Filed under: iPod Family
iPod nano freak-out
I have officially had my first buggy experience with my iPod nano. Yesterday, during the commute home, the person sitting next to me exclaimed, "It's so small!" as I was pulling the nano out of my backpack. I began bragging about the nano, recommending that she go buy one immediately, and began showing her all the features.... or at least, that's what I was planning on doing when the nano totally freaked out.I was playing a song off of the new Dandy Warhols album (get it, btw; it rocks better than their last one; sounds more like Come Down, which is their best album to date, imho) when I noticed that the album artwork was only loading for every other song. Then, I tried to show her the photo features of the nano. I clicked on my photo album as she exclaimed, "It takes pictures, too?!?!" As I said, "No"—and made a mental note to myself to build a camera attachment for the nano and become rich—I noticed to my dismay that none of the pictures were loading. "That's weird," I said, as she asked if I already had pictures on it or not. The battery was on the low end, so I said that that may have had something to do with it. Then I tried to go back to listening to the Dandy Warhols, who had for some reason stopped playing. When I got back over to Currently Playing, I found the nano totally freaking out starting to play a song, then failing and jumping to the next song, so fast that there was no audio playing and the screen just kept switching rapidly between song titles. None of the controls worked. So, I had to force a reset (middle button and menu held down simultaneously for several seconds). The nano rebooted and all was well.
Anybody else out there noticed this odd sort of bugginess? Wondering if I should take mine by the Apple Store for replacement or if this is a 'normal' freak-out for flash-memory based devices...
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
aLEXz said 8:11AM on 12-12-2005
Two problems. One, have problems disconnecting my pod nano from computer. Everytime i put disconnect hardware, it gives me an error saying that some program is still using my pod. However, iTunes and any related "i" program is turned off. Whats goin on? Two, my music quiz option on my nano doesn't work well. It worked once first time i tried it, and now it gives me an error saying "No songs found" when i have over 500 songs on my nano. ??? Anyone have these problems before?
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Deerhoof said 11:18AM on 9-22-2005
I've had that happen once on the 3G and 4G iPods that I've had (both 20GB) and I've known a few people that it's happened too. The reset has always worked to stop it.
I think only have two freakouts in two years isn't too bad.
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Anil said 11:26AM on 9-22-2005
I noticed a bug, or a feature, or something different about my nano this morning. You know how the menus sweep from right to left...mine were sweeping upwards from bottom to top, and I thought it odd. It hadn't done that before, and it won't repeat now. It's back to "normal". Mind you, it did look a bit more interested when it happened...
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Jason said 11:32AM on 9-22-2005
I'm having battery issues and volume probs. On a flight from Minneapolis to Portland (3.5 hours), my fully charged Nano battery indicator went all the way into the red. During the same flight, my volume would randomly crank up, nearly deafening me. I brought it in to the local Apple store where I was told to restore (reinstall firmware and format) the Nano and test it out. If, they said, the Nano has any similar issues, I could bring it back and take their last remaining 4GB white Nano which currently has a sticker with my name on it.
I re-charged the Nano and set it to play in my desk drawer for the night. So far I'm at about 6 hours and the battery indicator is a paper-thin red sliver - maybe one or two pixels wide. I think the Nano is supposed to get about 14 hours of play-time. If so, it's getting about 40% of advertised play-time.
Looks like I may get Oregon's "last" Nano today.
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halt001 said 11:47AM on 9-22-2005
I've had iTunes do exactly what you describe, playing music very fast (about 10x) and no sound. You see the time slider moving very fast. This only happened with iTunes 5.0. Never seen it on an iPod though.
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Dan Shewmaker said 11:57AM on 9-22-2005
I've had this exact thing happen to me on twice my iPod Photo (30Gb) in a year. It's as if the was an encoding error on each song and the iPod just keeps skipping to the next song... I could only fix it with a hard reset. It's very rare and non-repeatable - I can see how this would be frustrating for a fairly non-tech person that doesn't know about the hard reset.
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Dan said 11:59AM on 9-22-2005
I thought I would chime in to balance out the discussion. I've had a 2nd Gen iPod (10GB) for three years. I use it everyday, and it has never caused me a single problem. I'm so impressed with the durability and quality that I can't imagine purchasing anything else. (Except maybe a nano in the future!)
I replaced the battery this past spring and continue to get daily enjoyment from it. And aside from the battery replacement, I've never experiences a bug, hiccup or any other kind of dissapointment.
It's the highest quality product I've ever owned.
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jonas said 12:10PM on 9-22-2005
happens to my mini sometimes too. usually (only?) when battery is low. it will try to play song, fail, try the next, fail, etc..
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Damon said 1:53PM on 9-22-2005
My iPod Mini 1st Gen did something similar as well. I have an iTrip on the top and it aparently didn't turn off when the iPod did, draining the battery almost completely. When I went to go play songs in the car, it was skipping almost every song in my playlist, and would only play two. Then I looked again at the playlist and discovered that the songs it was skipping were the ones I bought from the iTunes Music Store! On the Apple forums I found that if you just plug the mini in and sync it to the computer, it will solve this problem. I didn't try the hard reset thing (mostly because I don't remember how to) but it didn't sound like that was working for anyone anyway....
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Jordan Merrick said 12:20PM on 9-22-2005
I've got a 4gb nano, and sometimes when changing the volume the wheel seems to freak out and bounce about, so the volume would go up and down very quickly. i think the wheel might be oversensitive but it only happens on a few occasions. other than that, it's faultless. now if only Apple could invent a non-scratching ipod...
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narco said 12:58PM on 9-22-2005
This happened to my sister's 4G 40GB iPod. It would skip through the songs without even playing a second of them. She just reinstalled the iPod software and was fine after that.
Haven't heard the new Dandy's album, nor do I have the one before that, but their albums before that are amazing. I especially liked when Zia used to play the keys topless at their shows.
Fishes,
narco.
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Brady said 5:07PM on 9-22-2005
With my 4g 20 gig iPod I've had it freak out after having not synced it for about a week. It would refuse to play any protected m4p files and only play mp3s. I figured it was just a problem with the DRM Key expiring because once I synced it again the problem would go away.
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David said 1:30PM on 9-22-2005
So is there a way to replace the battery on the Nano when it gives out? I thought I read somewhere that it's soldered in.
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Sean Sperte said 1:32PM on 9-22-2005
So far no volume issues, but yesterday my (4GB white) nano up and reset in the middle of playback. I wasn't doing anything but listening to the music.
(I've never had that happen with any previous iPod I've owned.)
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Wysiwyg said 4:40PM on 9-22-2005
Well, i had a bug in my iPod Shuffle. My player was left in pause for a while (about 20 minutes) and when i tried do resume the music no sound came at all. The play/pause button, when pressed again, made the green led to blink, as the player should do if it is paused. I pressed it once more and nothing happened, it only came back after i turned the iPod off and started it again. Maybe if it had a screen i could see the player going through the songs like your nano?
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Vic said 4:03PM on 9-22-2005
Think you may have answered your own question at the beginning of your article... "I took the nano out of my backpack...". Suspect that while in your backpack something inadvertently pressed multiple 'buttons' on the Clickwheel and screwed things up. Once Reset, I'd hit the Lock button before putting it back in your backpack, or keep it in your shirt pocket - but unless you Lock it you stand a good chance of doing the same thing again and again...
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Orijinal said 1:50PM on 9-22-2005
Maybe if I won an iPod from TUAW, I would know...
But seriously, I did see something similar happening to the nanos at an Apple Store. It was near the end of the day and the batteries were all very low. Two of them wouldn't load pictures. I plugged them in so they could charge and everything was fine after that.
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systemsboy said 2:07PM on 9-22-2005
This always happens anytime you try to demo something: everything works perfectly, right up to the moment you want to show it off, and then -- BAM! -- freak-out. Functionality then returns immediately after the threat of demonstration is over.
Is there a term for this? If not, someone should coin one.
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James Hare said 2:21PM on 9-22-2005
Systemsboy:
That would be Murphy's Law.
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Shawn McEntyre said 2:36PM on 9-22-2005
Yup. I had the exact same thing happen to me. When I reset it, all was well, almost. It figures too, I had just bought the new Death Cab for Cutie album (Plans) of iTMS and loaded it. I really wanted to listen to it while I was at work too, but to my dismay, the nano freaked. Even after I reset it it still wouldn't play death cab, but everything else worked. After a good charge (the batt was almost dead) It worked perfect. Oh little black nano, how can I stay mad at you!
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