I upgraded to 2.0 a few days ago and since then whenever i open iTunes with my ipod connected, or i connect my ipod with with iTunes running, it just beachballs for about 30 seconds until the ipod shows up in the devices menu. what's the deal? is there some setting or something that's causing it to take so long?
Yeah i saw that too, and went poking around a bit.
If you go to activity monitor after you connect the iPod, and do get info on the itunes app process while the beachball is spinning, and look at the open files and ports tab, and scroll to the bottom of that panel, you can actually see the app marching through a bunch of your protected files on the mounted iPod device in real time, one by one.
In my case when I looked, it was opening a bunch of movies and videos, apparently. Anyway I saw a bunch of m4v files, and later on some m4p songs marching by (the front parts of the names were those compressed ipod-coded things so I don't know which tracks they were).
I don't know why it is doing what it's doing. It can't be all the files or I'd still be waiting for my Classic to mount from two days ago when I added some stuff to it. Something to do with checking DRM or marking files that are on the ipod but not on the computer I've connected it to? I often load music from one powerbook and movies from another one, onto any given video-capable iPod that I own, and I don't have a problem watching the content after that, or at least up til now I haven't. Maybe I should check that out before I find myself on the road with unplayable tracks.
Anyway it's odd to see that happening. I feel like I should be playing Sting's "Every breath you take" into my brain from some other Ipod while it's happening. Talk about Big Brother! "... every move you make..."
Meanwhile you're right that it takes a damn long time for iTunes to settle down and let me start adjusting the iPod's content. You said 30 seconds, is that how long it is, it feels like minutes. I guess I'm spoiled by how fast the device used to show up for work when I plugged it in before iTunes 7.7 came along.