iTunes Freezes When I Plug in my iOS Device - Windows Vista

OK. Preamble...(solution is below so feel free to skip ahead) At some point in iTunes version history, they added a very annoying "feature". Whenever i plugged in my iPod Touch (1G) iTunes would fail to recognize my iPod. It got worse, iTunes would freeze up as soon as i plugged my iPod into my computer, lasting 5-15 minutes before unfreezing and still no recognizing my iPod in iTunes. Even worse, iTunes would lag out for even longer if i tried to edit certain preferences. I could not figure out this issue!

I gave up on my iPod touch for a long time (it got old) but i eventually got iPhone 4 and the same issues applied. I was furious that I could not initialize or whatever my iPhone on iTunes. So I had my brother in law (a computer repair tech) fix the issue. He told me it was a simple settings issue in preferences in iTunes and that I was a dumbass and to figure it out on my own next time. Well, iTunes updated to 10.2.1.1 this week and I wanted to update to iOS 4.3. The same old freezing song and dance turned up and I became infuriated once again.

But this time I believe i have figured out which simple setting my brother in law changed.

But before you can have that tidbit, lets recap.

-Windows Vista
-iPhone 4 (and iPod Touch 1G)
-iTunes 10.2.1.1 (or many earlier versions too)
-iTunes works fine until you plug in your iOS device, then it lags to hell
-after iTunes unlags, start twiddling around in edit-preferences.
-select the devices tab in preferences
-procede to lag to hell even worse than before.
-ragequit and come back a week later
-repeat!

SOLUTION

-unplug your iOS device and wait for iTunes to unlag. This may require quitting iTunes or rebooting or whatever.

-Goto iTunes-edit-preferences-devices (hopefully it will not lag since your iOS device is not plugged into your computer right?)

- Find the option called "Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically"

-UNSELECT this option.
-Select "OK"

-quit iTunes, restart iTunes (this may be optional)

-Plug in your iOS device.

-Device should now be recognized

-Enjoy

D-link DIR-601 router

My old belkin wireless G router never communicated well with my hp laptop or my nintendo wii. It finally stopped communicating well with my macbook - the final straw!

I purchased the cheapest replacement router I could find at staples. A D-link DIR-601 wireless N router. It was on sale for 40$. The caveat was that it was only 150Mbit throughput and not the full 300?

Anyhow, as almost all of my devices only use type G still, it didn't matter to me about type N throughput. So i picked it up and expected it to just work ought of the box. It did not.

I don't mean the wireless did not work. I could not get internet to come through any sort of wired connection through this router. I tried using the cd it came with (I never recommend trying the cd from a router) but i could not even get the cd to run on my hp laptop running vista.

Let's detail my specs.

ISP: Shaw communications in Sidney BC, Canada.
Router: D-link DIR-601
OS: Windows Vista SP-(Whatever is current)
(I also tried on my macbook running snow leopard)

To access the html interface for this router the IP is http://192.168.0.1/
(plug that address into your browser, eg firefox, internet explorer, chrome, safari etc)

anyhow, I started poking around inside the router and I noticed that all of the IPs and mac addresses and all those weird numbers that I hardly understand were mostly zeros or otherwise clearly not appropriate.

So the internet was not even getting into my router (but if i bypassed the router I got internet from my modem - so the router was indeed the problem)

The time of all this was about 1am. Needless to say my brain at 1am was hoping for a quick solution and I gave up easily.

at 9am the next morning - voila idea!

Firmware update!!!

The dir-601 comes with firmware 1.00 but 1.01 is available online. the link to get it is

http://www.dlink.com/dir-601 and snoop around or.... directly at

ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Gateway/dir601/Firmware/dir601_firmware_101NA.zip

So I updated the firmware and immediately everything started working as its supposed to.

Cheers!!!

Tip for updating firmware:

The router does not want the zip file. It wants the .bin file thats inside... So unzip the firmware update and only upload the .bin file inside to the firmware updater.


Feel free to leave comments or email me for help with this router

Purpose

This blog is a holding tank for any technical solutions that I have had to figure out on my own. I often grow frustrated when my very specific problems are not already answered on the internet. The only proper solution is to provide my solutions for others. So be it.