iPod/iPhone music cuts out

I just got my 2012 Prius III about 2 weeks ago. I am also having strange problems with both my ipod and iphone. I have only used my ipod one time and I had the same problems as the OP described with the pausing. I have an older 160gb classic. Mine is 99% full with over 50,000 songs.

The problem I am having with my iphone (happens about 1 out of 10 times) is that when I attach it to the usb cable the music will play out of the iphones speakers not the cars speakers but artwork will display on the nav screen as if it was playing out of the car. The only thing that seems to work to switch it back over to the car vs the iphones speakers is to make a phone call using the BT. Once when I was having the problem I was right down the street from a dealer. They told me they have never seen it happen before (of course) and that I would have to leave the car and my phone all day. Since I had an appointment the next day at my regular dealer for them to disable my reverse beep and a few other things, I asked them to check the radio and of course they couldn't find anything wrong and could not duplicate the problem.

My iPod is a 5th gen 60GB with 55GB of music on it.

However, EVERY non-SSD iPod (classic like iPod with spinning hard drive) exhibits this issue in my car.

I went to the apple store and got a brand new iPod classic. Loaded a few gigs of songs on it and the same problem happened.

What you need to do is to determine if it is your iPod or any iPod. If you buy an iPod from an Apple store, you can return if for a full refund within 14 days. (Save ALL of the packaging for the return). Or borrow a friends iPod and see if the problem persists.

Wrong. I have a 6th Gen 160 GB iPod Classic, and I have absolutely no issues with it.

Wrong. Apple's return policy is 14 days for all non-phone products.

I have tested with three different cables and finally it is working fine for me. I have a cable which came with the iPod and iPhone and one that I bought from eBay for less than a dollar and it's the cheap cable that I am having the problem with. I used the cable that came with iPod and music is not cutting out since yesterday. I have heard about 15 songs and it seems to be fine so far.

One of the things that the iPod and iPhone does is pause the music when it detects a change in power (plugged in via dock to unplugged) or a change in the headphone jack (plugged versus unplugged). I wonder if the cheap cable isn't consistently holding that voltage to the dock connector and that is what is causing the phone to think it went from a plugged to unplugged state.

try turning off the display cover art and see if that helps. displaying the cover art constantly crashes my ipod at random times

On the first point I was only referring to my issue: all hard drive iPods exhibit this issue in my car.

The second was a typo.

I have an Ipod Video (4 gen) and it does the same thing, cutting out for 1-2 seconds when plugged in USB. Tried several cables as well, still persists. Will follow this to see about peoples' updates.

Have a 2012 Plugin and have this problem with Ipod Classic. Tried several cables no difference. Same Ipod plays just fine in a 2011 Hyundai Genesis. Doesn't seem to have the problem with Iphone 4s but it is irritating to have the USB music always play when car starts.

I have the same problem with a 5th generation 80 GB iPod in my Prius v. Toyota support said essentially that it should work - try a different iPod to see if the problem goes away. If not, take it to the dealer. It did not seem that they were familiar with the issue.

My Prius v and IPod classic are having the same cutting out issue when plugged in with the usb cable.

Update:

Toyota has replaced the stereo, again on the car. This time though they also replaced another part related to the stereo that they didn't do last time. This has fixed the BlueTooth issue. However, the pausing iPod issue still persists.
Toyota is saying that my 5th Gen iPod is not compatible with their unit.

Does anyone out there have a Prius V five who would be willing to test my iPod if I sent it to them?

Are all the iPod's that are seeing this issue HDD based?

My 2nd gen iPod Touch has only a few dozen songs on it, and like you, the music cuts out on my basic Entune system when the iPod is connected with a $1 Amazon USB cable. I get no dropouts when the original Apple USB cable is used. I now use the cheap cable just to charge the iPod.

We are experiencing multiple issues with our v2 stereo.

We had satellite added to our car aftermarket by the dealer.

Every so often, the stereo with power down and display "Audio Off" in either XM or radio. Other times, the audio will go out, but the display is unchanged.

I just wanted to confirm that I am experiencing the exact same problem with my hard drive based iPod Video. I owned a 2008 Subaru Impreza prior to the Prius, and never had any problems with the sound, so, yeah, I'm kind of bummed about this. The problem does not occur on my wife's newer flash-based iPod Touch.

Well I don't feel to bad after reading the threads here, my problem is my iPhone4, which is playing an audiobook, through BT, and it's stopping every time I turn headlights on or off. For background I have a three week old v/3 and iPhone4 running latest update, iOS 5.1. The problem only seems to occur with audiobook playback using BT, I. E., everything works fine when phone is cabled. Since BT is frequency dependent why would turning head lights on or off interfer, since they are wired? I'll also be calling my dealer to see what they say but suspect they'll also give me shoulder shrug.

Over on the Apple Forum, this problem is described as a firmware issue relating to the iPod classic. Pausing seems to be far less of a problem if you play albums rather than random playlists. So far, Apple has not issued an update. The problem seems to arise with the way the Prius sound system handles hard-disk based iPods. It seems to indicate the iPod is treated like a remote hard disk by the sound system instead of the iPod playing the songs. Of course, you can always connect it with an audio cable, but you loose all the neat interface controls.