160Gb iPod classic stuck on Apple logo

These things have up to 40hrs battery life. I thought that was a good thing but it's a long time to wait to see if it fixes problem...

RDH, I have the exact same problem. I took it back for an even exchange and tried the new one and got the exact same result again! Don't know what to do now.

I'm having the exact same problem on an iPod Classic 160 gb I took out of the box last night. I connected to a PC, synched with no problems, ejected, scrolled through the coverflow, connected back to PC to charge. When I woke up this morning, I see a gray screen with a white Apple logo and it never goes away.

1. I've changed the hold button and attempted rebooting 15-20 times with no luck.
2. I've tried connecting to the PC with no luck.
3. I've tried connecting via a power cord only with no luck.

I'm about to shove my foot up someone's ###.

I think it is tracks with corrupted or other wise incompatible cover art. I think it is stopping the iPod from loading the database correctly.

Guys, I made the following post in another thread:

I'm on my 2nd 160 GB 6G silver iPod now after 48 hours. I'm completely frustrated, and considering taking the 2nd unit back for credit until these problems have worked themselves out.

The first unit shipped from Shanghai and arrived Monday. It played successfully with album art upon loading a few albums onto it. I loaded about 40GB of songs (with album art) to it last night and woke up yesterday morning to find it stuck at the gray and white Apple reboot screen. The iPod will not respond on it's own, nor will my PC recognize the iPod is connected anymore (I assume due to it not booting).

I attempted:
1) Rebooting the iPod using the menu and select buttons.
2) Connecting it to the PC USB port, and later rebooting while connected.
3) Plugging it into a different USB port, and later rebooting while connected.
4) Connecting it to a power outlet only, and later rebooting while connected.
5) Following multiple support scripts off the Apple support website.

All of these attempts resulted in the same gray and white Apple reboot graphic. I took the 1st unit back to my local Apple store this evening. After talking the employee through all of my troubleshooting steps, and them basically attempting the same steps themselves, they agreed to exchange the unit for another 160 GB 6G silver iPod.

After successfully putting 5-6 GB of music on the 2nd iPod and playing it (without album art this time per the suggestion of posts on iLounge), I proceeded to move the rest of my collection (another 35 GB or so) onto the iPod. I watched the sync for a while and walked away from the computer. When I came back to the iPod a few hours later to find the sync complete and the iPod still connected to my USB adapter, I'm right back to square one again -- wouldn't you know, the glorious gray and white Apple reboot graphic screen.

Obviously, there are users here, and elsewhere not posting here, that have had only positive experiences with their 6G classics that have been hitting their doors this week. I have no doubt in that.

However, I sit here in complete and utter frustration. I have previously purchased and used the 3G, Mini, and 5G with no problems whatsoever. In fact, I can still successfully sync the 5G (which I still have) using the exact same library of songs that I'm putting on the 6G. I realize the 6G uses a new operating system and that synching of music files may not operate exactly the same as previous incarnations of the device, but this is absolutely pathetic. Here I am with a 5G iPod with a cracked display (which is the only reason for me upgrading in the first place) that syncs perfectly with my music, but yet two brand spanking new off the shipping dock 6G iPods that fail miserably.

Am I confident Apple will find a fix? Sure.

Have I been satisfied with their response to my exchange request? Absolutely.

But, is there a product hitting shelves and mailboxes that may have some serious problems for some users? Definitely. If content is the issue, then how were these types of content errors not picked up in Quality Assurance testing? I'm EXTREMELY disappointed in my 6G experiences thus far. I hope, from previously pleasant experiences with the iPod product lines, that I don't find myself skipping another generation and settling for still using my 5G 60 GB iPod "shuffle" since I can barely read the screen.

Kybjones

UPDATE: I've found a way to at least reformat my iPod after this type of crash happens. Now, the following steps suck, but it's the only way I've gotten an iPod to something different from the gray and white Apple logo.

Hold Menu and Select for 5-10 seconds to reboot. When the screen turns black for a reboot, immediately hit Play and Select at the same time and hold it for 5-10 seconds. This takes you into Disk Mode. Connect to the USB cord. It will take iTunes up to 5 minutes to recognize the iPod is even there, but at least that's an improvement over the computer never seeing the iPod when the gray and white Apple logo is there.

In Disk mode, open up your file browser and go to the Ipod_Control folder and subfolders and delete all of the music files. Eject the iPod from both ITunes and your computer. You'll see the Checkmark in Disk Mode. Reconnect to the USB cord. When the iPod appears on the left hand side of iTunes, highlight the iPod. Select the "Refresh" software button. This will begin to download a update file. This process took me about 20+ minutes to complete. This update file then overwrites all of the software on your iPod and at least gets you back to your beginning point.

Now, the frustrating thing is that updating this refreshed iPod with my music library begins the whole nightmare all over again. So while this is not a true fix, it at least enables you to recover from the gray and white Apple logo fiasco and get a working, empty iPod again.

Well, I was able to follow the directions from kybjones. Erased everything and started from scratch. This time I put on music only. No album cover artwork, no photos, no videos. iTunes says it synced OK and then I got the exact same result; Apple logo and computer doesn't recognize it.

So much for the incompatible cover art theory. I was hoping that was the cause so I could use it without cover art until there was a permanent fix. This is becoming quite frustrating.

I think I am going to go back to Apple and ask for a store credit--wait a couple of months and then get one--I was just wondering how many of you guys bought your classics in my region of the country (New York--tristate). Just thinking that if there is a hardware issue that it could be on Ipods shipped to this part of the country.

i was wondering, does this happen on Mac or PC?

Mine happens on a PC version of iTunes. NOTE: Since last reformatting my iPod and only loading 600-700 songs on it, it runs fine. Every attempt I've made to load my entire library of 40 GB fails.

Is this with album artwork or not?

This is the only thing that has worked on my 160gb silver classic. Thanks for the suggestion. Breaking my library into smaller "chunks" and then syncing multiple times has my previous paperweight finally working.

I've been playing around with settings and different syncs all day and I have come to conclude that I really don't think it boils down to actual tracks. I can get all of my 115gb of music on the iPod by making playlists based on alpha lists:

1=A-D
2=E-H
3=I-L
4=M-P

And so on...

After syncing just these selected playlists (with album artwork BTW) the iPod works fine. Coverflow, videos, photos...all pretty much operational.

As soon as I try to sync "all songs and playlists" I am back to the iPod being frozen on the boot-up screen (Apple logo) and the HD just spinning and spinning. I actually have to put the iPod into disk mode to get it to show up in iTunes to re-sync thereafter.

Is this a playlist issue? I know that I have a few "nested" playlists (ie-the main playlist is a compilation of several other playlists) and wonder if that is tripping the software up. I am trying yet another re-sync right now with those playlists left out to test this theory...

I've been playing around with settings and different syncs all day and I have come to conclude that I really don't think it boils down to actual tracks. I can get all of my 115gb of music on the iPod by making playlists based on alpha lists:

1=A-D
2=E-H
3=I-L
4=M-P

And so on...

After syncing just these selected playlists (with album artwork BTW) the iPod works fine. Coverflow, videos, photos...all pretty much operational.

As soon as I try to sync "all songs and playlists" I am back to the iPod being frozen on the boot-up screen (Apple logo) and the HD just spinning and spinning. I actually have to put the iPod into disk mode to get it to show up in iTunes to re-sync thereafter.

Is this a playlist issue? I know that I have a few "nested" playlists (ie-the main playlist is a compilation of several other playlists) and wonder if that is tripping the software up. I am trying yet another re-sync right now with those playlists left out to test this theory...

I did not have a chance to retest synching my entire library at once until this morning. When doing so, it crashes to the Apple logo again. I went ahead and reformatted the iPod, and then synched the entire library in "small chunks" and I'm back and working again (with album artwork).

In this case, it seems to me that the synching process is failing and it's not a content issue, as was suspected. If any of you are having crashing problems, I would suggest breaking up your library into a group of smaller playlists and then synching the playlists first. Then after all music has been moved over, go ahead and set to Sync rather than manual. This is working for me, and has been the only way to get all my music on my iPod without it crashing.

NEWEST update...

I had success with the smaller chunk syncing but I have also been able to successfully sync my entire library (115gb) at one time by just placing all of the files in one playlist. If I just select that playlist to sync everything works fine. If I try to sync all songs and playlists I'm back to a crashing/freezing iPod.

Of course, I lose my playlists and smart playlists on the iPod when I do this and I can't get the "shuffle songs" feature to work (the iPod crashes every time that is tried) but at least I have all my songs on the iPod, with artwork, and most of the functions work as they should. This is a real improvement from the paperweight status I was at for over a week.

I went ahead and gave this a shot too. When I sync all songs in one playlist, everything works. I think manually check off all of my other playlists to copy over after the intitial sync and everything works fine. As mentioned previously, none of this works when synching an entire library of songs and playlists.

Maybe you are right. Maybe the problem is in playlist synching?

OK oneydee, now I am really ####ed. I'm on vacation with the 160gb after messing around with it enough to get 20,000 songs on it. You asked if the shuffle songs feature worked on the main menu. So I went ahead and pressed "shuffle songs" and it started playing no problem.

While that was playing I decided to play a different song so I scrolled through the artist list and selected a new artist. Upon selecting an artist the iPOD went straight to the apple logo and remained there for 5 minutes.

I think this iPod is more trouble than it is worth. I have never had this many problems with my 4th or 5th gen iPods and I think I'm going to return it when I get home. All I have to do is sync all songs at once and let it lock up and return it as broken.

I should also mention I haven't tried installing iTunes 7.4.2 yet.
It could be that this version of iTunes will fix the bad files (here's hoping).

OK oneydee, now I am really ####ed. I'm on vacation with the 160gb after messing around with it enough to get 20,000 songs on it. You asked if the shuffle songs feature worked on the main menu. So I went ahead and pressed "shuffle songs" and it started playing no problem.

While that was playing I decided to play a different song so I scrolled through the artist list and selected a new artist. Upon selecting an artist the iPOD went straight to the apple logo and remained there for 5 minutes.

I think this iPod is more trouble than it is worth. I have never had this many problems with my 4th or 5th gen iPods and I think I'm going to return it when I get home. All I have to do is sync all songs at once and let it lock up and return it as broken.

DON'T GIVE IN NOW!!! KEEP THE FAITH!

While I am also pretty ticked that this thing is so buggy I feel pretty confident that Apple is gonna figure this out with Firmware updates. As someone else here pointed out we are doing a lot of the beta testing for them right now. After all this trial and error you can't just turn your shiny new device back over to Apple can ya? Hopefully some Apple folks hang out here and are taking note of this lively conversation and it's helping them find fixes.

Well it seemed like I had narrowed down the issue to bad file(s).

Now the iPod has started crashing again, even without the 'bad files'.

I may just return this thing. I'm sick of dealing with it.

Yeah exactly. If there is not another update soon that addresses these issues I will return it and just buy again later when the issues have been resolved. I'm not willing to disable artwork or only sync one big playlist and not my smart playlists, that's not how I want to use it.

Be careful, by the way, I believe the return policy is 14 days not 30.

Thanks porieux,
It looks like you are right about that 14 days. I guess I'll have to return it when I get back from vacation with 1 day to spare.

I don't think I have much choice at this point because I most certainly will not keep it as it is and I definitely do not have the time to get these problems corrected in 1 day after my return.

Mine seems to be acting better now. It seems I had added a new album which started causing problems. It was MP3s ripped from a long time ago so who knows.

It looks like I have to revert to my previous stance that this is caused by specific problematic files.

Regardless, hopefully the issue is fixed soon by Apple. Very happy with the device otherwise, but crashing is never acceptable in a CE device.

ALL of my files are AAC encoded so the issue of differently encoded files is not a viable source to blame in my case.

Well, I returned my iPod today. I explained the problem to a guy on the floor at the Apple store and he kept asking questions like he was really not believing me. He then said, "It sounds like a problem with your computer, but I'll take it back anyway."

Thanks to this quick assessment by the Apple store guy, I guess it is obvious that my computer was to blame all along! (I suppose it is impossible that the iPod could be to blame.) :rolleyes:

Anyway, I went to the counter and was asked a bunch more questions by another guy, but he gave me a full refund (no restocking fee).

Although the process seemed slightly accusatory, they did give me a full refund and I guess that's what really counts.

So now the question is, how will I know when it is OK to go back, get a new one and try again?

BTW I have tried disabling artwork as an experiment and no matter what I do the artwork is still on the iPod.

You know I have no syncing problems its equally as fast as my 5.5G was if not faster, HOWEVER when playing with ANYTHING on your iPod through iTunes results in random freezes for 10-15 seconds which is annoying as hell when trying to add album art or change tags.

hey i had the same issue with the 80gig classic kept going round in the loop of itunes saying it was corrupted and needed a restore. I phoned apple and they said just take it back. I cant see this being a hardware issue its happening to alot of people so i think it will get sorted but i took mine back anyway i got fed up fighting with it.
One thing i found that worked was restore ipod uninstall i tunes restart pc reinstall itunes reset ipod now try sync should work but with my ipod the minute the dock conector was touched, even though it was firmly cliped into the ipod, the ipod would just say ejecting it was as if the cable or port wasnt geting a secure contact and any movement broke the link to the pc causing the ipod to eject ahhh
Well as i said i returned mine to currys and am going to wait a few weeks see if there is any development in the classic Fw and mabey consider a touch ...god it comes down to memory or a new toy lol