Holy crap... Brand new 160 crashing like crazy!

[bdb]

That's a function; its not going to do anything on its own. Plus, it doesn't have the iTunes.Application COM object defined.

I messed with it a bit, and came up with something that might work. I didn't find any bad album art for me, so I'm not 100% sure it works. If you're having this problem, give it a try. Open notepad, and paste in the following. Save it to a file called art.js (or anything.js). Double-click on that file, and it should put the songs with bad art in the "SomeArt Error" playlist.

var iTunesApp = WScript.CreateObject("iTunes.Application"); 
var FoundTrackMatches = iTunesApp.SelectedTracks;

if( FoundTrackMatches == undefined )
{
	WScript.Echo("no tracks selected");
	exit;
}

var pListError = iTunesApp.CreatePlaylist("SomeArt Error");

for (var j = 1; j <= FoundTrackMatches.Count; j++ )
{
	if( FoundTrackMatches.Item(j).Artwork.Count != 0 )
	{
		try
		{
			if( FoundTrackMatches.Item(j).Artwork.Item(1).Format == 1 )
			{
// do nothing, the if statement just triggers the error
			}
		}
		catch(err)
		{
			pListError.AddTrack( FoundTrackMatches.Item(j) );
		}
	}
}
WScript.Echo("Done, any bad songs are in the SomeArt Error playlist");

Note: FYI, it looks like this searches through all your selected songs. Use Edit->Select All if you want to check them all. It will take awhile if you're checking a lot of songs. This is Windows-only.

[freecoder]

bdb,

Thanks for responding. I didn't have much time today to flesh it out to make it suitable for Windows Script Host. I have it embedded in an HTML Application so the iTunesApp variable is defined a startup.

As a disclaimer, I don't know if this will solve everyone's problems or even anyone's problems. For me, my new 80G Classic went from crashing constantly to not crashing at all since I fixed the tracks with errors. I just used the iTunes search to fix my artwork on the tracks that ended up in the error playlist. I'm not sure how the errors got there in the first place, most of these are MP3 files that I have had for many years, rips from CDs in my library that I have just recently put album art into.

[Justin Horne]

What exactly kind of error is it finding?

[kybjones]

I'm on my 2nd 160 GB 6G silver iPod now after 48 hours. I'm completely frustrated, and considering taking the 2nd unit back for credit until these problems have worked themselves out.

The first unit shipped from Shanghai and arrived Monday. It played successfully with album art upon loading a few albums onto it. I loaded about 40GB of songs (with album art) to it last night and woke up yesterday morning to find it stuck at the gray and white Apple reboot screen. The iPod will not respond on it's own, nor will my PC recognize the iPod is connected anymore (I assume due to it not booting).

I attempted:
1) Rebooting the iPod using the menu and select buttons.
2) Connecting it to the PC USB port, and later rebooting while connected.
3) Plugging it into a different USB port, and later rebooting while connected.
4) Connecting it to a power outlet only, and later rebooting while connected.
5) Following multiple support scripts off the Apple support website.

All of these attempts resulted in the same gray and white Apple reboot graphic. I took the 1st unit back to my local Apple store this evening. After talking the employee through all of my troubleshooting steps, and them basically attempting the same steps themselves, they agreed to exchange the unit for another 160 GB 6G silver iPod.

After successfully putting 5-6 GB of music on the 2nd iPod and playing it (without album art this time per the suggestion of posts on iLounge), I proceeded to move the rest of my collection (another 35 GB or so) onto the iPod. I watched the sync for a while and walked away from the computer. When I came back to the iPod a few hours later to find the sync complete and the iPod still connected to my USB adapter, I'm right back to square one again -- wouldn't you know, the glorious gray and white Apple reboot graphic screen.

Obviously, there are users here, and elsewhere not posting here, that have had only positive experiences with their 6G classics that have been hitting their doors this week. I have no doubt in that.

However, I sit here in complete and utter frustration. I have previously purchased and used the 3G, Mini, and 5G with no problems whatsoever. In fact, I can still successfully sync the 5G (which I still have) using the exact same library of songs that I'm putting on the 6G. I realize the 6G uses a new operating system and that synching of music files may not operate exactly the same as previous incarnations of the device, but this is absolutely pathetic. Here I am with a 5G iPod with a cracked display (which is the only reason for me upgrading in the first place) that syncs perfectly with my music, but yet two brand spanking new off the shipping dock 6G iPods that fail miserably.

Am I confident Apple will find a fix? Sure.

Have I been satisfied with their response to my exchange request? Absolutely.

But, is there a product hitting shelves and mailboxes that may have some serious problems for some users? Definitely. If content is the issue, then how were these types of content errors not picked up in Quality Assurance testing? I'm EXTREMELY disappointed in my 6G experiences thus far. I hope, from previously pleasant experiences with the iPod product lines, that I don't find myself skipping another generation and settling for still using my 5G 60 GB iPod "shuffle" since I can barely read the screen.

Kybjones

[JazzyMac]

Originally Posted by Surf Monkey

You're on the right track with the album art work. It's going to be time consuming but you could try unloading all the album art work and then reloading it. There's a thread around here somewhere that tells how to do that. If that doesn't help, you may have to delete all your art work from your iTunes library and then have iTunes go get fresh copies of the files. You probably have a corrupt jpeg in there somewhere.

Surf Monkey, your post makes no sense. How can someone go from having normal files with one ipod to a corrupt file with another ipod? I do not have any of the new devices yet, but once I do, I am not making any major changes whatsoever. No walking around without album art, no reloading music, files, etc., no putting up with anything.

The device is going back! (Keep in mind, I've never sent one back at all)

[pdypdy]

hey kybjones, that's exactly what problem I have that is being discussed here:

http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t=204560

I'm hoping it's the same problem as everyone else has been having with the "crashing"
except I cannot play with it to troubleshoot or take off artwork or whatever since as soon as I sync it the thing goes to the Apple logo and computer no longer recognizes it which makes it completely useless.

Do you guys think that the the "apple logo" problem and the "crashing" problem is the same cause with a slightly different result?

[kybjones]

Originally Posted by kybjones

I'm on my 2nd 160 GB 6G silver iPod now after 48 hours. I'm completely frustrated, and considering taking the 2nd unit back for credit until these problems have worked themselves out.

The first unit shipped from Shanghai and arrived Monday. It played successfully with album art upon loading a few albums onto it. I loaded about 40GB of songs (with album art) to it last night and woke up yesterday morning to find it stuck at the gray and white Apple reboot screen. The iPod will not respond on it's own, nor will my PC recognize the iPod is connected anymore (I assume due to it not booting).

I attempted:
1) Rebooting the iPod using the menu and select buttons.
2) Connecting it to the PC USB port, and later rebooting while connected.
3) Plugging it into a different USB port, and later rebooting while connected.
4) Connecting it to a power outlet only, and later rebooting while connected.
5) Following multiple support scripts off the Apple support website.

All of these attempts resulted in the same gray and white Apple reboot graphic. I took the 1st unit back to my local Apple store this evening. After talking the employee through all of my troubleshooting steps, and them basically attempting the same steps themselves, they agreed to exchange the unit for another 160 GB 6G silver iPod.

After successfully putting 5-6 GB of music on the 2nd iPod and playing it (without album art this time per the suggestion of posts on iLounge), I proceeded to move the rest of my collection (another 35 GB or so) onto the iPod. I watched the sync for a while and walked away from the computer. When I came back to the iPod a few hours later to find the sync complete and the iPod still connected to my USB adapter, I'm right back to square one again -- wouldn't you know, the glorious gray and white Apple reboot graphic screen.

Obviously, there are users here, and elsewhere not posting here, that have had only positive experiences with their 6G classics that have been hitting their doors this week. I have no doubt in that.

However, I sit here in complete and utter frustration. I have previously purchased and used the 3G, Mini, and 5G with no problems whatsoever. In fact, I can still successfully sync the 5G (which I still have) using the exact same library of songs that I'm putting on the 6G. I realize the 6G uses a new operating system and that synching of music files may not operate exactly the same as previous incarnations of the device, but this is absolutely pathetic. Here I am with a 5G iPod with a cracked display (which is the only reason for me upgrading in the first place) that syncs perfectly with my music, but yet two brand spanking new off the shipping dock 6G iPods that fail miserably.

Am I confident Apple will find a fix? Sure.

Have I been satisfied with their response to my exchange request? Absolutely.

But, is there a product hitting shelves and mailboxes that may have some serious problems for some users? Definitely. If content is the issue, then how were these types of content errors not picked up in Quality Assurance testing? I'm EXTREMELY disappointed in my 6G experiences thus far. I hope, from previously pleasant experiences with the iPod product lines, that I don't find myself skipping another generation and settling for still using my 5G 60 GB iPod "shuffle" since I can barely read the screen.

Kybjones

UPDATE FROM MY RANT: I've found a way to at least reformat my iPod after this type of crash happens. Now, the following steps suck, but it's the only way I've gotten an iPod to something different from the gray and white Apple logo.

Hold Menu and Select for 5-10 seconds to reboot. When the screen turns black for a reboot, immediately hit Play and Select at the same time and hold it for 5-10 seconds. This takes you into Disk Mode. Connect to the USB cord. It will take iTunes up to 5 minutes to recognize the iPod is even there, but at least that's an improvement over the computer never seeing the iPod when the gray and white Apple logo is there.

In Disk mode, open up your file browser and go to the Ipod_Control folder and subfolders and delete all of the music files. Eject the iPod from both ITunes and your computer. You'll see the Checkmark in Disk Mode. Reconnect to the USB cord. When the iPod appears on the left hand side of iTunes, highlight the iPod. Select the "Refresh" software button. This will begin to download a update file. This process took me about 20+ minutes to complete. This update file then overwrites all of the software on your iPod and at least gets you back to your beginning point.

Now, the frustrating thing is that updating this refreshed iPod with my music library begins the whole nightmare all over again. Eventually music files will cause the reboot screen to stay on. So while this is not a true fix, it at least enables you to recover from the gray and white Apple logo fiasco and get a working, empty iPod again.

[freecoder]

What exactly kind of error is it finding?

It appears that some of my songs have an Artwork.Count property that is non-zero but when you go to access the first piece of artwork present (with the if statement that does nothing) then you get an error that the object has no properties. So, it's telling me that there is artwork but that the artwork is not accessible. How it got that way I have no idea. All I know is that after fixing these 2000+ tracks with errors my 80G doesn't crash anymore. Go figure.

[Surf Monkey]

Originally Posted by JazzyMac

Surf Monkey, your post makes no sense. How can someone go from having normal files with one ipod to a corrupt file with another ipod? I do not have any of the new devices yet, but once I do, I am not making any major changes whatsoever. No walking around without album art, no reloading music, files, etc., no putting up with anything.

The device is going back! (Keep in mind, I've never sent one back at all)

Did you read any of my other posts? I guess not. Corrupt files are tricky. They can work fine on some devices and in some applications but break on others. iPod Classic isn't exactly the same as iPod 5.5G. All you have to do is look at it to see what I mean. It uses an entirely different OS. It's not at all unreasonable to think that the way it handles files is slightly different than the 5.5G. Just the fact that it uses the album art in the main GUI should give you a clue.

[JazzyMac]

Originally Posted by Surf Monkey

Did you read any of my other posts? I guess not. Corrupt files are tricky. They can work fine on some devices and in some applications but break on others. iPod Classic isn't exactly the same as iPod 5.5G. All you have to do is look at it to see what I mean. It uses an entirely different OS. It's not at all unreasonable to think that the way it handles files is slightly different than the 5.5G. Just the fact that it uses the album art in the main GUI should give you a clue.

It doesn't matter how it uses files or whatever because of the OS. That's like saying, "Oh the 6G will no longer accept mp3 music files because it corrupts it, so take off all your mp3 files and copy it, then reproduce it, then re-burn it, then re-input it and formate it to aac files. Then reload and relaunch your ipod." Remember the 70s copy of "Love Shack" that you downloaded? Well, it FINALLY caught up to ya!!!

Nah, don't think so. What you have stated is a reason, not a solution. One should have to go through re-formatting their entire library because Apple decided to switch paces. It's not like everyone here has been using iTunes 1 with their 1G ipod on their Gateway computers.

[bdb]

Returning an iPod is certainly an option (and is probably the best way to deal with a situation where it can't handle something it should). Exchanging the iPod for another one that will behave exactly the same way isn't going to help much, though. For someone who doesn't have an iPod, its a choice of either living with things the way they are, living without an iPod for a little while longer, or buying something besides an iPod.

And "Love Shack" was from the 80s.

[JazzyMac]

Originally Posted by bdb

And "Love Shack" was from the 80s.

Hmph!

[pdypdy]

I was able to (following the directions from kybjones) erase everything and start from scratch. I loaded the whole thing up again with music only and no album cover artwork and I got the same result (Apple logo and computer doesn't recognize it). I'm starting to think that the "stuck on apple logo" problem and the "crashing" problem are different. Otherwise it should have probably worked without the album art, right?

[kybjones]

Originally Posted by pdypdy

I was able to (following the directions from kybjones) erase everything and start from scratch. I loaded the whole thing up again with music only and no album cover artwork and I got the same result (Apple logo and computer doesn't recognize it). I'm starting to think that the "stuck on apple logo" problem and the "crashing" problem are different. Otherwise it should have probably worked without the album art, right?

I think you are correct. They seem like 2 separate issues. I have had success with "Menu-Select" "Play-Select" to go into disk mode and reformat. However, I've only been able to use small subsets of my library list on my iPod successfully. Right now, I've got about 700 songs on the iPod and am having no issues. However, in the 3 attempts I've made to load my entire 40 GB library, I get the gray and white Apple reboot screen problem.