Odd Problem with iPod Video 5.5 and iPod Classic

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plazman30

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Someone gifted me a 7th gen iPod Classic back in August. I liked it so much, that I bought a modded a 5.5 iPod with 512 GB of flash storage.

A few weeks later I found a Bose iPod dock that plugs in with a wall wart, and had a line out jack on the back. I hooked it up to the amp I had on my work desk, and all was good.

Then I got the idea to buy a full Bose Sound Dock. I bought a used Bose Sound Dock II for $60.00 off a very nice seller on Facebook Marketplace. I got it home and could not get the thing to work. With the iPod Classic, it would charge the iPod, but it would not play music. The iPod 5.5 would neither play nor charge.

I bought a 30 pin dock extender. That got the 5.5 to charge, but neither would play music.

I reached out to the seller and he met me with 4 other Sound Docks. He pulled out an iPhone 4S and an iPod Nano and he showed me how all 4 of his Sound Docks (3 Sound Dock II, and one Sound Dock portable) played music just fine on both the iPhone 4S and the first gen iPod nano.

Neither of my two iPods would play any sound on any of the 4 Sound Docks, with or without the dock extenders.

The seller happily took back the original Sound Dock II and gave me a full refund.

This left me stumped. I thought perhaps it was my iPods, but I found it odd that they play just fine on the one dock that I have.

So, I found a genuine Apple dock with a line out on it and bought that yesterday. Dropped both iPods into it and they both played just fine from the line out jack on the back of the dock.

So, I'm really confused. Is there some kind of compatibility issues with iPod Classics and the Bose Sound Dock II?
 

cjmnews

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Generally the 30 pin connector will work for all devices that have it for both charging and music.

There are fit problems at times though. Where the hole where the 30 pin connector resides is made too small for the Classic to fit. This would make the connection not work at all or get a partial connection. Cases will cause issues here.

30 pin dock extenders are hit and miss. If the extender is as fat as the iPod, it won't connect well either. Assuming you can get it seated fully, it should be able to charge and play with the device on the other end. Some extenders don't do all the pins, so they will not work with all devices, like cheaper extenders will provide the USB power, but not 3.3v power and some older iPods expect the 3.3v power.

The Bose Sound Dock II does have more up to date drivers than the original. Perhaps they used a newer Pin configuration where is uses the USB Power (pin 23) and Transfer (pins 25/27) instead of the original 3.3v power (Pin 18) and Line Out (pins 3/4).

There may be a check for authorized accessories that could be happening here. If the extender doesn't have the Apple chip in it, it may not work, same with the Bose Dock. I don't know if this is an actual issue or not, but some off-brand cables do not work for this reason, so I thought I should mention it. This is usually tied to video output.

There was a post about some Bose Docks that were working, that stopped. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5624720 Not a lot of information there, but apparently restoring the iPod will make it work again. I suspect this would not fix your issue.
 

plazman30

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I found another thread here on iLounge and 2 others on the Internet about Bose Sound Dock IIs not working with iPod Videos and iPod Classics for some people.

I took my dock extender and used it to connect to the Bose dock and the Apple dock I have on my desk, and both docks will play music and charge the iPod.

This one really has me stumped.
 

cjmnews

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Probably a pin difference. Line Out vs USB, 3.3v vs USB power.
 

plazman30

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Just odd that there are people that have classic iPods and don't have the issue. It probably had something to do with the firmware version on the device. Since these things have been discontinued for a while, I don't expect any product support from Bose.
 
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