flat4

Thanks alot Apple i updated my itunes this morning to version 7.2 while my ipod was plugged in and now i can't play any songs on it, if i try and play anything on it through itunes i get an exclamation mark next to the song, if i try and play them directly on the ipod it skips through every song one after the other i'm just not in the mood to have to rescue 50Gb of songs off the thing to try and restore it anyone got any ideas?

Markus

The ! in iTunes tends to indicate it cannot find the file on disk. I'd select one of the tracks and have a look under the File menu and see if there is a "Show in Windows Explorer" or "Reveal File" type command (Am on a Mac and can't recall what the PC name of the command is - on Mac it's "Show/Reveal in Finder"). Use that and see if it finds the file or not.
If it does, then iTunes is being a right bastid (I've heard that the 7.2 update is actually crashing a fair few Apple TV's) and you'll probably need to recreate the iTunes database (iTunes Library file). Export any/all playlists you want to keep BEFORE doing anything else as they are in the Libray file and will be lost if/when you trash that.

What you might also try is double clicking on one of the files displaying the ! and iTunes should ask you if you wish to locate the file, click Yes and then navigate to where the track is on disk, and select it. Then see if iTunes picks it up. In theory it should then resolve other tracks (at least those in the same folder) that have the problem.

I think the problem with the iPod is related, in that the iTunes database on the iPod cannot find the song file on the iPod.

Does your iTunes setup exactly match what you have on your ipod? If so then you may be able, once you have got iTunes sorted, to simply re-sync the iPod to get it working again.

Worst case, and I've been here before, is that you'll need to restore the iPod, as there isn't a "rebuild iTunes Database on iPod" command. i've had the database get fecked up on my iPod before and restore is the only way to fix it as iTunes uses the database to work out what is on the iPod. It thought my one was empty and got upset when it realized that 30GB of music wasn't going to fit into the 2GB of free space that was actually on the iPod.

If you're on a PC, then you might be able to use Anapod Extreme to repair the database as it appears to include such a feature.

flat4

I'm on a Mac, as you should know

To clear it up, there's nothing wrong with my actual itunes library on my computer, that plays just fine, it's just my ipod that's gone **** up i tried adding a new album today and that plays fine, and it's showing over 50gb or so free in itunes so it's looking like a restore is needed by the looks of it

mattbeef

you need to restore it. Its happened to mine before

marklemac

i had a clients do this the other day. A simple restore sorted it