ipod photo randomly advancing in the middle of songs

[kungfumath]

At random times, my iPod Photo (40 GB) will randomly advance to the next song in the middle of playing the current song. Today is the first day of use on a newly replaced unit, so I don't think anything is wrong with the hardware, and I know they just released a new iPod software update (does that install automatically?). My old iPod was doing the same thing before I sent it in for a different issue. It does this when it's playing by itself and when connected to my car stereo, but not when it's connected to a computer. Anybody have a clue?

[frankko]

Is there a lot of movement happening? It could be that the iPod is trying to load the next bit of the song, but if the iPod is physically moving a great deal, that could make trouble for the hard drive, which will usually just give up on the current song and move on after enough failed attempts to load the current song.

If I had my iPod in the thigh pocket of my cargo pants and the iPod tried to load songs while I was walking, I would almost always have to stop walking to let the iPod finish loading.

[kungfumath]

In the car, my iPod is in the glove compartment. I can't imagine it's moving a whole lot in there. Just recently (the time that prompted me to start this thread), it was just sitting on my desk at work, as it is now.

[vickishome]

My 60GB iPhoto started doing that after a year of excellent service. All my searches indicated that it was a hard drive issue, and restoring it would fix it. I ran the restore, and sure enough, it's working fine again.

[kungfumath]

Let me re-iterate that this is a brand new iPod.

[CAlvarez]

In the car, my iPod is in the glove compartment.
I don't know what you drive or if the glovebox is prone to vibration, but this behavior is something I've seen with vibration problems with the iPod.

[kungfumath]

ok, well what would cause it to happen whilest sitting upon my desk?

[CAlvarez]

I was unclear on whether this was just in the car or on the desk too. Does it happen on the same songs each time? I've got a couple that do that every time they play on the iPod, but not the desktop. If it is completely random, I'd take it back again.

[vickishome]

Let me re-iterate that this is a brand new iPod.
Maybe I misunderstood. So you're saying that only the old iPod spent time in the car's glove compartment and not the new one?

Is this new iPod a new one you purchased or a warranty repair/replacement from Apple?

[frankko]

The old iPod and the new iPod skip both in the car (while in motion) and on the desk (stationary). Right?

What kind of audio files are you listening to?

[kungfumath]

OK new information. I just saw researched the problem a bit using the iPod itself. I believe the iPod is fine, but that the songs are not being transferred in their entirety. It just skipped ahead, but the song scroller was acting as if the iPod thought it was the end of the song (end of file). I can play these songs out of my base library on my PBG4, and they are fine. Also the songs that skip change when I re-sync.

To answer the questions above:
I only have one iPod. I use it in my car, on my desk, and in my pocket. This is a replacement iPod Photo 40GB from Apple as part of warranty service. As I haven't had the new one for too long, it hasn't yet advanced in the car, though it has several times while sitting on my desk, and I can only surmise that eventually it will in the car, too. All but one of my songs is MP3, the one is AAC. The AAC has skipped in the past, too, so I don't think that's the issue.

[vickishome]

Still sounds like the same problem I had, researched and fixed with a simple restore and resync.

Does anyone know if the drives Apple puts in under warranty repair are brand new or refurbs?

Also, is this the same iPod that was dropped? http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=48021

[ShavenYak]

I have a similar problem with mine, and it's always on the same songs in the same place. They are AAC files that came from allofmp3.com, so I've been figuring the blame lies there. I don't think it's ever happened with iTMS purchases or songs I've ripped myself.

I have another weird thing happening on mine... my album art is sometimes screwed up on the iPod. It's perfectly fine in iTunes, but when a song plays on the iPod sometimes it will be displaying the art from a completely different album. Re-syncing the files fixes this problem, but doesn't fix the skipping.

[vickishome]

Re-syncing the files fixes this problem, but doesn't fix the skipping.
Did you restore and resync or just resync?

[kungfumath]

No, this is the replaced iPod. I shouldn't have to restore, it's brand new. All of the software is up-to-date.

[mypinknee]

I too have a 60Gb iPod. It randomly stops playing one track and advances to the next. It also skips without playing right through some of my albums, as if the tracks were zero in length. It shows the titles as they flash through, but no sound is played. These same tracks play in full on the PowerBook and do not stop playing before they reach the end either. Some tracks are fine.

Another 'feature' is the transfer locks up when backing up (sync). This occurs in random places. I found things improved slightly when I linked direct to the USB2 socket, I had been going through a 4 port hub.

The photo side of things works fine - it is just the audio stuff. There are 8015 songs, 11 videos, 4758 photos on the iPod. It says its version 1.1 and model MA003LL There is still 32 Gb of space free. It has the latest update for iPod and I have the latest iTunes version on the computer.

Anybody got any advice on how to sort this. I am getting pretty fed up with the whole bloomin' thing. You would think Apple would have got this right by now. By the way I do not jog with this thing, its just sitting quietly on the desk.

Mike

[jboeckx]

I think it has to do with adding artwork (cd cover). I had this problem after importing Real Gone by Tom Waits, and adding the artwork from wikipedia. I did some testing, and without adding artwork, the problem did not occur. After adding artwort from another source, the problem was also not there.