How to fix you IPOD SYNC Problem when upgrading to 5.21

[meth819]

I know a lot of people have had some trouble when upgrading to 5.21 and then not being able to use their IPOD or having Winamp screw it up. Here is how my situation unfolded.

I originally used ml_ipod to sync my IPod which worked great. Then I upgraded to 5.21 in order to sync my Creative mp3 player as well. After the upgrade I successfully screwed up my IPOD sync (as I am sure a lot of you had done).

In order to upgrade to 5.21 and be able to use Winamp's built in IPod support, you will need to do the following.

1) Uninstall the ml_ipod plugin from winamp though Winamp's preferences.
2) Completely uninstall Winamp through Add/Remove programs
3) Restart your PC
4) Remove all keys in the registry with the phrase "winamp"

IMPORTANT: BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY BEFORE DOING THIS. It's not my fault if you delete something important in the registry and you need to rebuild your computer.

To backup your registry follow these steps:
1) Open up the registry editor by clicking on Start -> Run -> type in "regedit" and hit enter
2) Make sure the Top of the tree is highlighted in the left pane and then click File -> Export. Save this file somewhere and burn it onto a CD.

In order to remove all the registry keys with the phrase "winamp":
1) Click on Start -> Run -> type in "regedit" and hit enter
2) In the registry editor, click on the Edit menu and then Find
3) search for the phrase "winamp". Whenever it is found delete it. There are going to be a lot of registry entries so it take about 10 minutes to do.

NOTE: You may need to go through the registry twice in order to get all the keys out.

If you delete all the values with "winamp" in them you should be all set. Don't rush through this process because you could end up killing your PC.

4) Restart your PC again and reinstall winamp. THAT SHOULD DO IT!!!!

You also may need to download the most recent IPOD updater and install the newest firmware version onto your device. (THIS WILL BLOW AWAY ALL YOUR SONGS). I did this to mine and it worked, but you may not necessarily have to do it.

I hope this helps for a lot of you out there. If you run into any problems give a post back up here and I'll see if I can help you out.

[dopepod]

As I said here, http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....readid=241482, I already did all that you recommended. Winamp recognizes my iPod, I am able to create new playlists, but I am UNABLE to add songs / files to the playlists.

Here's what happens. I make a new playlist. I click on the new playlist name so that I can view the empty playlist in the Media Library. Next, I go into a folder on my Desktop where there are some MP3s. I drag the desired files from the folder onto the Media Library. In the past, this would trigger a status / progress window, and then Winamp would put songs on my iPod. NOW, instead of putting songs on my iPod, I see the progress bar for a split second, and then it disappears...there I sit, empty playlist, no errors, nothing.

This used to work just fine with the fine ML_IPOD plugin and previous versions of Winamp. I could take files from my harddrive or from my other computer's shared folders, drag them over a blank playlist, and Winamp would do the rest. I WANT Winamp to go back to working. I'll repeat my computer specs:

Here's my setup:
* OS - Windows XP Pro SP2 + all current updates
* CPU - AMD Athlon XP 1800+
* Motherboard - ECS L7S7A2
* RAM - 512MB
* GFX - GeForce 4 Ti4200 128MB AGP 8x
* SFX - C-Media AC97 onboard sound
* iPod - 1GB iPod Shuffle
* Winamp - Winamp Pro v. 5.21

Thoughts? Suggestions? Am I missing a step here? Any info / suggestions / help would be greatly appreciated!

Sincerely,

dopepod

[meth819]

I am pretty sure that although Winamp 5.21 has support for Creative, IPod and Windows Play For Sure, it doesn't have the ability to drag and drop items into a play list. In order to add songs to a play list you need to do it from the device. Meaning you need to select the songs that are already on your IPod, right click, and send to playlist. From what I understand Winamp is going to allow the drag and drop of songs into device playlists in the next version. Thats how it is for my creative device so I am assuming it is the same for the rest of the devices it supports. If ya can't deal with that youll just have to roll back a version and continue using ml_ipod.

[dopepod]

I can deal with it; however, I wish Nullsoft would have been a bit more upfront about these changes / limitations to the new iPod / device support. Had I known I would no longer be able to drag and drop songs from my computer ONTO my iPod, as was working just swimmingly well with Winamp 5.1x and ml_ipod, I would NOT have upgraded.

I will continue to use Winamp and promote it as the best audio player / Shoutcast streamer, but I feel a bit cheated with this latest "update." It almost feels like it did when they went from Winamp 2 to 3. Man, within 5 minutes of installing Winamp 3, I uninstalled it and was back to using Winamp 2.

Crank out that new version, Nullsoft, your fans are eagerly awaiting!

[rabbanah]

I found this thread in my desperation to have more than just playlists appear in my media library. I upgraded from a previous version to 5.21, and I had been using ml_ipod before. I had the same problems as others here, but my solution was incredibly more simple than the one presented here. Again, not for the faint-hearted, and your mileage may vary, so make your own backups, etc. etc.

I was able to very simply go into the /plugins folder under the winamp install directory, and delete the five files that begin with ml_ipod*.*. At that point, I loaded winamp and the new ipod plugin was able to successfully interact with my 4G 60GB iPod photo. No adverse effects at this point, though I also don't anticipate any. Was much less risky than registry purging or uninstalling, though that certainly may be called for in certain circumstances. Your mileage may vary.

For the very faint-hearted, don't "delete" the ml_ipod*.* files, just move them somewhere else in case things go wrong, at which time you can just move them back into the /plugins folder.

Mind-numbingly simple (and quick) for those who used ml_ipod + previous winamp version, and upgraded to 5.21 over the top of a previous version. Hope it helps.

-Mark