Hey all, I have a 20GB 4th gen iPod which I purchased in August. I connect it using Firewire to my Windows PC and I am using the latest version of iTunes.

As of the last few weeks, the iPod has been skipping songs. I go to play a song (lets say its track 2 of an album) and then it will skip tracks until it finds one that is readable I suppose (track 12, say). For that particular album, tracks 3 to 11 will be non functional and will do the same thing until track 12 is reached.

However, on another album, after 2 or 3 tries of the song (track one only), it will play perfectly and will keep playing. It will not happen again for another few days.

This only happens with certain songs at certain times, and does not affect the iPod as a whole.

I had better tell you guys that it did get slammed quite hard in a car door (casing is dented) and has loads of scratches, so cosmetically it is really shoddy. But the car door incident didn't affect it at the time - only recently has the tracks been skipping.

When I plugged the iPod into the PC to sync with iTunes, the problem remains, but if I change the artist (from say 'Maroon 5' to 'Maroon5', then back again) it will work. This is my only solution so far.

Any ideas?

I think its HDD is damaged.
Probably it may die soon!

don't use itunes to sync... use winamp + ipod plugin

My first generation iPod exhibited this same problem. Cause was a damaged HD. If you enter the diagnostics menu of the iPod, you can do an HD test to see if the drive is OK.

I'm having the same problem, and my iPod wasn't damaged in any way. I'm not quite sure what it is.

yeah I get this sometimes too, and my iPod is not damaged either.

mine skips to, but its not as bad as yours, mine will start to play the first cupple seconds of a song, then stop, and start playing the next song... it does this with the same songs, but the thing is, i didnt do this a little while ago, so it just started to mess up with these certin songs... i dont rip anything in Apple losses encoder, the ipod always froze when playing those songs.

PS. i've already had my ipod replaced with a new one becuase of this problem. and its happening to the new one.

and it freezes all the time

Interesting. My iPod has never frozen on me, and never skips during a song. It will either play or it won't.

How do I perform that diagnostics test?

http://www.ipodlounge.com/tips_more.php?id=443_0_11_0_C

http://www.ipodlounge.com/tips_more.php?id=115_0_11_0_C

i know exactly how to fix it

smash it with a hammer and return it

haha im funny

no...

HD is damaged

He can damn well use iTunes if he wants. I personally find it a much better player than Winamp.

Anyway, I get that behavior too. Not often though. You have tried to go back to the song after the iPod skips it, right? If it doesn't play it then, then the unit could be damaged. If it does play it the second time, I wouldn't worry to much about it.

if i recall correctly, this is an itunes problem. at least the last time i used itunes it was. the problem is that itunes puts all your music into one folder, so when you change songs it has to seek the hd. so if you have a lot of music it might not find it for some reason. i lack the technical vocabulary to describe it. they may have fixed it in newer versions of itunes, but like i said, i haven't used it for a while. most other applications transfer your music into multiple folders, so it seeks faster.

Nice try... but that is incorrect. .... just enable disk mode on the ipod, enable hidden folders and start opening stuff up... iTunes does store in different folders.... has noting to do whatsoever with iTunes.

And very few times is the iPod unit itself damaged. 98% of all iPod issues are related to SOFTWARE. As recommended on Apple's Support Page dealing with iPods skipping songs... a restore will most often times fix this issue. Now go and have fun!