Hi.  I posted this bug in the Gentoo forums first, but they sent me here.

Since the new version amaroK no longer supports my iPod - it was fine with 1.3.8.

When I first plug it in, I get this error:

Media Device: iPod mounted at /mnt/ipod already locked! If you are sure that this is an error, then remove the file /mnt/ipod/iPod_Control/iTunes/iTunesLock and try again.

And when I try to change anything (add/delete songs) or disconnect it, I get this:

Media device: failed to write iPod database

And true to its word, none of the effects take place.

I've tried libgpod versions 0.3.0 and 0.3.2 (latest marked stable and unstable in Gentoo, respectively), and the error is the same.  Also gtkpod works fine.

I've also tried many combinations of deleting the iTunesLock file amaroK complains about, and allowing amaroK to delete it itself (which it never does), to no avail.

And as per request in the README for this forum, I'm using the xine engine with ALSA output - xine-lib version 1.1.2_pre20060328.  I tried searching, but using keywords from the error message as a search term yielded no results.

Does anybody know what's going on?
Thanks in advance

According to the message displayed I don't thin you have 1.4, but some beta. Could you please get 1.4.0 and try again?

According to Portage, my version isn't a beta.  But I just synced, and there is an update available - it's compiling now.

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splig ~ # emerge -av amarok

These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order:

Calculating dependencies ... done!
[ebuild     U ] media-sound/amarok-1.4.0a [1.4.0-r1] USE="aac flac ipod kde musicbrainz mysql opengl real xinerama xmms -arts -debug -exscalibar -ifp -noamazon -postgres -visualization" 12,739 kB

You can also see the options it's compiled with (those with a preceding - are the disabled ones) and the upgrade details (according to Portage):  Upgrading from 1.4.0-r1 to 1.4.0a.

...and now it's up to the very latest version, the problem's still exactly the same.  I can file a bug in Gentoo's Bugzilla if you're sure they're mislabelling a beta as a final release, but a week ago there were _rc* versions (which have now gone) and Portage is usually kept pretty up-to-date (within a day or two of new releases at the most).

You could try deleting (or backing up) ~/.kde/share/config/amarokrc
Might be something stale there.

Argh, that made things even worse!

The error hasn't gone away, but on top of that amaroK now thinks that xine can't play mp3s!  Good thing I made a backup...

I've just been tinkering a bit further - after backing everything up, I tried removing the contents of /mnt/ipod/iPod_Control/iTunes and /mnt/ipod/iPod_Control/Music.

I was able to remove the admin and database things in iTunes, but I couldn't get rid of any of the music files - I always received this:

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nl@splig ~ $ rm -rf /mnt/ipod/iPod_Control/Music/*
rm: cannot remove `/mnt/ipod/iPod_Control/Music/f19/kpod179.mp3': Read-only file system

...except for every mp3 on the disk.

I know this "read-only file system" thing isn't true because I'd just deleted from the iTunes folder on the very same filesystem.

When connecting in amaroK, (after deleting the database file), it asks me to initialise my iPod, which it does without any errors.  I then see a big long list of "Orphaned" songs.  If I try to add the orphans to the database, I don't get any errors... but as soon as I press Disconnect I get that familiar old "Media device: failed to write iPod database" message.

If I then reconnect my iPod, I'm back to square one with the iTunesLock error messsage again.

The strangest thing to me in all of this is the fact that even in disk mode, I can't delete those music files - even though I can delete the database.  Is there something weird going on with my iPod here, or is this normal behaviour?

[edit:]
And I think I've cracked it.  I did this:

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splig ~ # dosfsck -avtV /dev/ipod2

Looks like the filesystem was corrupt - I should have realised this earlier, really.  Anyway, once it was fixed I was able to delete everything I wanted, so I got rid of all the music and all the iTunes stuff, reinitialised it in amaroK and transferred a song, as a test.  I'm listening to it now, so I'm guessing it worked.

I shall post back if I have any further problems.
Thanks for all your help 


[edit again:]
For the benefit of searchers, I'll summarise:
I think the problems were caused jointly by the upgrade from 1.3.8 to 1.4.0 and the fact that my iPod's filesystem had somehow become corrupted.  If you're experiencing problems like these, I suggest you backup your iPod's filesystem, run a full dosfsck and then delete:
a) all the superfluous files at /mnt/ipod
b) /mnt/ipod/iPod_Control/iTunes/*
c) /mnt/ipod/iPod_Control/Music/*
Then connect in amaroK, let it initialise your iPod and restock it with your favourite musics, podcasts, and so on.