I'm in the same boat as you. To figure it out, I took out the ipod cables, and jus tried to play a flash-drive. Same thing. It would connect occasionally, but would never last that long before powering off. I'm pretty sure the problem is the USB connection inside the actual AVIC, but I don't feel comfortable opening that thing up to fix it. Sorry I don't have a solution, but I feel we are seeing the same thing here.