iPod 4th gen USB problem

Hiya!

I hope there's someone who can help me as I've tried everything I can think of.

I bought an iPod shuffle 4th generation yesterday, second hand.
I installed iTunes (Windows 8.1), set up my library to my liking and plugged in the iPod
I then formatted and reset the iPod to rid it of my friend's music and randomly filled it with my own.
iTunes then said that an update was available for the iPod, so I click okay and it installs, no problems.
After the update, the iPod will now not be recognised by any computer at all; no light on it comes on when it's connected, but I can still put headphones in and it still plays my music.
The male American sounding voice that tells you how much battery is left has been replaced by a robot sounding female voice, if that has any bearing on anything...

What I have tried to get the iPod to be recognised -

Checked if the cable was connected properly
Reset it by sliding the power button as per instructions on the Apple website
Rebooted the computer
Stopped and re-started the Apple mobile device/bonjour services
Re-installed iTunes after a complete uninstall with all traces of it wiped using Revo Uninstaller
Did a system restore to before I had the iPod
Reinstalled iTunes again
Checked device manager in Windows control panel - no sign of the iPod
Checked for it under disk management, no sign of it
Checked the cable using another iPod shuffle - it works
Plugged my iPod into my wife's windows 7 machine with iTunes on it - it's not recognised
Plugged my iPod into an Ubuntu machine - not recognised
Found an iPod reset utility, but since the iPod doesn't appear/isn't recognised at all when it's plugged in, I can't reset it.

I'm running out of ideas.

Kind of obvious but I'll mention it anyway.... make sure the Shuffle is completely charged, in other words the tiny green light comes on when you turn it on. If the Shuffle battery is dead or completely discharged, it will act the way you stated.

chscag said:

Kind of obvious but I'll mention it anyway.... make sure the Shuffle is completely charged, in other words the tiny green light comes on when you turn it on. If the Shuffle battery is dead or completely discharged, it will act the way you stated.

Click to expand...

If only it was that! ;D
No, it's at 100% charge at the moment.

Do you have a friend or fellow worker who owns a Mac? If you do, try plugging the Shuffle to the Mac via its cable to see if it will be recognized. I've had problems in the past switching an iPod format from Mac to PC (I own both machines) and wound up having to go back to the Mac format to get it working again. It wasn't a Shuffle, but the same may apply.

chscag said:

Do you have a friend or fellow worker who owns a Mac? If you do, try plugging the Shuffle to the Mac via its cable to see if it will be recognized. I've had problems in the past switching an iPod format from Mac to PC (I own both machines) and wound up having to go back to the Mac format to get it working again. It wasn't a Shuffle, but the same may apply.

Click to expand...

I don't, unfortunately.

In addition, I did just plug it into a wall charger to see if the charging light came on and it didn't.

Maybe the cable is bad. Do you have another to test with?

MacInWin said:

Maybe the cable is bad. Do you have another to test with?

Click to expand...

I ordered one the other day and it came today. Still no joy.

In addition, I did just plug it into a wall charger to see if the charging light came on and it didn't.

Click to expand...

I'm wondering now if the Shuffle battery has gone flat. Since the new cable did not work, that pretty much points to the Shuffle itself. And as inexpensive a new Shuffle is, it does not pay to have Apple replace the battery if it's gone flat.

Just for info purposes.... we (my wife) has gone through 3 Shuffles and the last one we bought is not holding much of a charge. At $49 each, it begins to add up...

chscag said:

I'm wondering now if the Shuffle battery has gone flat. Since the new cable did not work, that pretty much points to the Shuffle itself. And as inexpensive a new Shuffle is, it does not pay to have Apple replace the battery if it's gone flat.

Just for info purposes.... we (my wife) has gone through 3 Shuffles and the last one we bought is not holding much of a charge. At $49 each, it begins to add up...

Click to expand...

No, it was still able to play music and said the battery was at 75% when I pressed the voiceover button twice.

Anyway, thanks everyone for what advice you all provided, I managed to fix the problem.


I'll give an update on what I did so people with the same problem in future will have something else to try....

I bought a new lead, like I said - but it still didn't work... with windows, that is. The shuffle was recognised in Ubuntu when I tried that.
Grabbing this straw, I knew that Ubuntu and iTunes under Wine don't really like each-other, so I used Virtualbox in Ubuntu to create an installation of Windows 7, in the hope that since the host OS now liked the shuffle, the guest might too.

It did. I installed iTunes on Windows 7 guest, restored the shuffle this way. I shut down Ubuntu, rebooted Windows 8.1 where the shuffle was recognised and worked as normal.