played on this iPod." - 112 total problems, with a list of about 63 song titles under the message.
Well the first thing I did was look up a few of these songs to see if they played in iTunes, and the did, they were ALL MPEG audio files (MP3), ALL encoded with iTunes v7.1 at 192 kbps. - So I figured I needed to restore the ipod, basically just a waste of time.
After the restore I got the same message. That's when I decided I had to transcribe the list of songs from the error message and create a playlist of these songs that needed to be fixed. I then figured I'd convert them to AAC files. From the advanced tab in the import section of the preferences i changed the encoder to AAC and under the advanced menu in iTunes, i converted these songs to AAC.
When I synced the iPod after that, I got the same message, ONLY now a whole NEW set of songs, some of which i had listened to ON my iPod just yesterday!
So, does my iPod just have a problem with my taste in music, or am I overlooking something?
Thanks in advance, to anyone who can shed some light.

It's certainly not true that only the newer iPods support mp3s. There seems to have been a number of problems with 7.2 and the release of the non-drm tracks from iTunes. It most often crops up with tracks that started out in life as drm tracks purchased through the iTunes store that were subseqently converted to non-drm tracks. Depending on how they were added to the library, it appears that iTunes thinks they are still the drm tracks but corrupted. Deggie's suggestion has worked for most folks, as best I can tell.
Best of luck.

IPod sync problems after hard-drive upgrade/change

Hello all,
Can anyone PLEASE help?
I have just had my hard drive upgraded/changed from the original 640GB drive to a new 2TB drive. I've also had an additional 4GB of RAM added to now give me 8GB RAM.
Absolutely everything else seems to be working fine (unusual for me and I'm often at the end of bad luck in such circumstances). The only thing I'm having problems with is syncing my iPod Classic with iTunes. Incidentally, I have the latest version of iTunes and my iPod software was up to date the last time I checked.
Before I go further, my system specs are:
iMac
24-inch, Early 2009
Processor 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400 256 MB
Software OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 (12C60)
When I connect my iPod Classic, the iPod screen initially shows 'Synchronisation in progress' (or whetver similar wording it actually is)... but this is just very briefly. It then indicates "Connected", and that's the way it stays and doesn't change at all.
It takes time to actually show up in iTunes, and when it does, I now have to very quickly click the iPod button (to bring up the iPod screen on iTunes) before the pointer turns into the spinning beach ball.
Now, it hangs... and hangs... and hangs... and hangs.
During this, I notice that "Manually manage music and videos" is ticked (which I didn't have ticked before), and also 'Enable disc use' is also ticked, although greyed out.
Occasionally, the spinning beach ball will disappear and the pointer will return, but this is very very briefly and I have a split-second to try unticking - first - the "Manually manage music and videos" box and then - later, if I'm lucky - untick the 'Enable disc use' box. However, on the odd occasion I've managed this, I haven't been able to go further except for two occasions when I managed to click "Apply". The iPoid on those to occasions started to update... but went nowhere... it just did nothing.
When the thing finally just hangs and hangs, I eventually have to 'force quit' iTunes and unplug the iPod without first ejecting. There was one other occasion when I managed to - split-second when the spinning beach ball disappeared - to click "eject" and the iPod succesfully did so.
There were a couple of occasions in the past when I had trouble with my iPhone and was told to delete/trash the iPhone photo cache folder. Remembering this, I tried this for the iPod (iPod photo cache) and it made no difference... same situation.
I did notice on one occasion at the beginning of all this that when I managed to unplug my iPod from iTunes, all the album covers were missing from the iPod (although still in iTunes). This was long before I tried deleting the iPod photo cache folder though.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Best regards
BionicDan

First things first the spinning beach ball is usually an indication that Search is going nuts.
Turn off Search entire Library by clicking on the downward pointing arrow to the right of the Magnisying glass and untick Search entire library.
Is your music still in iTunes on your new hard drive or is it only on your ipod?
If it is in your itunes then you should be able to plug in the iPod and uncheck Manually Manage music and sync
If the music is only on the ipod connect up as above click on the device and Drag all the music from your device to the library. then you can uncheck manually manage music and sync as normal

IPod sync problem on XP laptop w/external hard drive for music

I have a Dell laptop running XP Pro with a 250GB Western Digital (WD) external hard drive (hd) connected to one of my two USB ports. Whenever I attach my 30 GB classic video iPod to the other USB port simultaneously to sync it, either a.) the iPod freezes or b.) my hard drive "blanks" in windows and all of the files "disappear". The WD hd is still recognizable, but there are only folders in it, no files. Once I disconnect the WD hd and the iPod and reconnect the WD hd, the songs are still there, but now iTunes thinks some of those songs (at random as far as I can tell) no longer exist where the library thought they did.
My most pressing question is: does anyone know how I can sync my iPod so that songs residing on my WD hd are seamlessly incorporated into the sync, without the WD hd freaking out?
I don't want to have to dump files from my external to the internal hard drive and then manually add them to the iPod. Also is there a way to tell iTunes that all of the songs with exclamations do in fact have the file originally assigned to it, without going through them one by one? Thanks.

Assign a different drive letter to the iPod. You'll need to temporarily disconnect the WD while you do this, and use a much higher letter for the iPod, like M or P or Z.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93499

4th Generation Ipod Syncing problem

I just got a used 4th Generation 20gb. I have downloaded the latest version of iTunes. Here is the error I keep getting "The ipod is synced with another itunes library. An ipod can synced with only one iTunes library at a time. What would you like to do?" What do I need to do to sync the songs that are already on the ipod to my iTunes? There are over 600 songs on the ipod but I want to be able to delete some and keep the rest. Any recommendations?
Thanks,
Craig

Hi Craig!
When you get this message, please be sure to click on "Cancel", and NOT "Erase and Sync", or else this will delete all of the songs off your iPod that are not currently in your iTunes library.
After you've done that, you can use a third-party program to transfer your iPod's songs to your computer.
If you're on a PC, try using YamiPod.
-Kylene

Rhythmbox and iPod sync problem

Hi, I use rhythmbox to listen to music and I have an iPod classic 80gb (it's broken it can only take 20gb now).
I wanted to add new songs from scratch on my iPod so this is what I did (after reading many problems with syncing):
-I synced my iPod with an empty playlist ( to delete all songs currently on the device)
-I dragged and dropped the songs I wanted in my ipod, it synced...
Now I ejected it and all I see is the old songs that were on my iPod before I do that, as if nothing had changed, except that I can't listen to them, it's like if it was empty.
When I click "properties" I see that I'm using 10gb on the ipod and when I open my ipod with thunar I can see the song files. I used to be able to play them on rhythmbox but not since I checked the ipod plugin in "plugins".
So I can't click sync with library because it's too big and it says current memory spend for music is 10gb but I can't listen to the songs with the iPod. It's as if my iPod was just an external hard drive with music on it unable to play it.
help please

This is late, I know. But better than nothing:
Your iPod is not recognized as an iPod but as a regular MP3-Player. This means that the songs are copied to your iPod but not written to the iPod database.
The solution is:
1) delete every file and folder from your iPod
2) delete all hidden files (including the trash) on your iPod
3) Unplug the iPod and plug it in again to restack the folders
4) Open Rhythmbox, enable the iPod plugin and restart
5) Rhythmbox now correctly identifies your iPod
6) Sync iPod by right click > Sync

IPod Sync Problems after trying iCloud

I tried iCloud but decided not to use it. After I cancelled it, my ipods will not sync with my PC or iTunes. The computer doesn''t recoginze them. Does anyone know the solution to this problem? I have tried many of the proposed solutions posted. My iPhone still syncs.

Hey Bluewailer!
I have an article here for you that can help you troubleshoot this issue with your computer not recognizing your iOS device:
iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1538
Thanks for being a part of the Apple Support Communities!
Regards,
Braden

IPod Sync problems / Backup advice needed

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