So I go to use the ol' ipod today and it appears that everything has been deleted --artists, nothing; songs, nothing; playlists, nothing; all, nothing. Looks like it's all spontaneously deleted. However, when I check my settings it appears like everything is still there 18 gigs used, 318 megs remaining. Still got my name and my last settings intact.

I'm at work right now so I can't hook it up to the Mac. The only issue that could have precipitated this was an itunes freeze last night. I had to force quit, but was able to eject the ipod out of the finder no problem...or so I thought.

Anyone seen this before? It's not an unmitigated disaster (yet) as most of my files are still on the computer. Searching for this issue online is pretty cumbersome, so any thoughts would be welcome.

i had that happen once. i had to load everything back on to it.

Fuck, that's what I thought. I'm guessing I'll have to reset.

this happened to me a few times and i freaked out.... leave it alone for a minute, and then hit the menu & play at the same time to reset it. but you won't have to upload everything again.

Thanks for the tips; I'll try to do a full reset when I get home. I really hope I don't lose all those files and playlists. That would not be a great start to my break.

Mine seems to forget all my settings, but all the music is accessible. I go weeks without using it though, so maybe it goes into some sort of deep hybernation.

I can't wait to get rid of my ipod.

Update: As cotton initially predicted, it was fucked. I had to restore and am in the process of a likely futile reloading. I think it's likely fucked again for the second time in a year. I did the whole restore and reload thing once already and the outcome was doa. The only positive point last time was that it was within the warranty period.

I am leaning towards not recommending these devices. It's been a year for fuck's sake. My cd player is pooching right now and it's 15 fucking years old. An item that's good for a year, no matter how handy or convenient, is not a ringing endorsement.