09.14.06

What to do if iPod not recognized by iTunes

Posted in Beginner, How To, Windows at 10:11 am by Techie

With the recent release of iTunes 7, lots of folks are upgrading and finding that their iPods are no longer recognized. This is actually a common problem, and not isolated to iTunes 7. Sometimes it just happens, even without upgrade. I found my iPod nano was no longer being recognized by iTunes after upgrade, but fortunately, the fix is pretty simple.

First, some details. After upgrading, I plugged in my iPod nano, and heard it detect the hardware. However, it never showed up in iTunes. I opened up My Computer, and found that the drive was being recognized, so Windows was acknowledging its presence. iTunes just no longer was recognizing its existence. I unplugged it and re-plugged it in, but it just wouldn’t pick up.

Apple recommends the five Rs when you’re having troubles: reset your iPod settings, retry on a different port, restart your computer (after updating software), re-install your iTunes software, and restore your iPod (erasing all data on it). Trying each of these steps (one at a time, not all of them) will solve most problems with iPods.

In my case, I first reset my iPod settings by scrolling to Settings->Reset All Settings (on the iPod itself, silly). Once I did this and my iPod rebooted, it was recognized by iTunes. Yay! However, the firmware was out of date, and iTunes requested I update to the latest. (Note: the old iPod updaters appear to no longer work — you now appear to have to use iTunes to do firmware updates.) Unfortunately, the update didn’t work. Here’s a tip: wait until your iPod finishes syncing. Once finished, I did a restore + update, to get it to the newest firmware. Once that was done, my iPod re-picked up, and I had to configure its sync settings anew, and leave it to copy music.

Permalink 65 Comments

09.13.06

Error: An unknown error occurred (0×666D743F). [iTunes]

Posted in Error Messages, Intermediate, Windows at 5:05 pm by Techie

I figured a good thing for this site would be to post up error messages I receive, as well as how I solved them. After all, I’m not the only one to get random errors, and if I add to useful results in Google, why not?

After installing iTunes 7, I tried launching it, and got this error:

The iTunes application could not be opened.  An unknown error occurred (0x666D743F).

That’s awful cryptic. With a little digging, I found that the reason was because I was using Remote Desktop to access my PC remotely while trying to launch iTunes. Apparently, iTunes 7 doesn’t like it when you redirect sound, which is what Remote Desktop Connection tries to do by default. In the Remote Desktop Connection settings, I went to the Local Resources tab, and changed “Remote computer sound” to “Leave at remote computer” and things worked fine.

This error may also occur if you have third party sound plugins, or are otherwise redirecting the audio. For example, if you were using the Volume Logic plugin, you may get this error, or find that the plugin mysteriously stops working (uninstallation of this plugin is recommended until Volume Logic can release a new version). Total Recorder is another program that was causing problems. Also check is in Control Panel, Sounds and Audio Devices; make sure that in the Audio tab that your sound card is selected. Under the Volume tab Speaker settings, click Advanced, and play around with the Speaker setup drop down — try setting it to headphones, for instance, and see if that fixes the problem.

Permalink 23 Comments