Pissy iPod

Pissy in the American sense (Picky Prima Dona) but the alcohol related British version is not far off.

My 16GB iPod Nano has been having odd fits of "can not be written to or read from" messages while syncing. Even though whatever I was trying to load on it played fine on my Mac. The last straw was today when it wouldn't load an Audible.com book I wanted to listen to this weekend. It wouldn't load it, even though it looked like it mostly worked it wouldn't show up in the menus. This weekend I'm going to be on the road for at least six hours so I was willing to spend some time to fix it.

First of all there are some podcasts that just won't load and I have to uncheck them, but the book was appearing to work. This problem is not completely fixed, but I did get a lot further by doing what they suggest on the Apple web site (figuring out the url is an exercise left to the reader.) I may have left out a step but this is the gist.

• update iTunes on the Mac
• attach the iPod
  
• select Restore
  
• let it wipe its brain (you will need your administrator password for this)
  
• check: Sync only checked songs and video
• in each ipod tab uncheck: Sync Music, Movies, and Podcasts (and click Apply)
• you should have a mostly empty iPod
  
• then selectively add things back
• if a non-essential item doesn't load then uncheck it

If you're not sure which one is not loading when you get the can't read message then click ok and try the sync again and watch the top to see what it's trying to load. When you find out what it is then go back into your library and uncheck it. Then try syncing again - it should pick up where it left off.

My book has loaded. Other items have not like Sasha Baron Cohen's (Borat et al) Fresh Air interview but I just listened to that now on the Mac. It also doesn't like half of Fareed Zakaria's videos which make's me think it's suspicious of those with funny names but it's full of World Music and lots and lots of funny names. Only podcasts and videos. It's balked at the occasional Stephanie Miller too. Maybe it's just a critic.
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I have two iPod Nanos which I love but they are the more recalcitrant pieces of Apple hardware I have ever owned. Sort of similar to my dysfunctional relationship with my Canon Camera but no whacking is required.