Tag: ipod apple clickwheel geniusbar

The iPod is a little more than a year old, just out of warranty. After using it extensively on the Bose SoundDock, the click wheel stopped responding.
This is a reported iPod bug and the common fix is to reset it. With this 40Gb, 4th generation model you flip the hold button to on and back to off. Following that you push and hold the select and menu buttons simultaneously… and pray.
The problem was that the iPod did not want to reset it self, no matter how hard and for how long I pushed. Next step was to flash it with updated software. This did not help. Following step was to restore it from the computer and deleting all music on it. That did not help either.
I was desperate so I bowed my head and entered the Apple church shop on Regent’s street, London. It was full of prospective Appleheads (or is the expression Macheads?) fingering G5’s with monstrous flat screen displays.
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There was a presentation of iMovie HD going on. The presentation was watched by 50 or so people, all crouched over their Appletops and clicking away.
The so called Genius Bar was all booked up. Almost. I could get an appointment 5 hours later but I had evening plans by then. Subsequently I tried booking a slot online but 3 days in a row all day was booked out just 5 minutes after opening time. Do people camp outside the store to get support?
A trendy assistant was passing by me so I caught his attention and explained the problem. He put on a fantastic smile and informed me that “iPods are so cheap nowadays that it’s better just buying a new one instead of trying to repair a faulty one”. I asked whether this was the official Apple company policy and was told nervously that “no, just his personal opinion”.
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Five days later during which time the iPod had been turned off and unused I turned it on by performing the above mentioned resetting ritual. To my amazement the click wheel was back and working.
If you need to copy any music back to your PC you may have noticed that iTunes does not allow that. You can browse for the music directly but it’s all in hidden folders, highly unorganised.
The best way to copy music back to your computer in my opinion is to use WinAmp media player with the ml_iPod plug-in. Once you have tried it out, you may even prefer it’s media library to iTunes and just get rid of iTunes!.
Update
Here is a great advice from the reader Tim:
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“I had the problem with the click wheel not working . Sure enough after switching it on hold andwaiting a few minutes then turning it back on the click wheel would work but only for a few minutes. The answer is to get something very thin but quite tough (I used the corner edge of a blister foil pack of pills I had) and very carefully go around the outer and inner edges of the click wheel. You will notice that small debris gunk will come out. After having done that switch to hold and wait for a couple of minutes and then switch the hold off and away you go. Completely fixed. I’m over the moon”