birdJam Online Help

iPod Nano Video (3G) Freezes

Location: frozen + ipod nano + ipod nano 3g + locked + troubleshooting + using your ipod

The iPod Nano Video (3rd Generation), released in Fall, 2007, will occassionally freeze up when browsing via Cover Flow view or via Albums. We think that the reason is related to installing lots of Album Art on the iPod.

The problem occurs most often on a jam-packed iPod Nano 3G. For example, if you have both Eastern and Western Stokes and birdJam for Eastern Warblers and the Costa Rica module AND the Southeastern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico module installed, this problem is more likely to occur.

We have reported this bug to Apple and hope a future firmware update will fix it. However, in the meantime, you can work around the problem by navigating to bird songs via Playlists rather than via Cover Flow or Albums. Cover Flow and Album view both show pictures of the birds, and this seems to trigger the problem after a while.

Also, when your iPod freezes, you can reset it like this:

Make sure that the Hold button is not turned on. To verify this, toggle the Hold button on the top edge of the iPod to orange and then back.
Press and hold the Menu and Center buttons on the iPod at the same time for about 6-10 seconds.
Your iPod screen should go black and then you should see the Apple icon.

Once your iPod restarts, it should work normally.

Note also that it is important to keep your iPod charged. A low battery can cause flaky behavior. If your iPod freezes when the battery is low, it might not be able to restart properly until you recharge the iPod.

If the battery is really low, charge the iPod overnight and they try resetting it again. An external charger is a good idea for this, since some computers turn off their USB port when they go to sleep, thus not really charging the iPod. We sell a plug-in iPod wall charger on our web site or you can get them from the Apple Store or a Radio Shack.