iPod shuffle Performance Problems

At 10:51 AM -0800 2/21/05, Chris Pepper wrote:
>seconds, which is okay. I'm scratching my head, however, on why it
>takes 2-3 minutes to *delete* this folder from the shuffle, vs. about
>a second to delete it from the (unjournaled) 5gb iPod. This makes it

I don't have an iPod shuffle so I tried copying a bunch of files to a
Compact Flash card. (This was formatted as FAT16 on a USB1 bus.)
The cp command completed in 2 sec, but the activity light on the
reader was flashing for a good 15-20 sec more. The rm command
completed in <1 sec; there was no additional activity right away, but
a short burst about 5-10 sec later.

It could be that the system had to flush the cache before starting
the delete, which would artificially inflate the delete time. You
should try your test again, but either wait a minute between the copy
and delete, or eject the drive after the copy, reinsert, and try the
delete. (Except you've probably returned the shuffle by now.)

--
Larry Rosenstein
lrosensteincatsincharge.com

On 1 Mar 2005, at 11:03, Richard Totaro wrote:
> Actually I am a bit disappointed with USB 2 all round. The performance
> downloading large files off a PVR is awful using USB2 and a Powerbook

There is an online petition about Apple dropping Firewire in iPods here:

<http://www.petitiononline.com/firewire/petition.html>

Personally, I've been very disappointed to see Apple lessening Firewire
support in general. I realise that not many people transfer huge
amounts of data, however, I'm a photographer and I often move upwards
of 20gb around and we've found that USB2 simply comes to a grinding
halt for these amounts. Firewire OTOH, just cruises along nicely.
It's much much faster and more stable for sustained transfers. I'd
really hoped that future iPods would have had FW800, never mind Apple
starting to drop it altogether. It was a big disappointment that it
wasn't included in the iMac G5 too. : (

Grant Symon

www.GrantSymon.com
_______________________________________________________
Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2004
'Cru' voted best photography for a food book - France 2004
_______________________________________________________
'Patate' Prix d'Or de 'Gourmet Media World Festival' de Cannes 2004
'Cru' Prix d'Argent de 'Gourmet Media World Festival' de Cannes 2004
_______________________________________________________

On 3/1/05 10:17 AM, "Grant Symon" <GrantGrantSymon.com> wrote:

>> Actually I am a bit disappointed with USB 2 all round. The performance
>> downloading large files off a PVR is awful using USB2 and a Powerbook
>
> There is an online petition about Apple dropping Firewire in iPods here:
>
> <http://www.petitiononline.com/firewire/petition.html>
>
> Personally, I've been very disappointed to see Apple lessening Firewire
> support in general. I realise that not many people transfer huge
> amounts of data, however, I'm a photographer and I often move upwards
> of 20gb around and we've found that USB2 simply comes to a grinding
> halt for these amounts. Firewire OTOH, just cruises along nicely.
> It's much much faster and more stable for sustained transfers. I'd
> really hoped that future iPods would have had FW800, never mind Apple
> starting to drop it altogether. It was a big disappointment that it
> wasn't included in the iMac G5 too. : (

They aren't dropping FireWire. What they are doing is recognizing that for
the iPod, EVERYONE can use USB, whereas FireWire simply is not common on PC
hardware. This allows for simpler packaging, which has cost savings far and
above the cable cost.

Secondly, what good would FW800 be on an iPod. It doesn't even saturate a
FW400 bus, so even if you did see performance gains, they would only be
noticeable on paper. The iPod would have to get a LOT faster. Remember, it's
a music player first, everything else second. Or third if you have an iPod
Photo. Being a fast portable hard drive is not the iPod's purpose, if it
was, then the default behavior would be to mount as a drive on your desktop,
and it's not.

Finally, FW800 is one of those things that differentiates Pro from !Pro.
Things you see FW800 on:

Xserve
G5 Tower
PowerBooks

Things you DON'T see FW800 on:

eMacs
iBooks
iMacs

Note the differentiation there. Apple's hardly lessening FireWire support in
general, but they're not going to push it where it doesn't make sense, or
there's a more common solution that works just as well. Remember, Apple was
the first vendor to not just include USB, but to make it the *only*
low-speed peripheral connection. The Wintel makers still haven't been able
to stop smoking the Serial/Parallel/PS/2 crack yet. USB is just as important
to Apple as FireWire and one being set as primary in a low-bandwidth use
situation aimed at consumers is not the same as "abandoning" the other. When
Final Cut Pro stops supporting FireWire DV cams, then worry.

john

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

> online petition about Apple dropping Firewire in iPods

I can understand that the author of the petition is disappointed that
he did not find that FireWire cable in the iPod's box, but claiming
that Apple is "dropping FireWire support" is so far off the mark that I
can hardly believe that almost 5000 people have signed this petition by
now.

What Apple did was purely a business decision that does make some
sense, and I cannot see any indication why this decision would imply
that Apple will drop the FireWire standard per se. FireWire has become
a well-established standard for audio and video I/O, one of Apple's key
markets. Dropping that standard simply would not make _any_ sense; not
including the FireWire cable with iPods, however, does.

For a matter-of-fact analysis, have a look at John Gruber's take on
this (visiting his Daring Firewall website is _always_ good advice when
the Mac community is swamped with strange news bits):

<http://daringfireball.net/2005/02/firewire_hysteria>


Jochen.

On 3 Mar 2005, at 11:02, John C. Welch wrote:

> They aren't dropping FireWire. What they are doing is recognizing
> that for
> the iPod, EVERYONE can use USB, whereas FireWire simply is not common
> on PC
> hardware. This allows for simpler packaging, which has cost savings
> far and
> above the cable cost.

Well ... that may not seem like they're dropping it to you ... but it
certainly looks like it to me. The announced camera connector for
example, is USB.

> Secondly, what good would FW800 be on an iPod. It doesn't even
> saturate a
> FW400 bus, so even if you did see performance gains, they would only
> be
> noticeable on paper.

It would be great because lots and lots of people use their iPod for
more than just music ... like photos for instance. I'm not suggesting
that they simply stick a FW-800 plug on the iPod, but that they
increase it's capabilities to provide useful FW-800 performance.
Apple, like you obviously think that the time has not yet come for them
to invest in that, but I do. I own an iPod Photo.

> Finally, FW800 is one of those things that differentiates Pro from
> !Pro.

I understand the economic model ... but I would nevertheless like to
see Apple driving FW forward. It is a superior technology.

Grant Symon

www.GrantSymon.com
_______________________________________________________
Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2004
'Cru' voted best photography for a food book - France 2004
_______________________________________________________
'Patate' Prix d'Or de 'Gourmet Media World Festival' de Cannes 2004
'Cru' Prix d'Argent de 'Gourmet Media World Festival' de Cannes 2004
_______________________________________________________

On 3/3/05 at 4:33 AM, GrantGrantSymon.com (Grant Symon) wrote:

>
> On 3 Mar 2005, at 11:02, John C. Welch wrote:
>
> > They aren't dropping FireWire. What they are doing is recognizing
> > that for the iPod, EVERYONE can use USB, whereas FireWire simply is
> > not common on PC hardware. This allows for simpler packaging, which
> > has cost savings far and above the cable cost.
>
> Well ... that may not seem like they're dropping it to you ... but it
> certainly looks like it to me. The announced camera connector for
> example, is USB.

Well, y'know, I haven't seen a single digital still camera that uses
Firewire. Every one uses USB. Doesn't do much good to make a camera
connector that can't actually connect to anything, does it?

> > Secondly, what good would FW800 be on an iPod. It doesn't even
> > saturate a FW400 bus, so even if you did see performance gains,
> > they would only be noticeable on paper.
>
> It would be great because lots and lots of people use their iPod for
> more than just music ... like photos for instance. I'm not
> suggesting that they simply stick a FW-800 plug on the iPod, but that
> they increase it's capabilities to provide useful FW-800 performance.
> Apple, like you obviously think that the time has not yet come for
> them to invest in that, but I do. I own an iPod Photo.

How? The 1/8" drives the iPod uses can't saturate a FW 400 bus, last I
heard, and that's the bottleneck. I suspect that's going to continue to
be the case, since these drives are almost exclusively used in
battery-operated devices where power requirements trump speed. Are you
suggesting Apple should start making hard drives now?

> > Finally, FW800 is one of those things that differentiates Pro from
> > !Pro.
>
> I understand the economic model ... but I would nevertheless like to
> see Apple driving FW forward. It is a superior technology.

Yes, it is, and I'm also annoyed that Apple stopped bundling the cable.
But that's all I see this as - it's still available, after all, it still
works with all the normal iPods, and the price of the cable + power
adapter is about the same as the cut in price on the iPod minis. It's
annoying, but hardly a reason to panic.

As a counterpoint to the 'Apple's dropping Firewire!' hysteria, have you
seen the rumors of a connector for a built-in iPod dock that was going
in the Mac mini? And that it's a *Firewire* cable, not USB?

Travis Butler
tbutlermac.com

On 3/3/05 at 5:12 PM, GrantGrantSymon.com (Grant Symon) wrote:

> On 3 Mar 2005, at 16:53, Travis Butler wrote:

[re: the announced camera connector for the iPod Photo]

> > Well, y'know, I haven't seen a single digital still camera that uses
> > Firewire. Every one uses USB. Doesn't do much good to make a camera
> > connector that can't actually connect to anything, does it?
>
> There are quite a number ... I have one in fact, the Fuji S2.

Over the last several years, I or people I work with have owned thirteen
different digital cameras, from major manufacturers like Sony, Toshiba,
Nikon, Canon, and Olympus. None of them have had Firewire interfaces.
Not one.

> But what you're saying is rather my point anyway. No camera
> manufacturer will bother to include them in their cameras if there
> aren't any devices to use them. Apple has to come first, which is
> exactly what started to happen with FW, but now Apple appear to be
> shying away from FW and camera manufacturers will stop including it.

Um... this makes no sense. Macs with Firewire ports have been available
since January 1999. Sony computers with i.Link (four-pin Firewire 400)
have been available almost as long. 'Devices to use them,' as you put
it, have been available for *six years*. If there were a compelling
reason for digital camera manufacturers to use Firewire, surely six
years of availability would be enough to convince them? And in fact,
Firewire ports *have* become standard equipment on digital camcorders,
which suggests that Firewire has enough market presence to be supported
when the application makes sense. I really don't think putting Firewire
into the iPod camera connector would change things now.

Travis Butler
tbutlermac.com

I have one of those 3rd Generation iPods. When I bought those, the USB
2 cable did not come in the box. The box contained FireWire cable,
dock, and power adapter. The USB 2 cable became standard soon after.

It always seemed to me that having a USB 2 cable would have been very
useful. I have a 7-port USB 2 hub which is attached to a PalmOne
handheld, wireless mouse/keyboard receiver, card reader, camera dock,
scanner and USB speakers. If I could connect my iPod permanently to
the USB 2 hub, it would mean one less cable to plug into my PowerBook.
It should also mean that the iPod could be charged more frequently by
the USB 2 hub over USB.

I do use FW. Mainly for harddisks, which I tend to plug in when
required for backups. I also use an iSight and Sony handycam, both of
which requires me to unplug my iPod from the PowerBook's single FW400
port.

At risk of spouting blasphemy, I would much prefer a single
connectivity standard so that all my peripherals were permanently
plugged into a hub; and the hub plugged into the Macintosh. With more
USB peripherals, and many more brands of USB hubs in shops, yes, I
think I could live with not using FW at all for harddisks, and for the
iPod.

There are a few concerns with Apple removing the FW cable from the
stock iPod family. Primarily, Apple's poor implementation of USB 2 on
the Macintosh platform. My experience, is that file transfer over USB
2 is much much slower on the Macintosh than on Windows machines. I
have not had actual failures though.

Secondly, addition of USB 2 to Macintoshes is relatively recent. I
believe the iBook G3, and the Rev A aluminium PowerBook 12" had FW,
but not USB 2.

The third concern, is a little nebulous. FW just seems to work better.
It's Apple's baby, and every iPod had it (until the shuffle). It
possibly encouraged adoption of FW among Windows users. I suspect most
of the FW cable users were Mac users, which is a source of discontent.

At 7:02 AM -0800 2005/02/28, Kirk McElhearn wrote:
>On 2/28/05 1:55 PM, "riccto" <ricctomac.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Could you post that URL? I've noticed how much slower my 1GB shuffle is
>> too, though would never consider returning it!!!
>> Actually I am a bit disappointed with USB 2 all round. The performance
>> downloading large files off a PVR is awful using USB2 and a Powerbook
> > G4.

        Sorry, I didn't get the URL. I explained I understood the
difference between flash and hard disks, and he said they'd take it
back, so I didn't go any farther down that route.

>Are you downloading directly, or through a hub? I'm wondering if a hub
>that's not up to par would slow down the transfer...

        Directly, through a USB2 port on the PBG415 or PMG5.


                                                Chris
--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>

At 7:02 AM -0800 2005/02/28, John C. Welch wrote:
>On 2/28/05 6:55 AM, "Chris Pepper" <pepperreppep.com> wrote:
>
>>> Apple only needs to make the flash on the shuffle fast enough to
>>> read music data into the player. Any faster than that, and they're
>>> paying for performance they don't need, and very tight margin
>>> product.
>>
>> I realize that. Flash performance is probably irrelevant to
>> 95% of shuffle users, but it's quite important to me.
>
>Then maybe doing some tests of flash drives would have been a good idea? The
>Shuffle's primary purpose in life is to play music. The flash drive is
>secondary, so the Shuffle is optimized for music playback. As it turns out,
>you don't need a lot of performance for audio playback, so why pay more for
>something that is secondary to the purpose of the device?

        No, I'm not a test lab. I have other things to do than buy a
bunch of flash drives and time test them.

>If you need a performance - optimized flash device, there's probably one out
>there, but it's probably never going to be the Shuffle.

        Actually, I don't think I need a performance-optimized flash
device, but perhaps I can't use a Flash drive on a Mac.

>I've also never seen flash RAM be anything resembling a speed demon anyway.
>You want speed, use a hard drive.

        I wanted speed and simplicity and extreme portability. The
problem with my disk-based iPod is that it requires a FW cable (and
possibly a dock). When I move the PB into the other room, I unplug
and stow the power cord, pick up the PB, Palm USB cable, iPod, and
iPod FW cable, and bring the whole agglomeration into the other room.

        I'd like to have a shuffle which I could leave sticking out
the side of an iBook at work, and carry to/from meetings, or swap
between an iBook & PMG5. The iPod turns out to be unsuitable for
this, which I didn't know (and was not obvious), so I'm sharing the
information here for others who might be interested.


                                                Chris
--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>

I have a 1GB iPod Shuffle that is not being recognized by iTunes when I try to send music to it. I either get an I/O Error message or one that says I should plug it into the USB port which it already is plugged into. It also blinks constantly orange color when I have it plugged in. When I check the back to see if the battery is charged I get the green OK light showing it is charged. I've tried restoring the shuffle and uninstall & reinstalling the hardware w/ no solution success at all. It was given to me at Christmas time as a gift and it NEVER has worked. I've never been able to get music into it. The Itunes takes music and plays it fine. I've read about everything Apple posts as things to try and am at wits end. Anyone have a similar problem that they've solved. If so, I'd appreciate knowing how you did it.



[Sounds like it might just be a bum unit that needs returning to Apple for replacement. -Adam]

At 8:40 am -0700 24/05/2006, Gary Barlow wrote:
>I have a 1GB iPod Shuffle that is not being recognized by iTunes
>when I try to send music to it. I either get an I/O Error message or
>one that says I should plug it into the USB port which it already is
>plugged into. It also blinks constantly orange color when I have it
>plugged in. When I check the back to see if the battery is charged I
>get the green OK light showing it is charged. I've tried restoring
>the shuffle and uninstall & reinstalling the hardware w/ no solution
>success at all. It was given to me at Christmas time as a gift and
>it NEVER has worked. I've never been able to get music into it. The
>Itunes takes music and plays it fine. I've read about everything
>Apple posts as things to try and am at wits end. Anyone have a
>similar problem that they've solved. If so, I'd appreciate knowing
>how you did it.

I've had this problem intermittently with my 1GB iPod Shuffle.

I use a third-party USB extension cable to connect it to my Mac,
rather than plugging it directly into the computer. I found that it
was possible to make a slightly 'wonky' connection between lead and
Shuffle, such that the Shuffle charged and displayed the flashing
orange 'do not disconnect' status light, but failed to make an active
connection to iTunes.

My advice would therefore be to (i) check how the Shuffle's plugged
in, even move it slightly from side to side (within the mechanical
tolerances of the USB union of course!) to see if iTunes connection
goes 'live'; (ii) try connecting the Shuffle to a different USB port,
with/without an extension lead, etc, to eliminate other possible
causes of the problem.

Hope that helps and you can enjoy your Christmas gift at last!

Chris
--

Chris Reed, BBR Solutions Ltd * http://www.bbr-online.com

>At 8:40 am -0700 24/05/2006, Gary Barlow wrote:
>>I have a 1GB iPod Shuffle that is not being recognized by iTunes
>>when I try to send music to it. I either get an I/O Error message or
>>one that says I should plug it into the USB port which it already is
>>plugged into. It also blinks constantly orange color when I have it
>>plugged in. When I check the back to see if the battery is charged I
>>get the green OK light showing it is charged. I've tried restoring
>>the shuffle and uninstall & reinstalling the hardware w/ no solution
>>success at all. It was given to me at Christmas time as a gift and
>>it NEVER has worked. I've never been able to get music into it. The
>>Itunes takes music and plays it fine. I've read about everything
>>Apple posts as things to try and am at wits end. Anyone have a
>>similar problem that they've solved. If so, I'd appreciate knowing
>>how you did it.

I had the same issues for a while and the problem I had was that one
of my USB connections on the back of my Mac died even though it
seemed to work fine for the Keyboard and mouse. But after a while
even they stopped responding.
I purchased a USB card from Sonnet (I think) and since it's worked quite well.

Of course, you could just have D.O.A. shuffle. I've heard about it before.

p

--

  Phil Emery
  creative director
  philfocusedcreative.com
          
  Focused Creative Communications
  18 Hook Ave. (416) 534-4273
  Suite 106 fax: (416) 534-7740
  Toronto, ON M6P 1T4 http://www.focusedcreative.com

At 1:08 pm -0400 25/05/2006, Phil Emery wrote:
>I had the same issues for a while and the problem I had was that one
>of my USB connections on the back of my Mac died even though it
>seemed to work fine for the Keyboard and mouse. But after a while
>even they stopped responding.
>I purchased a USB card from Sonnet (I think) and since it's worked quite well.

That's a curious coincidence -- the old G4 desktop I use with the
sometimes problematic Shuffle also had one of its USB ports die
recently...

Chris
--

Chris Reed, BBR Solutions Ltd * http://www.bbr-online.com

On 27/05/2006, at 5:21 AM, Phil Emery wrote:

>> At 8:40 am -0700 24/05/2006, Gary Barlow wrote:
>>> I have a 1GB iPod Shuffle that is not being recognized by iTunes
>>> when I try to send music to it. I either get an I/O Error message or
>>> one that says I should plug it into the USB port which it already is
>>> plugged into. It also blinks constantly orange color when I have it
>>> plugged in. When I check the back to see if the battery is charged I
>>> get the green OK light showing it is charged. I've tried restoring
>>> the shuffle and uninstall & reinstalling the hardware w/ no solution
>>> success at all. It was given to me at Christmas time as a gift and
>>> it NEVER has worked. I've never been able to get music into it. The
>>> Itunes takes music and plays it fine. I've read about everything
>>> Apple posts as things to try and am at wits end. Anyone have a
>>> similar problem that they've solved. If so, I'd appreciate knowing
>>> how you did it.
>
> I had the same issues for a while and the problem I had was that one
> of my USB connections on the back of my Mac died even though it
> seemed to work fine for the Keyboard and mouse. But after a while
> even they stopped responding.
> I purchased a USB card from Sonnet (I think) and since it's worked
> quite well.
>
> Of course, you could just have D.O.A. shuffle. I've heard about it
> before.

My dealer suggested I squeeze the USB plug sides gentle together as
many of them get too loose to connect correctly. I have done this
with keyboards and shuffles with good success. I also believe a loose
connection may cause the USB bus to fail as well.

Regards
Neil

should my ipod light up when I plug it into the USB port? and I don't seem to have an AUTOFILL BUTTON what's up wlth that? b

Yes it will light up... thats how it charges ... and updates ...it will automatically seek iTunes to load up and update...
When it is updating do not disconnect it until it gives you an update complete message, or your older download will not work. If you are connecting to a Windows PC you can actually damage the iTunes programs and have to download iTunes again. On a MAC I have found that it does nothing but clear your iPod of the last download or damage partial of the new download. Its always best to unload the iPod from the MAC computer first then disconnect the USB connection. The light if you look close will show you a message about do not disconnect the iPod until the update is completed.

Dr. Jack

My ipod shuffle lights up green allright when i connect it to the usb port however, it is not recognized by the computer and i have over three usb ports on my cpu and lights orange and green when i press the play button when it is disconnected.i wonder what the problem is need some help.

I too am having the error messages with my ipod shuffle (1GB). I keep seeing a (-50) error message telling me that I can't write to this device. I have tried everything to fix the problem...I tried restoring, restarting, resetting, reinstalling itunes, and recreating my library and still I can't move songs onto the device. I have checked the USB cord and everything seems fine. The computer recognizes the device and so does itunes. I just can't put any music on the shuffle. Does anybody have any ideas as to what to do?

I just got a used ipod shuffle and it doesn't light up when connected to my computer. ITUNES accepted you and I was able to download my music. Could it be that it needs to be charged?