Lost Bookmarks

[apharris]

I have now listened to 4 Audible.com books on my 15MG iPod. Each book was listed to in multiple sessions and each book reatined my bookmarks most of the time, but each book also lost my bookmark at least once, usually toward the end of the book, the past 25% of the listening. I haven't correlated re-charging to the lost bookmarks, but it is possible. Has anyone figured out what is happening here yet and whether there is a defect in the hardware, software, or possible my individual unit?

[dordale]

Some people have reported lost bookmarks at times, not sure if anyone ever figured out a reason this happens.

Could it be that you lose you bookmarks when you connect to your iPod to transfer/delete mp3's or books?

If you use ephPod, there is a known bug--all bookmarks in all audible files are lost when you connect to your iPod. I'm not sure if this problem happens with other transfer programs or not.

dordale

[robert]

I was losing book marks, going back to the previous book mark upon re starting after overnight iPod rest.

Solved by doing a reset: toggle hold switch, press menu and forward buttons simultaneously, should then see apple logo pop up on screen. If not, repeat. Reset corrected several problems -- seems analagous to restarting computer.

Edit update: Turns out This did not fix the problem. See two other threads on lost book marks. Lots of visits, so must be a big problem. If you leave your iPod for over 24 hours, it will go into deep sleep, reset itself and revert to a prior bookmark.

[brickster]

I lost bookmarks all the time until the ipod was replaced. it now works fine and could not be happier.

[arsolot]

I've twice today lost my place. I've got my book in a playlist with just Audible titles. There are two items in the playlist; 1) the book and 2) last week's NPR show, "This American Life" (TAL).

What happens it this: I stop listening to the book. The iPod times out and turns itself off. I turn it back on, press play to start up the book. It then skips to the NPR show, and starts up there were I last listened to TAL. When I go back to the book, the place is lost; its at 0:00 time! I then have to remember where I'm at in the book.

I tried Audible.com live chat to see if they had any ideas. They said to go to Apple support, which I guess I'll try.

This is the text of my chat session.

Sebastian: Hi, my name is Sebastian. How may I help you?
You: Hi, Sebastian.I use a second generation (touchwheel) iPod to listen to the books. I?ve recently had a problem with losing my place in my book. I?ve got The Blind Assassin. It has twiced skipped ahead to the next item on my playlist and when I go back to my book, the place is lost and I'm at the beginning of the book.
Sebastian: Are you loosing power to the Ipod device at all when using the playback feature for your Ipod and Audible.com content?
Sebastian: Insufficient power to the device will cause the device to forget where it left off in the playback position.
You: No, there's no loss of power. I start up the iPod,push the play button and it looks like it'll start at my place, and then it skips to the next item in my playlist
Sebastian: Please check the firmware on your device.
You: I'm using the most recent firmware, ver. 1.3
Sebastian: You will have to update the firmware once again. You can go to the following location at Apple.com to receive the update: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=122014
You: I've got the most recent firmware on my iPod; I don't think that there's any more updates after ver. 1.3. Please tell me what will updating the firmware again do?
Sebastian: Pleare re-update the device. If the problem continues you will have to contact Apple support.
You: I looked at the link at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=122014; that's for MAC OS X; I've got a WinXP machine.
Sebastian: The firmware update will hopefully restore the playback position feature for your Ipod device.
Sebastian: If you have a windows PC Ipod device you will still have the flash the memory firmware to restore this feature.
You: This is an intermittent issue; it usually retains the playback position. It has just happened twice.
Sebastian: The firmware is not provided form Audible.com. I can only suggest that you contact Apple.com support to find out why the device is not remembering the playback position. If the problem is an intermittent I can suggest that you attempt to update the firmware.
You: OK, but I'm guessing that Apple will merely refer me to Audible.com. As usual, customer support is quite difficult to obtain.
Sebastian: I have given you the extent of the instructions that is provided for me. The reason why the device was delayed for support was because the older Ipods lost the playback position. A firmware updated was then provided by Apple.com to resolve this issue.
You: "A firmware updated was then provided by Apple.com to resolve this issue." Well, it appears that update didn't resolve the issue. I've got no idea if it's Apple's or Audible's problem to fix, but it is very frustrating for the end user. OK, thanks for your time.


Anyone have any thoughts?

[brickster]

i can only speak to my experience with the new G3 IPOD. i had exactly that problem. i reinstalled everything, updated firmware, used the magic combination of each software and even sent it back to apple. apple reinstalled everything and it came back with the same problem--they said it was fixed. it was not and i am convinced that they did not test it. apple then demanded that i test the unit with two specific audible files that apple knew worked. did that, still lost the place. at that point, they had no other suggestions. i demanded to talk with customer service who had me send it back in for an exchange. apple sent back the new ipod which was then "misplaced" by airborne express. after three more weeks of arguing, finally a very nice and cooperative woman in apple customer support called a local store, let me pick a new one and i am now as happy as can be. i have not lost a place since. the ipod, when working, is fabulous. the key is talk to customer service (not tech support) since, in my view, after having tried every possible suggestion that apple had, the only thing that worked was an exchange. i would also email don katz head of audible. he is a can do guy. i sent audible tech support the above story and suggested that they post a response on their tech support board; they have failed to do so. not sure why. good luck and be persistent.

[arsolot]

Originally posted by CarbonRods
It should be easy enough to establish if the problem is related to Audible's file format. Do you experience the same problem with .aac and mp3 files? Does your iPod always remember where you stopped one of these files?

As far as I know, .mp3 or .acc files do not retain a stopping point, but Audible files do (or, are supposed to). In any event, I don't recall any similar problem with any .mp3 or .aac files.

I've not tried Apple support yet, but I may first try to do a reset on the iPod, and then see what happens. If the problem occurs again (it is intermittant and I know of no way to test it or recreate it) then I'll try to do firmware updating that Sebastian suggests. I'm not clear why I should do that, as I've already got ver. 1.3. Then if the problem reoccurs, I'll try Apple support.

Thanks!

[Podunk]

Arsolot,

The Apple 1.3 firmware did provide Audible support on the touchwheel iPods. I'm sure you know this already since you've been using it for a while, and just recently had this intermittent issue.

As a general rule, if you're iPod is not doing what it is supposed to do, the first thing you should do is a firmware restore.

This will solve most problems of this sort. I would do this before bothering with Apple support. Because its the first thing they're gonna have you do.

:P

[arsolot]

Originally posted by parannoya
As a general rule, if you're iPod is not doing what it is supposed to do, the first thing you should do is a firmware restore.

Parannoya:

Thanks so much for your help on this issue. I think I'll try the firmware restore. But, as I understand it, that will erase all my music and other data on the iPod. Correct? Do you know if the firmware restore will cause me to lose things like my song play count?

[Podunk]

The firmware restore will definately erase the iPod and you will have to resync with iTunes afterward. So you might want to wait till a convenient time, if the problem isn't too much of a bother.

I'm not that up on the playcounts because I don't use it (yet). so I can't say. But my recollection is that the playcount syncs with iTunes so whatever it says in iTunes will be put back on the iPod.

:P

[arsolot]

Update:

Well, after the problems described earlier with lost "bookmarks" I found that the iPod wouldn't play any Audible content at all! It would play music files, but not Audible content. I tried a system reset (holding down the play/pause button and the menu button), several synchs w/ iTunes, then I rebooted my computer and synched w/ iTunes again. None of that had the desired result: I still could only play music, but the Audible content wouldn't play.

So . . .

I bit the bullet and did a firmware restore. This does wipe out all of the iPod's music and data. So, my 10gb iPod then had 9.2gb capacity and 9.2gb of space available!

Then . . .

I synched w/ iTunes and now Audible content plays normally. Maybe this will also cure the lost "bookmark" issue as well. We shall see!

[brickster]

curious whether this has solved your problem.

[arsolot]

Originally posted by brickster
curious whether this has solved your problem.

So far, the problem has not recurred. Thanks for asking.

[duncman]

My 2G ipod has this exact same problem of occassionally skipping to the next book in my playlist. I would press the play button to turn on the ipod, my bookmark was at the correct place. Then I press play again to start the book but it can skip the beginning of the next book.

After a little testing I discovered this usually happened if I pressed the ON (play) and PLAY buttons too close together. If I wait about 5 seconds or so after turning the unit on before pressing play, my book starts in the right place. If I press play twice with a 1 or 2 second interval, that's when it would skip ahead.