iTunes 5.0.1 Special Report: Problems synchronizing with music files on external drives

It appears that for some readers, iTunes 5.0.1 has difficulty synchronizing with iPods when some of the music to be transferred resides on an external volume.

MacFixIt reader Chris writes:

'I was hoping this would be fixed with 5.0.1 ... but no dice. Songs will either seem to sync successfully or freeze during longer transfers. Tracks that make it onto the iPod won't play -- they'll just skip to the next track. I've tried with a 3rd Gen, 4th Gen, shuffle and the nano last week, all with the same results. The only thing abnormal about my setup is that I have all my tunes on an external firewire drive, which has worked with previous versions going back as far as I can remember. Following each transfer attempt, I've found both the iPod and external hard drive become unresponsive and often end up with volume bitmap errors. Disk Utility has been able to fix this easily so far. I've tried a restore with the iPod Software Updater, but this hasn't helped either. On a system running 5.0.1 with the music on the local disk, I'm able to transfer tracks just fine to the same iPods mentioned above."

Index:

• Release Notes, update recommendations
• Cannot burn MIDI files
• Distorted/scratchy or popping sound sound
• iPod not recognized
• iTunes refuses to quit
• iTunes will not launch
• Old version of iTunes being opened
• Problems downloading through Software Update
• Some CD drives unable to import/play tracks; slow importing
• Problems synchronizing with music files on external drives
• Some music in library missing

• See the iTunes 5.0 special report for more workarounds

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