Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Weird solution to ipod stuck in recovery mode

Last weekend, itunes offered me a software update for my 3rd generation ipod touch. Unfortunately, it froze while installing the software, and itunes told me I'd have to restore the ipod.

I clicked on the restore button, it went through the process, and I got a pop-up saying it had been restored to factory settings. But then I got another alert in itunes saying the attached ipod was in recovery mode and it would have to be restored. So I tried restoring again and got error code 37.

Thereafter followed multiple attempts at troubleshooting and restoring. Rebooted computer, tried different USB ports and cables, updated USB drivers, did a hard restart on the ipod (pressing and holding the two buttons), tried updating itunes, tried disabling my security software, nothing worked. Sometimes I'd get a message saying it had been restored followed in quick succession by another message saying the ipod was in recovery mode, sometimes I'd get error code 37

Then, on my final attempt, just as my next step was to google up the nearest Apple store, I accidentally discovered that when the message saying the ipod has been restored to factory settings pops up, you have to click OK. It says this message is going to disappear in 10 seconds so I'd just been letting it go. But when I clicked OK, the ipod restarted normally and it was fine.

So the moral of the story is: click OK on your itunes pop-ups rather than waiting for them to disappear.

6 comments:

Lorraine said...

I rather like my Archos.

M@ said...

Thanks for posting this. Its exactly this kind of thing that is pushing me to exchange my iPhone for an Android phone when my contract is up later this year.

Lorraine said...

While Android is clearly the lesser evil among the 'Big 3' (and I can also see why Canadians might do Blackberry out of patriotism) I (being a patron saint of lost causes) am rooting for Meego. I'm also window shopping the notion of an Archos wi-fi tablet running what they call Ångström. Viewing Android as open source is starting to require a rather dumbed-down definition of open source.

impudent strumpet said...

BTW, if anyone having this problem googles upon this and tries it, it would be immensely helpful if you can post a comment letting us know whether it worked or not. I (fortunately) haven't been able to reproduce the problem, so I just have this one-off anecdotal evidence.

impudent strumpet said...

Update: I'm having this problem again, and this solution isn't working any more. Haven't yet figured out what does work.

impudent strumpet said...

Another observation, this one even weirder:

On more than one occasion, my ipod has successfully restored only once I have the Apple Store website open and all ready to make a genius bar appointment