I have had my ipod for at least two years now. I have never had trouble with it playing video before. I have watched quite a few movies on it. All of a sudden it won't play any of the movies anymore. I didn't change anything that I know of. It is the exact same movies I have been watching on it since I first got the ipod. When I select the movie that I want to watch the screen goes black and the play symbol shows up in the right corner and the battery in the left. They fade away and the screen freezes. I can pull up the timeline and move the cursor just once then everything is frozen. It never shows any screenshot or plays any audio. I have to hold the center button and the menu button down to restart it. I tried reseting the whole ipod to factory settings, taking all the movies off and putting just a few back on, putting no music and only movies and nothing has worked. I have checked and double checked and all my movies are mpeg-4. The tv-out setting is off. I don't know what else to do. I don't want to give up on it but I can't think of anything else. Does anyone have any ideas for me?
restore/update it again....but it sounds like there is something commonalty wrong with it...Have you ever seen the red X sign? you will probably have to send it in, or just buy a referb off apple.com for a nice discount, its the same quality as new.
I'm in the EXACT same situation, only I haven't trid wiping it out and going back to factory settings. I had a bunch of movies and tv shows that used to play fine. All of a sudden, they won't play anymore, exactly as you mentioned. I've been searching the net for a bit now, but haven't come up with anything. I'll check back in here if I do find anything, but for now, just wanted you to know that you're not alone in this problem.
emileb, restoreing it is a nessesary thing to test if there is anything you can do, i greatly suggest you try this, but sorry i dont have high hopes for it, if you are on warrenty cash in on that immediatly.
I did end up trying to restore it. No go. Even wiping it clean and re installing the software on it didn't fix it. My warrenty is done now too, so its too late for that. I now have an extremely expensive portable disk drive.
emileb5 your ipod still plays music right? You know I thought when my ipod first started not playing the video that it was a good excuse to buy the new 3g iphone to replace it because I have an old razor anyways. My ipod still played music so I wouldn't have to put all my music on my iphone and take up that space on both. But alas I go to the AT&T store only to find out that they won't allow me to buy the 3g iphone because I'm not "eligible". I'm just a little bitter but oh well, looks like I'm stuck with a crappy ipod and a crappy phone at least until January. I don't even know if I will buy one then because who knows how long it will be before its outdated. So much for upgrade, I hope you have better luck on whatever alternative you find.
I'm having the exact same issue - starting at the same time. I've completely restored it and still it doesn't work. If anyone gets an update, I'd die to hear it. I wonder if this is a bug for Apple to fix?
Ya, it still plays music, but I sure didn't need to spend up near $500 for a mp3 player! I would love to get a new Iphone, but I'm stuck in a contract with Bell. 2 years to go, and I lost my HTC6800 phone at the airport. Now I'm stuck with a crap phone my friend gave me. No credits from bell for another 3 months, and they don't carry the Iphone anyhow. Only Fido and Rogers have them up here. Crappy phone, busted up Ipod.... Sometimes, technology is more frustrating than anything.
Just a bump. Almost september now, done tonnes of web surfing on this topic. I have found lots of people who are going through the same thing, but no fixes as of yet. I'm still pissed at having bought a $500 mp3 player.
I have the exact same problem. Mine just started a few weeks ago. I am trying to play video podcasts. THey play fine through itunes on my PC, they sync to the ipod and I can play them off the ipod on other PCs but not on the ipod themselves. If I go through Music, I can even play just the audio track. It seems to have started roughly around the time I updated itunes to 8.0.1. Not sure if that is a fluke or not.
I just went over to the apple forums and found the fix for me. It hasn't worked for everyone but it is worth atry. I'm including the answer below. superayman "Hey everyone.i jus had this problem about 2 days ago and i was looking on the computer for a way to fix this little problem. well i didnt find a solution so i tried my own way and......PRESTO! in about 10 seconds flat i got my videos up and running again, all you have to do is reset it. DONT WORRY! resetting it wont delete all your music, photos, ect. all you have to do is hold your center button and menu button on your ipod for about 10 seconds or until your ipod shuts down, then it will reset and then. BAM!!!! your videos are fixed. hope this works for you guys" There was another solution from mdlevitt "I tried the center button and menu button trick and it didn't work. So I went into video settings, and noticed that the TV Out was set to On. I changed that to Off, and then the videos started working properly. Hope this helps." I hope one of those two works for you guys.
I did both of those, but it didn't fix mine. I even did a complete reset, lost all my music and had to reload the updated ipod software.... Still no go
My problem doesn't bother me anymore. Someone stepped on my ipod so the screen is all jacked up. Now I can't see anything so its basically an ipod shuffle.
