Tag: Apple iPod
When you're better at Tech Support than Apple is
Talk about a tech FAIL on Apple’s part:
I bought an iPod Non 7th generation in April of this year. In some ways I’ve still been adjusting to it and some features I really liked but hadn’t tried out yet. I’ve mostly been using it around the house; I’ve found my other iPod (Nano, 3rd gen) is more effective on workouts than going to the touch-based Nano.
I upgraded the important desktop software tied to iPods and what not, iTunes, on Wednesday afternoon to version 12.4; I’d put off upgrading for a while because of no clear need… But prompts to upgrade came up so routinely that I decided there was no clear reason to not upgrade either.
It would seem the upgrade itself helped give me a reason not to have done so.
The 7th generation Nano doesn’t sync anymore with iTunes saying it can’t identify the device. There’s been no action undertaken on the Nano to cause change/issue, only with iTunes backend. I uninstalled iTunes and found I can’t install older versions any more. I have to use 12.4…and the software won’t/can’t identify the Nano.
This is where tech support jumps in and saves the fray, right? Involvement and instruction to get matters resolved… Yeah, about that…. iTunes/Apple support was a joke. I didn’t contact them having not tried tech support methods that “More Info” on iTunes had prompted, and yet it was that stuff that was fed to me directly all over again. When I told them I’d already tried that stuff, I got instructed to do a … reinstall? Despite the fact it’s prompted by iTunes itself, which I already attempted, which already failed in clearing up the issue. Multiple times at that.
In the end they wanted to send someone (a tech support person) as aid? Or have myself venture to the Apple Store to have one of their people look at the problem in person? It’s not like a device like this can’t be remedied by a user, but the options for doing so themselves were few.
Oh, the 7th Gen Nano still works on its own… I just can’t sync. And my older iPod Nano (3rd Generation) works just fine with syncing. What does that tell you about Apple’s own failure?
As a last, last attempt on fixing things (and I felt bad for doing it because I thought I’d put my music library at risk), I used an elaboration uninstall remedy that CNET had pitched years ago. I didn’t want to reset play-counts or do a media rebuild… I just wanted a clean installation of an (old) iTunes version. The article elaborates on having to uninstall more than just iTunes as part of the process to restarting. Trying to install an older version of iTunes failed, miserably, as the iTunes library database files had to be deleted too. I wasn’t about to restart my audio library… I gave up on this idea. I uninstalled that older version and re-installed iTunes 12.4. For shame, I’d have to lose this new(ish) Nano.
Yeah, well, I plugged it in for a last sync attempt and everything worked just as fine as it should for how well the device worked on its own.
Some type of software compromise had happened in the Apple core – not just in iTunes but interacting programs. Getting rid of everything resolved this. Repairing the issue, however, wasn’t what tech support thought. Not in elaboration, at least.
