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iPod Is anyone else's 2G Nano just plain unreliable?

Sesshi

Sesshi

macrumors G3
Original poster
Jun 3, 2006
8,113
1
One Nation Under Gordon
It seems like every day I have to reboot the damned thing. It wasn't this unreliable for a short while after I got it. But while swapping between PC/Mac and maybe a firmware update later, it got more unreliable.

But at that time what I wanted from a player changed and I ended up switching over to the iRiver and more recently the Cowon for my flash needs. For music, I still prefer these players but I like the podcast resume feature and the read or not indication of the Nano, I've started listening to more podcasts again so I've started using the Nano more as of late as a podcast machine but it's just driving me up the wall.

I've tried restoring the firmware (on Win only - zero point in having an HFS formatted MP3 player) a couple of times to no avail.

About every third or fourth time I dock it, it doesn't show up. The frequency varies but maybe once every two days depending on use I have to reboot it because it crashes when playing back a track (the menu sort of half slides into the now Playing display and freezes like that). I can't readily reproduce the errors so I guess I'm stuffed as far as support goes. This is not my normal experience of iPod reliability.

What say you? Is anyone having similar problems? Is there a conclusive diagnostic test I can run?
 
Happened again yesterday. Crashed just when I started playback of a track, the display starts to slide over to the 'Now Playing' one from the menu but freezes while doing that.
 
I've only had to reboot mine once since I bought it two days after they were released. That was after it hung when I ejected it from iTunes. It gets nearly daily use and is problem free otherwise.
 
My first one had to go back to Apple to be replaced the the screen stopped working.

The second one has frozen twice in about a month, requiring a reset. Also at the same time it is starting to display the 'now playing' screen interestingly.
 
I sent a first gen back for a cracked display, the replacement acts weird sometimes, but I think it's static building up on the Agent18 case - only when connected directly to my Jeep's SuperTuner. A new Red 4GB nano works flawlessly everyday. It doesn't need a case. I think the 2nd Gen nanos (nanoes?) are the best iPod yet.

Z
 
Since it occurs so uncontrollably I can't really demonstrate this as a fault to anyone.

Just thinking aloud here, but I wonder if it's something podcast specific? I don't put any 'normal' music on this Nano anymore. Anyone aware of any problems on that side?
 
I have the black 8GB and it used to be fairly unstable whenever I used my Nike+, and often had to be resat, but after upgrading the firmware to 1.1.2 I've not had any problems with it, whatsoever...
 
My 5G will freeze from time to time and my 2g nano doesn't always see the connection but it could be my isee case causing the problem.
 
Do you notice any correlation between updating with the computer and the freezing? If I update my nano and then let it turn off for a while (15+ minutes), after I turn it back on it freezes when it is switching to the now playing screen. If I use it immediately after updating it is fine.
 
Sesshi said:
I've tried restoring the firmware (on Win only - zero point in having an HFS formatted MP3 player) a couple of times to no avail.
Click to expand...

There are very good reasons to use HFS+ on iPod. HFS+ is far more reliable than FAT32 (particularly at recovering from error/crash) and more efficient (512 byte block size vs. whopping 4 KB = more disk space).
 
Sesshi said:
Interesting. I'll have to try that. Come to think of it, it is always after a sync... I thync.
Click to expand...

I'm experiencing the same problem, with podcasts locking up the nano (also second-gen). Never any problems with 'regular music'. The screen starts to slide over to the song display and wham, frozen. A hard reset and it invariably works again, even being able to play the troublesome podcast.

I've updated the software to 1.1.2, and I just got this behavior again last night, so it didn't fix it for me.

I also use a Nike+ kit. Looking forward to a solution.
 
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