7th Gen Nano won't play songs and keeps re-booting

[TedSaid]

Help Help Help...Please
I am the not so proud owner of a 7th gen Nano bought in June of this year. I have a 3, 000 song library from a variety of sources that play flawlessly on itunes and worked fine when I first purchased my 7th gen Nano. Not long after I came to notice a few files would not play and caused the Nano to re-boot. I didn't take this too seriously at first and just figured the files were corrupt. Then I noticed that choosing any menu other than artist or song would also cause the Nano to re-boot. Now it seems that almost nothing works with the exception of a few songs that I stumbled across in trying to find a fix for this. Songs purchased at the istore are somewhat affected. At first they were the only songs willing to work and now some play and some do not. I eventually swapped out that Nano at the Apple store and the new one did exactly the same thing the first time I synched it. I have gone through countless resets, restores as well as uninstalling and re-installing itunes. Thinking something happened to my files I tried fixit software such as mp3val which mostly gives me messages such as "truncated files" or "garbage" at the end of the song. It claims to have re-built and repaired the files I tested, but they still don't work. I should mention as well that all songs without exception play perfectly on my Nano 1st gen. What I don't understand is why the files would work for a period of time and then just stop all at once. I suspect the problem is with my files, (I think) but what do I look for, and if so, why would they work on the 1st Gen? I can't seem to find any commonality that would give me a clue as to what's happening here. Maybe a recent Apple update created an issue? Apple tech or Engineering hasn't been particularly helpful as they simply provide me with cookie cutter answers and wish me "lotsa luck". To compound the problem, I can't seem to find anything on the internet relating to this specific problem. Anything you can help with would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you...

 

[cjmnews]

You mention the files work on a 1st gen, does that mean you remove the tracks from the 1st gen and put the broken tracks onto the 1st gen and they play fine?

Since the new Nano is also having the issue after the swap, and it happened on the first sync, that means your files are corrupt.

Have you checked your PC for viruses? Do you have some sort of software that modifies files by adding something to the end of files in your system? Is your hard drive dying? Do you have critical errors in your event log saying things like ( \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block OR The device has a bad block of memory, which Windows attempted to read. The data might be missing or corrupted.)

You can delete the corrupted version and re-download your purchases. You could try this for a few tracks and they will most likely play IF you get them sync'd before they get corrupted.

If you're not infected, I would suspect the bad hard drive.

 

[TedSaid]

Thanks for responding...

To test it out. I restored my 1st gen and dropped in many of the same songs that don't work on the 7th gen. They play fine. I have no viruses on my system. I run Bit Defender. It's up to date and I run a deep system scan about twice a month. No reported issues, and I don't have anyt software that should be touching the mp3 files.

The thought of a virus did occur to me. Unless the 1st gen software is more resistant, I would think that ipod would have been affected as well.

I would be surprised to think that my hard drive is dying. My computer is less than 3 years old and I think it's crashed maybe twice in the time I've owned it, plus I think I would have seen other issues with other programs if my hard drive was in trouble..No?

The truth is, a good chunk of my music was pulled in from Napster years ago on an older computer. When I bought the new one I transferred everything over without issue. All the music stored on the hard drive plays perfectly as it does in itunes. It's just that 7th gen that refuses to cooperate.

The one thing that bugs me though is that why would it have worked for a few months and then all of a sudden just stop? I know that sounds ike a virus, but there's nothing there.

 

[cjmnews]

Oh, Napster!

There was at one time, a bit of software that would make iPods and iTunes detect and refuse to play Napster files. I didn't think this was still active. Maybe it is.

Now this does not explain the purchased files getting corrupt.

Now, the 7th Gen uses the lightning connector, and your first gen uses the 30 pin connector.

Since you seem to be tech savvy and have a healthy system, I have to suspect a bad or non-Apple Lightning connector cable or damaged USB port.

Try a new cable, report back.

 

[TedSaid]

Tried that already. I used the lightning connector from our ipad and different combinations of cables and USB ports. Same result.

Here are a few shots in the dark...

Could an Apple update have created some type of interference causing the Nano to become intolerant? Does that make any sense?

What about ID tags? I believe all non-istore songs are at v2.3

Can missing VBR headers cause this or MPEG stream errors? I got these messages from MP3val on a few of the files I tested, but again, I dropped those files into the 1st gen and they work.

Also...when I organized my library I did lot of manual messing around in the "get info" area of itunes. As you know Apple sorts things as it sees fit and I grouped all my songs and playlists without using any outside software. Basically it was a lot of free form typing in the Get Info / Info area. I manually changed the Song Name, Artist, Album Artist and set up my own Grouping. Some other fields are blanks, others are populated with info that didn't affect the sorting. Sounds silly, but could this have done anything, and what about playlists interfering?

Sorry...maybe these are a stretch, but I've been at this for a month.

 

[cjmnews]

Is your iTunes library on an external drive?
What is the drive letter?
What is the drive letter of the nano?

If they are the same, or your nano is getting a drive letter of another drive then corruption can occur.

 

[TedSaid]

Seems okay, both are on the "C" drive.

 

[cjmnews]

If the drive letter of your Nano is C, that is the problem!

Two devices having the same drive letter causes corruption.

Changing the drive letter steps:
1. Right click on my computer and select manage.
2. Click on Disk management
3. Find your the Drive you want to change.
4. Right click on it, select "Change drive letter or path"
5. Give your Drive the letter it should have like ( I: )
6. Click OK until all the disk management windows are closed.

I tend to set the iPod drives at a higher letter to prevent interference with external drives. I like I: for iPods.

 

[TedSaid]

I just want to be clear on this before I start making any changes. As it is, I basically have only one drive on my system. Everything is under the C drive. If I understand you properly I'm going into disk management, creating a new drive and then transferring the ipod over that drive. Correct?

 

[cjmnews]

No. Plug in your iPod, see what drive letter it is getting assigned. You said it was getting assigned C and that would be a problem.

 

[TedSaid]

Sorry, misunderstood you. When plugged in it's coming up under the E Drive

 

[cjmnews]

Generally tagging has no issue on iPods, especially if they are v2.3 ID3 tags.

Updates are usually well tested, and if there are issues, they make updates fairly quick (my iPhone 6 is on iOS 8.0.2 now).

Get Info can fix a lot of things. But with MP3 files, sometimes iTunes does not write out the tags to the files. Usually this can cause issues where Artist Name updates to fix spelling are reversed when the song is played. The fix for this is to select the tracks (or all tracks, as this command will affect MP3 only) right click one of the selected tracks, choose Convert ID3 Tags, then select version 2.3 and click OK. This will write all iTunes information to the tracks themselves.

You may want to try that to see if that removes some of the issues.

Outside of that I would try syncing all non-Napster songs to see if that old detection capability is still there. Traveling today so responses will be severely delayed.

 

[TedSaid]

None of that works. I've gone through all those steps. The non-napster won't play. After a restore I tried dropping in only a few songs that I knew were ripped from store bought CD's. No luck.

I would question the software blocking Napster specifically. Who knows, maybe the block exists, but Napster was at it's height over 10 years ago and if there was a block in place I would think (logically) it would have affected the 1st gen Nano which was bought in 04 or 05. Why would that pop up now on a 7th gen?

I'm guessing it's some needle in a haystack thing, but as I mentioned I've been at this for pretty much a month and it's frustrating as I'm putting in way more time and energy into this problem than should necessary be just to be able to listen to my music.

BTW...I caved yesterday and bought a 16gb Sony Walkman. I don't need any bells and whistles. I just want to be able to listen to the music properly, so let's see how that one reacts to my files. Thanks for your time, I'll get back to you.

 

[cjmnews]

With iPods, usually a feature is added and never removed. It is possible the Napster piece is still there. Maybe it's not.

Missing VBR headers could be causing some issues, but if they play on iTunes and other devices, they should be fine.