Shuffle will play but not charge. Help please!!!

Question

My shuffle will play songs but when I try t plug into my computer it will not charge. My computer won't even recognize it. It only has a little bit of charge left. Does anyone know what is going on with it? Is it dying?
Thanks

Answer 1

Well, now I'm starting to worry. I'm coming up on the 13-month mark myself.
You might indeed be correct about your 'mechanicals' evaluation, but there's no way short of disassembly, inspection and testing to determine that. Someone, sometime is just going to have to take that on.
The disassembly part looks dead easy and it should be simple to at least check for continuity from the plug down to the end of the ribbon connector. Maybe I'll buy another 'dead' one off of eBay and look into it (the first 'dead' one I tried turned out to be very much 'Alive On Arrival', no very big surprise, and is now camped in a daughter's eMac).
If you're still doing last-gasp things on your Shuffle, in the meantime, I'd be trying the following in your place:
a) Plug it into a valid charging port/dock/etc. for an extended period of time, a couple or three hours at least. You might see it mysteriously mount; this will be welcome but won't provide any real answers. If nothing else, this will allow the battery to charge if it's going to at all, albeit with no indications.
b) Log out to a Restart, then open a new/go to a different User Account with Admin privileges.
c) With iTunes off and iPS not plugged in, locate and open your lastest iPod Updater. I use 2005-11-17.
d) When it says to plug in the iPod, turn the Shuffle ON and then plug it in. Now wait for it to mount on the Desktop and to be identified in the Updater. Be patient, give it some time; I'd probably let it soak for 10-15 minutes or so.
e) If no mounting, then — with it still plugged in, if at all possible, one place where the Dock shines — manipulate the controls. Triple-click the Play/Pause, then turn the Power to OFF for 5 seconds or so, then back on. (Note: Apple instructions only call for a Reset, i.e., PWR OFF for 5 secs., but some anecdotals seem to indicate the Playlist Reset also seems to help).
f) If you have to unplug to manipulate, then do that and plug it back in
g) This might kickstart it into mounting. If so, fine. If not, unplug and turn OFF the iPS, close the Updater, then repeat from (c) above.
h) I'd give it three times through the sequence, which seems like a fair enough shot at working.