Skipping selected songs
[359 byte] By [seinman] at [2007-11-9 15:30:03] 
I have a 10 gig 3g iPod, and sometimes when I select a song via the browse menu it doesn't play it. It displays the song name/artist on the screen for a few seconds, as if it's loading up the song, but then skips to the next one. If I press back, it goes back to that song and plays fine. It's VERY annoying. Does the new firmware fix this?
# 1 Re: Skipping selected songs
This isn't caused by firmware--it's caused by the program you upload tunes with. What are you using? If you're using iTunes, have you upgraded to the latest version?Oh, I'm assuming you're Windows. Are you?
Adam
ashawley at 2007-11-15 14:11:50 >
# 2 Re: Skipping selected songs
I think it normal cuz it happens to me to but it not a problem with the ipod . It not the program you use cuz if it was it would do this all the time and the same songs. Updating the firmware will not fix this too but again this normal and not a serious flaw with the ipod. You can call this a "technally hiccup". I learn to deal with this since this is not a serious flaw or defect but when you have large files to read, differect file type(ACC or MP3) or the memory is full it will skip but not complete stop you from going back to play it. Plus if the file is bad but you can play it on your PC/Mac it may need to be re-encoded again but only if it will not play on the Ipod. Rapid flipping from one song to another can also cuz this too. Again, I had this happen to me a few thing and trust me it is normal.BellnoPred at 2007-11-15 14:12:50 >
# 3 Re: Skipping selected songs
Originally posted by ashawley This isn't caused by firmware--it's caused by the program you upload tunes with. What are you using? If you're using iTunes, have you upgraded to the latest version?
Oh, I'm assuming you're Windows. Are you?
Adam
Interesting that you metion what software i'm using... now that I think about it, this has only been happening since I started using iTunes. Before that I used ephPod and I didn't have the problem. I'm running Windows XP Pro. Not sure if I have the latest version of iTunes or not... how would I go about checking?
seinman at 2007-11-15 14:13:48 >
# 4 Re: Skipping selected songs
i'm having the exact same problem. very annoying. i did not notice this until i a. upgraded firmware to 2.1
b. switched to itunes (using latest version)
hmm..apple needs to resolve or i will have to go back to ephpod and 2.0.
anyone figured out?
30gb Win
rick..
roa71 at 2007-11-15 14:14:54 >
# 5 Re: Skipping selected songs
OK folks. Here's what might be the problem. The first release of iTunes had a bug in it where it would put all of your tunes in one (or sometimes 4) of the iPods 20 F00-F19 folders. When you have too many tunes in one of these folders the iPod hits a timeout problem in searching for the track.So, to remedy this situation you should make sure you have the latest version if iTunes. Check for Updates under help.
Once you've installed it, I would do a restore on your ipod and reupload all your tunes to get the tunes distributed randomly across the F00-F19 folders.
Adam
ashawley at 2007-11-15 14:15:55 >
# 6 Re: Skipping selected songs
I have to believe this problem is related to the firmware update. Prior to the 2.1 firmware update I did not experience this problem. I use a Mac iPod (3rd gen) and have always used the latest and greatest version of iTunes. I've reset the thing and have reformatted it and uploaded the songs again - all to no avail. I think it will take a new firmware update to fix it.It is QUITE annoying.
astromac at 2007-11-15 14:16:53 >
# 7 Re: Skipping selected songs
I'm getting the same thing on my windows 3G 40Gb iPod. I was using the V2.1 and the latest iTunes but even when reverting to 2.0.1 it still hasn't fixed it, I guess it's a problem with iTunes. I'm gonna try it with ephod, I'll let everyone know how I get on.Any news on the next update of iTunes or of the Firmware?
Ian Vinten at 2007-11-15 14:17:57 >
# 8 Re: Skipping selected songs
i got the same problem- but does everyone have this problem or is it certein ipods?I just got mine and can exchange and if an exchange fixes this then i want a new you but if not i dont want to waste my time for nothing... all my files are okay, im on 2.1, no special characted, i have tried restorting, what else can it be?evilrkd at 2007-11-15 14:18:51 >
# 9 Re: Skipping selected songs
Two things are known to cause this problem. 1) not having your songs distributed evenly throughout all 20 folders on the iPod. This used to happen with ephpod and it also happened with the first release of iTunes (a bug).Eventually ephpod was changed so that the default was to distribute them evenly throughout the 20 folders and iTunes was updated.
The other thing that can cause this problem is foreign characters in your file names (i.e. umlauts or accents). Now, if you switched from ephpod to iTunes and then started noticing this problem, that would make sense. Ephpod renames your files to numbers when it uploads, iTunes does not.
So, check your file names.
I personally don't belive it's a bug in the 2.1 firmware because if it was you'd see more complaints.
ashawley at 2007-11-15 14:19:59 >
# 10 Re: Skipping selected songs
adam,I just got my ipod so im running the latest itunes and checked to make sure the songs are spread evenly through out all the folders
i have all regural named songs, not one international song on my ipod.
can it be that I have some mp3s that are around 10 mb (led zeppelin songs can get lengthy or can having shuffle on cause this (maybe the task of picking a random song is too much and it might take longer) - just suggestions because I know it can't be one of the 2 things you said and my ipods hard drive seems to work fine otherwise
ok i just realised that i have 2 album wraps on my ipod (the reason being that it just happened to be in my mp3 folder and i chose it with itunes to put on ipod). apple does not suggest having mp3s around 10 mbs but these album wraps are 48 MB and 85MB mp3s EACH! (the whole album in one mp3)- i am going to delete them asap but do you guys think that this could have done any damage to my ipod or anything?
EDIT: it seemed to do the trick so as of now consider another cause of the skipping being that you have mp3s that are too large
evilrkd at 2007-11-15 14:21:00 >
# 11 Re: Skipping selected songs
This problem is driving me nuts. I have the latest version of iTunes. I'm using iTunes exclusively now but most of my music was ripped and transferred using LAME/Media Center 9. No funky characters that I'm aware of.30 gig, 3rd gen, Version 2.1.
Gromit at 2007-11-15 14:22:00 >
# 12 Re: Skipping selected songs
After I've gone back to ephod everything works fine. Bye iTunes, bye!! :D
Ian Vinten at 2007-11-15 14:22:58 >
# 13 Re: Skipping selected songs
I have this problem also. It seems like a timing issue -- the selected song gets skipped if loading it takes too long ("too long" apparently being more than 2 seconds or thereabouts). Also, I only started experiencing this problem after I had had my iPod for about a week -- probably because until then, my music collection was still small enough that everything could be loaded quickly. (I had no mp3s when I bought the iPod; I started ripping my CD collection right after, and it took me about a week and a half to complete the job; I synced the iPod every day, so the collection on the iPod grew by about 2 gig per day during that time. The problem started about when my collection got to 12 GB or so.)My hardware & software specs are:
40 GB iPod (pretty new: purchased December 7th this year).
I use a PC running Windows 98SE with the FireWire patch, and with an Adaptec AFW-4300 FireWire card.
The iPod was initialized using Updater 2.1.
I use ephPod 2.58 to upload my mp3 files.
All my mp3s were created by ripping CDs using Windows Media Player 9, using the InterVideo mp3 plugin, at 192 kbps with VBR.
According to iPod->About, there are 2792 songs on the device, the disk has a capacity of 37.1 GB, with 18.5 GB free.
tokken at 2007-11-15 14:23:54 >
# 14 Re: Skipping selected songs
Followup to my previous message:In the ephPod configuration, I set the range of folders to use to F00-F19 (the default is F00 only!). I then wiped the iPod and reloaded everything from the PC.
This seems to have fixed the problem -- at least, I haven't been able to reproduce it any more, and songs do seem to load more quickly now (and thus hopefully avoiding the timeout).
I guess the problem is that when thousands of songs are stored in one directory, the average time to find a file can get too large, probably because there's a sequential directory scan involved somewhere. I'm a bit surprised that this should slow down things so much, but there you are.
Here's what I did:
1) Click "Configure EphPod" in the toolbar
2) In the "Configuration" dialog box, select the "Advanced Options" tab
3) In the "Write to Music Directories from F00 to F" text field, change the number from 0 to 19
4) Click OK
And then reload everything:
5) iPod Tools -> Wipe iPod Clean
6) File -> Save All Changes to iPod
7) Add Directory, etc.
tokken at 2007-11-15 14:24:59 >
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