How to Stop iPod Song Skipping
Why does an iPod skip songs?
One of the most annoying glitches in its software is when an iPod skipping songs occurs. You go to listen to one song, it skips to the next one and so on until it cycles through your entire collection. In some cases, it may skip a few songs and go back to playing or it will cycle through every song on your iPod. In other cases, it may not start skipping until mid-way through a song and start the process. At some point, an iPod skipping songs affects every user.
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How to stop an iPod from skipping songs
There is no rhyme or reason to it in most instances, the iPod just gets confused as to which data needs to be read and you need to restart it to get it to sort itself out. There are two ways to reset an iPod. There is a hard reset and a soft reset. A soft reset occurs when you hold the play button down and the iPod "shuts down." However, this is not a real shut down, the iPod simply goes into hibernation mode.
A hard reset occurs when the iPod reboots. This occurs when you hold the play and center button down for five to seven seconds. The iPod resets, rebooting with the Apple symbol emblazoned on the screen. This is similar to shutting down your computer entirely, waiting 30 seconds and then turning it back on. In nine out of 10 cases, this hard reset will fix an iPod skipping songs because it clears out the memory causing it to occur in the first place.
What to do if an iPod will not stop skipping songs
If a hard reset does not work, there may an internal problem with your iPod. First attempt to restore the iPod to factory settings, if this does not work there may be something more damaging going on inside. If it is still under warranty, you want to bring it in for repair or send it to Apple. The hard drive may be faulty or gone bad and needs to be replaced.
Want to know more?
- iPod Touch Skipping to Middle of Songs Randomly
Another discussion on why the iPod randomly skips through songs. - My iPod skips the ends of some songs
Metafilter thread on iPods skipping through songs. - New iPod randomly skipping songs
Apple talk on a new iPod skipping through songs.
AdaNielsen:
I'm glad to hear that! So many problems with the iPod can be fixed by simply hard reseting it like this.
I have sent 1 ipod back to apple to repair thinking my ipod was skipping becasue it was curupted. Not true. My second ipod skipped the same songs. After searching for hours online, with no luck, i was at my witts end. then i jsut tried converting the skipping songs from mpeg to ACC versions. BANG, they now play on my ipod. It may seem like alot of work, but it's an option before using your ipod as a skipping stone. (no pun intended). =)
The hard reboot seems to have worked. Played it yesterday without any incident. Thanks for posting this. This info was more helpful than anything I could find on Apple's help forums which never mentioned this approach. It makes sense, since my computer sometimes requires a reboot. Thanks again.
The hard re-set worked for me...thanks so much for posting this! I looked everywhere for an answer....
Thanks for the tip, I even tried finding it on Apple's site and it was no help...
It worked right after the hard reset.
great advice, just what i needed. resetting to factory default did nothing, was about to reinstall the whole shebang, glad i found this site before i did.
I had an album that suddenly started skipping, completely. It would just cycle through the album.
The fix was to re-encode the mp3 files. I.e. load up the mp3 into a file converter and convert into mp3's again. Sounds nuts but when I re-syncd them they played.
Much quicker than than factory resetting your ipod. esp. considering it will probably happen again.
didnt work pretty mad im gonna have to send it in but it was great advice thanks any ways
I did a soft rest, didn't work, then I did a hard reset. It didn't work. I did it again. And it works. I had to hard-reset it twice. lol
Hard reset worked! thank god!! but its center button and Menu after you turn the hold on and off.. for the ipod Classic.
i did the hard reset and all nothing i hate converting everything all the time ( btw will the reset of the settings delete my songs or just reset the settings ???)
Wow. Thank you! I was just about to shell out another $250 - couldn't figure out the skipping problem until i found this and applied the hard reset. Also, I have the Classic so its the menu and middle button - Thanks for clarifying Nick S!
This fixed mine but eventually it will start skipping again and I have to reset it again. I discovered that when I leave the nano in my car and it gets hot it usually skips (sometimes several times).
so happy that the hard reset worked.. gotta love the internet :)
For IPOD 4th gen. its the center button + MENU button not the play button.
None of that is the actual problem. Although a Hard Reset may temporarily fix it. It is a Codec isssue with the iPod Classic. The new Classic has issues with playing Joint Stereo encoded files. You can verify that your problem files are encoded as Joint Stereo by looking at the properties. FIX: Re-encode them as regular Stereo.
The hard reset didn't work. Setting it back to factory defaults did it! My 5 year old iPod rocks on!!!
You can also convert the files to MP3 (if they aren't already) in iTunes, and that will fix it sometimes. Apple gave that suggestion and it worked for me.
This did not work for me but after searching other sites I found one that did. But something similar did: You can reset the iPod (move the Hold switch on then off, then hold the both the Menu and Select buttons (middle button) for 10 seconds) to see if that will clear it up. It should show the apple sign and reset it perfectly. It did mine. You might have to try it several times.
Chris's method works great too. If you are experiencing the skipping from only one album then just re-convert all the songs to mp3 then reload em to your ipod. Fixed my skipping issue.
:D Thanks so much, I was getting really worried. Hard reset worked :)
Hard set worked for my classic! Thanks! Using the Menu and center button! YEAH!!!
Well now... I guess I'm that ulucky 1 out of 10 that still has the skipping songs afer the hard reset...sigh...
I tried the soft reset and hard reset a few times but it didn't work but thanks for this advise it was helpful
thanks a lot!!!! it's very simple and it's VERY HELPFUL! for a second i thought i have to send my iPod to factory. but thanks to you, hard reset as u said, done wonder! thank you !!! it meant a lot to me!
just as extra, for iPod classic 80gb, hold the center and menu button.
Arlyl is right.
My Gorillaz Deomon Days would skip in the middle of given songs. I could search forward past the part where it would skip but that was too inconvenient so for a year I just listened to the next song that came up.
Anyway, from within itunes i converted the mp3 to another mp3. The song's went from JOINT STEREO to just STEREO. All my metadata was kept intact (ratings, no. of times played, skips, etc). Now my ipod works great.
this happens to me on multiple songs, i've tried the hard reset and nothing happened. so now i'm try what ameculas did hopefully that works because i loveee this new dubstep track that skips right at the drop. D:
Good advice. One of the many blessings of the internetz :D
right, hard reset is just a temporary solution. read somewhere sometimes that was a tag id3 problem , so I converted all my tags but it was no solution. will try the joint stereo one, I hope it will work.
thanks for now
Thanks Koenie, your hint with MP3Val worked perfectly. Now I'm able to listen to all my MP3s on my iPod Classic!
THANKS!!! IPOD CLASSIC - CENTER AND MENU WORKED..
Hard reset didn't work for me, so I just converted them to ACC and it works perfectly now!
thank you sooo much for posting this!!! i was so upset because my ipod touch would not stop skipping songs. once i did the hard reset, it worked perfect!!!
Thanks for all the info, fixed my ipod, can't live without it.
AdaNielsen 2 years ago
After checking numerous pages/blogs/sites, this was the most cogent and coherent analysis and suggestion for fixing the problem. Thanks so much. It worked.