![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iPod Problems
Nov. 9th, 2005 05:19 amI hate having iPod problems!
I use Real, and have a subscription to the Real service, which means that when I buy and download songs they are in Real's "rax" format. This shouldn't be an issue, because using their system means that I should be able to transfer this format to the iPod and burn the downloads to CD in mp3 form.
Except that the last time I downloaded songs, they wouldn't transfer to the 'pod. "Unsupported file type" the message said. And said the same thing when I tried to burn them into mp3 format.
So I updated both my iPod software and my Real player.
No joy.
So I contacted support, and did all the things they told me.
Still no luck.
So support escalated me to Level 2. It then took a week for them to get back to me.
When I finally did hear back, I got the response I least wanted to hear: "You need to do a 'restore' on your iPod. This will erase everything on your iPod, but will reload the most recent software, and then you'll be fine."
I really, really hate having to replace 1,700+ tracks, since I only keep about half of them on my hard drive. So, thinking I'm taking an awful risk, Vader. This had better work. I followed the instructions.
The result? Now not only did my recent Real Audio downloads not transfer, neither did the older ones, the ones which had quite happily moved over months ago. Including some of my very favorite tracks.
So rather than emailing Help right away, I did what seemed to be the obvious next step: I un-installed my Real Player, thinking that that could as easily be where the problem lies, and prepared to download it fresh from the Real site.
Except that the file won't download. The nasty little message that pops up says "Download Manager is unable to connect to the server. The server may be temporarily unavailable, or there may be a problem with your internet connection. Please confirm you are on-line, then try again." And I'm thinking: Would I be able to *see* the message if I was not online??? I fired off a disgruntled note to their customer service guy, and hoped that by the next morning the problem would be fixed.
No luck. I emailed Help again suggesting that someone send me the installer via zip file. It better not take a week for them to respond!
In the meantime, I not only have less than half my music on the iPod, I have no way to re-rip tracks from my CD's or to transfer newly-ripped tracks onto my iPod once I record them.
I'm tempted to go over to iTunes and download MusicMatch -- but the last thing I want to do is further scramble the brains of my devices. Mixing control programs like that does not a happy iPod make. Besides, while MusicMatch has the nice feature of allowing me to burn CD's from the iPod, it doesn't allow me to delete music on both the front and back of a recording -- which is very important for me since I have a lot of live tracks, and songs from musicals which often have extraneous material on them, or use shortened forms of songs for certain playlists.
But I am not a happy camper.
I use Real, and have a subscription to the Real service, which means that when I buy and download songs they are in Real's "rax" format. This shouldn't be an issue, because using their system means that I should be able to transfer this format to the iPod and burn the downloads to CD in mp3 form.
Except that the last time I downloaded songs, they wouldn't transfer to the 'pod. "Unsupported file type" the message said. And said the same thing when I tried to burn them into mp3 format.
So I updated both my iPod software and my Real player.
No joy.
So I contacted support, and did all the things they told me.
Still no luck.
So support escalated me to Level 2. It then took a week for them to get back to me.
When I finally did hear back, I got the response I least wanted to hear: "You need to do a 'restore' on your iPod. This will erase everything on your iPod, but will reload the most recent software, and then you'll be fine."
I really, really hate having to replace 1,700+ tracks, since I only keep about half of them on my hard drive. So, thinking I'm taking an awful risk, Vader. This had better work. I followed the instructions.
The result? Now not only did my recent Real Audio downloads not transfer, neither did the older ones, the ones which had quite happily moved over months ago. Including some of my very favorite tracks.
So rather than emailing Help right away, I did what seemed to be the obvious next step: I un-installed my Real Player, thinking that that could as easily be where the problem lies, and prepared to download it fresh from the Real site.
Except that the file won't download. The nasty little message that pops up says "Download Manager is unable to connect to the server. The server may be temporarily unavailable, or there may be a problem with your internet connection. Please confirm you are on-line, then try again." And I'm thinking: Would I be able to *see* the message if I was not online??? I fired off a disgruntled note to their customer service guy, and hoped that by the next morning the problem would be fixed.
No luck. I emailed Help again suggesting that someone send me the installer via zip file. It better not take a week for them to respond!
In the meantime, I not only have less than half my music on the iPod, I have no way to re-rip tracks from my CD's or to transfer newly-ripped tracks onto my iPod once I record them.
I'm tempted to go over to iTunes and download MusicMatch -- but the last thing I want to do is further scramble the brains of my devices. Mixing control programs like that does not a happy iPod make. Besides, while MusicMatch has the nice feature of allowing me to burn CD's from the iPod, it doesn't allow me to delete music on both the front and back of a recording -- which is very important for me since I have a lot of live tracks, and songs from musicals which often have extraneous material on them, or use shortened forms of songs for certain playlists.
But I am not a happy camper.
