# iPod no longer "automounts" (?)

## WvR

I use a (cheap) Lenovo G580 laptop. It has an up-to-date kernel, Gnome-3.8 and systemd. Until last week, I could connect and use my iPod Classic 160 GB without any problems. Last week or so I updated the system:

```
emerge -auvDN world
```

Update went OK, but when I connect my iPod, it no longer works   :Sad:  The sequence of events:

1. plug iPod into any of the USB ports

2. after a while, there is the normal "pling pling" sound from Gnome, indicating that something was connected to USB

3. however, the iPod never gets mounted under /media/run where it used to be; also, it does not show up in the file manager anywhere

I tried with several USB keys; they work just fine: plug in, pling pling sound from Gnome, and "open with file manager" dialog appears.

I ran "dmesg" to see what is happening to the iPod; it is recognized, and reported correctly as an Apple iPod 160 GB, and a device is correctly handed out (/dev/sdc1 or similar).

When I use "mount", the iPod appears to be mounted under /tmp/ipodXXXXXX where XXXXXX is a series of (seemingly random) upper and lower case characters. The iPod is sometimes mounted "ro" (read only), sometimes mounted "rw". When I try to access that directory:

```
 ls /tmp/ipodXXXXXX 
```

there is a pause of 30 seconds, then the contents are displayed. If I use gtkpod, I cannot connect to /tmp/ipodXXXXXX.

in /var/log/messages there is a message from systemd-udevd about the USB device:

```
> Nov XX TT:TT:TT systemd-udevd[180]: worker [3749] /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:09.0/0000:04:00.0/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/host11/target11:0:0/11:0:0:0/block/sdc/sdc1 timeout; kill it

Nov XX TT:TT:TT systemd-udevd[180]: seq 1787 '/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:09.0/0000:04:00.0/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/host11/target11:0:0/11:0:0:0/block/sdc/sdc1 killed
```

from the time stamps I can see that 30 seconds are spent waiting. Any tips?

----------

## crafty1

Hey there, not sure if you solved this yet but I use my iPod classic 160GB.

I used GTKpod which uses libpod to work with iPods.

How were you getting songs on it before?

I know on my Gentoo box with KDE it shows the  *Quote:*   

>  "open with file manager" dialog 

 

I had disabled automount so I have to click on that.

My devices mount under

```
 /run/media/<user>/<device> 
```

for my flash drives / ipods etc.

i.e. /run/media/zoidberg/zoidpod

----------

## WvR

Thanks for the reply. The iPod still does not work.

I use GTKpod as well. GTKpod is really a GUI for the libgpod library. This library takes care of updating the iTunes database on the iPod, as well as the file naming on the device. On the iPod, files are not represented by their 'human readable' name - I think Apple does this to make it impossible for users to copy content without the use of iTunes (thereby making it impossible to circumvent any DRM)

However, libgpod simple relies on the fact that the iPod itself is mounted somewhere in the file system as a read-write formatted device (depending on the iPod, formatted in VFAT or something else). In my case, the first step, to mount the iPod, seems to fail even though it used to work perfectly. 

In fact, this is the so-manieth-time that I have problems with iPods. I used to have an iPod 5G-Video 30 GB, on which I installed Rockbox. That thing was absolutely fantastic, until I dropped it and the screen became unreadable   :Very Happy:  Then I bought an 8 GB iPod nano 6G, which does not work with GTKpod out-of-the-box. You need a Windows PC and iTunes to initialize it correctly. That iPod also worked pretty much OK until the scroll wheel started to fail. Now I am using my wife's iPod classic 160 GB (she has an iPhone). Rockbox cannot be installed on it, and I have had several occasions where GTKpod crashed during the update process. The resulting damage can only be repaired by connecting it to iTunes and re-transfer all original content.

So, if you know of a reasonable player, with 8 - 32 GB of memory, that can be used as a normal "USB mass storage device" (i.e. without any special software from the manufacturer for synchronization), and which preferable also supports Ogg Vorbis, then please let me know   :Very Happy: 

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## crafty1

 *Quote:*   

> However, libgpod simply relies on the fact that the iPod itself is mounted somewhere in the file system as a read-write formatted device

 

Oh cool , I didn't know that that's pretty neat.

I recommend the iRiver and the Sansa Clip devices.  I have used both.  My iRiver has 8GB I think.  The Sansa Clip Zip I have is 4 or 8GB and supports a Micro SD for expanding which is probably better.  The iRiver looks nicer though.  They are all usb devices just drag and drop.  I always hated having to have iTunes installed to recognize the iPod.

Apple is King of locked down systems.

I'm sorry you haven't been able to get the iPod to work they are neat.  I used mine briefly with Gentoo and libpod and the files on it gotta screwey.

 *Quote:*   

> I think Apple does this to make it impossible for users to copy content without the use of iTunes (thereby making it impossible to circumvent any DRM) 

 

I would not doubt it I swear to God I am so sick of DRM.  Defective by design is absolutely correct.

I have a Mac, Gentoo, and Windows 7 so it's a nightmare getting them all to play nicely.  :Razz: 

----------

## ulenrich

@WvR , If you keyword

flaggie media-libs/libmtp '~amd64'

you should get libmtp-1.1.6-r1 ~unstable which resolves bug 

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481666

----------

## WvR

 *ulenrich wrote:*   

> @WvR , If you keyword
> 
> flaggie media-libs/libmtp '~amd64'
> 
> you should get libmtp-1.1.6-r1 ~unstable which resolves bug 
> ...

 

Interesting. I don't have libmtp, and the iPod used to work until recently. The file 

```
69-libmtp.rules
```

 is not on my system.

----------

## ulenrich

I did confuse ipod with android. I thought it is the same technically  :Sad:  Excuse me!

Instead of looking into: /media/run 

What is at:   /run/media/YOUR_USER/*

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## WvR

ulenrich, as indicated in my first post, the iPod does get mounted under 

```
 /tmp/ipodNNNNNN
```

 where NNNNNN is a sequence of six characters, seemingly random. [edit] Sometimes the iPod is mounted "ro", sometimes "rw". However, even if it is mounted as "rw" I cannot transfer files with GKTpod. Unfortunately, GTKpod does not give any error messages, instead it usually just crashes. I am kind of used to that; it crashes very often on my computer.

I can connect "regular" USB sticks, and they are all mounted under 

```
/media/run/$USER/...
```

. These USB sticks are also VFAT formatted, like the iPod. So I am really confused what determines the difference between mounting a USB stick with VFAT and an iPod with VFAT.   :Confused: 

----------

## ulenrich

@WvR, I am not the expert with ipods. I told you something at first because I confused with android.

Thus only my wild guesses:

a) Do you really have your kernel ready to run systemd? (make menuconfig using TomWiJ meta config options with gentoo-sources).Which results like this: 

```
#  mount|grep -i tmpfs

devtmpfs on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1891628k,nr_inodes=472907,mode=755)

tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)

tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,mode=755)

tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)

tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw)
```

b) Is there something missing or suboptimal under /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/

You can over-trump that by using a same named file but modified at /etc/tmpfiles.d/

c) Are there any USE flags related to your issue not set?

d) Perhaps the udev rules bug of libmtp tunneled to ipod also. Are the ipod related /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/*.rules well formed? (Or at /lib/udev/rules.d - having both is bad). Do you see any related udev error when: journalctl -b

Search in the journal with '/'

e) If this is an usb3 xhci issue wait for a newer and better kernel  :Sad: 

----------

## jserink

Hi:

See my post here:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-978028-highlight-.html

In short, libimobiledevice 1.1.5 causes a segfault with ifuse 1.1.2. ifuse requires a patch.

If you downgrade to libimobiledevice 1.1.4-r2 by masking libimobiledevice 1.1.5 then everything will work again.

At least,t hat was my experience.

Perhaps give it as try.

Bug detail is here:

https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/35923

Cheers,

john

----------

## WvR

ulenrich, jserink, thanks for the info. Unfortunately, neither libimobiledevice or ifuse are on my computer, so these libs cannot be the source.

ulenrich: I have all the tmp stuff, and please note, when the ipod stopped working I did not change the kernel, in other words, the kernel cannot be the source of the problem (or at least, it seems not reasonable to think so).

I added "ipod" to the system USE-flags, but emerge does not give any packages to be rebuilt. It is mentioned that net-libs/libsoup is skipped due to a dependency conflict. Maybe this is the problem, I will report later.

I have only one rule concerning ipod: 

```
ls -la /lib64/udev/rules.d/90-libgpod.rules 

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1850  8月 24 19:52 /lib64/udev/rules.d/90-libgpod.rules
```

This file has not been updated since August so should not be the source of the problem....

----------

## WvR

I tried using the "ios" USE-flag in /etc/portage/make.conf and re-emerged gvfs, but that did not solve the problem. If anything, the problem got slightly worse.

----------

## WvR

BUMP! The problem with the iPod is still not resolved   :Sad: 

I tried with a different iPod (nano 6G). That other iPod was automounted without any problems and I could access it from gtkpod without any problems. This gives me the suspicion that in fact the iPod Classic 160GB may be the source of the problem. When I checked the dmesg messages between the nano 6G (OK) and the Classic (NOK), the only difference is in this line:

[13416.717108] FAT-fs (sdc1): Volume was not properly unmounted. Some data may be corrupt. Please run fsck.

When I run fsck, it reports that the volume was not cleanly unmounted, and asks if I want to solve the problem. When I hit "Yes", the problem is not resolved because a subsequent fsck still gives "not properly unmounted"   :Sad: 

On Windows iTunes, no problems are reported, on a Mac with iTunes no problems are reported, and when I start the iPod in Disk Mode, no problems are reported..... sigh...

----------

