iPod nano Lockup Reset When Frozen

Nick Momrik765 Comments

My iPod nano locked up and I had no idea what to do. Holding down buttons wouldn’t turn it off. Toggling the hold switch didn’t do anything either. It was in a stuck state where hold was turned on and none of the buttons would respond.

If you own an iPod with the Click Wheel (iPod with video, nano, iPod photo, iPod, or mini) follow these steps to reset the iPod:

  1. Toggle hold switch on.
  2. Toggle hold switch off.
  3. Hold down the menu and middle button for a few seconds.
  4. You might need to repeat.

Both times my iPod nano has frozen up I was plugging the ipod into the USB cable while the the hold switch was toggled on. Make sure to hold switch is togged off when connecting your iPod with the USB cable.

To reset some of the earlier iPods including like the iPod, iPod (scroll wheel), iPod (touch wheel), and iPod (dock connector), follow these steps:

  1. Toggle hold on.
  2. Toggle hold off.
  3. Press and hold the Play/Pause and Menu buttons until the Apple/iPod logo appears, about 6 to 10 seconds.
  4. You might need to repeat.

To reset an iPod shuffle:

  1. Move the switch on the back of iPod shuffle to the off position (green stripe not visible).
  2. Wait 5 seconds.
  3. Move the switch on the back to the play in order or the shuffle position (green stripe visible).

Still having problems?

  1. Connect to a different USB or FireWire port on the computer.
  2. Install the latest Operating System upgrades.
  3. Restart the computer.
  4. Reinstall the iPod with iPod Updater
  5. Reinstall iTunes
  6. Restore your iPod using the latest iPod Updater.

    *Restoring an iPod will erase all songs and files from the iPod, restoring it to the original state. Backup all files from the iPod before restoring it. Once restoration is complete, you can transfer your music and files from the computer back to your iPod again.

iPod displays sad iPod icon

In most cases, the sad iPod icon indicates a hardware issue. If you are able to force iPod into Disk Mode, then it may not be a hardware issue, and you should try to restore your iPod with the latest software.

765 thoughts on “iPod nano Lockup Reset When Frozen”

  5. alrite man.da ipods in a frozen state.its on da stopwatch.it froze on da stopwatch.none of these steps in another website wrks either…can ane1 help?plz???

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  7. I have a nano ….on the top of the display there is a lock…..I can not do anything with the nano….I have downloaded the updater to reset it…. but the lock remains on the screen even after it has been reset….. I found the hidden file when you view the nano through my computer….. I did not find a file that related to the locked status…. so I deleted what I could and reset it, but the lock remains………help!!!!!

    Thanks

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  8. Thank you, awesome person. You’re first on Google when you search for “ipod nano frozen” – I’m sure you’ve saved a lot more people than have commented!

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  9. Nano is locked. Same issues. Hard reset doesn’t work (toggle on off and press menu and select buttons). Any other ideas.

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  11. The store wouldnt take my ‘broken’ ipod back, i saw your fix accidentally and said, why not, i have nothing to loose, and the third time it worked 🙂

    I owe you a beer, dude, tnx a million times

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  12. My stupid nano wouldn’t turn on — when I plugged it into the USB port, nothing happened — it is 7 months old, so I figured the battery wasn’t dead yet (as it was just working fine) … iTunes seems to have screwed it up — I follow the advive above and rebooted the nano, and it seems to have fixed it — thanks for posting it!

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  19. Wow! Great Work, I had no idea I could do that! It worked perfectly and now my nano is up and running. Thanks again!

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  20. OMG OMG my nano’s UI was screwing up when i moved the touch pad i did your technique and it worked! i never would have guessed , thanks a million man, if you ever come to Singapore ill buy you prata or something. great post thanks so much thank you thank you

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