"iTunes cannot read the contents of the iPod" error

I highly doubt this will actually have an answer because I’ve hardly had any luck with any forum but I’ll take my chances.

I have a 3rd gen iPod touch that I want to use just as a music player. It works perfectly fine. Unfortunately, when I plug it into my computer to sync the songs, iTunes gives the message you see in the title. My only options are to restore the thing or to eject it.

I've tried everything I found in guides - restart your computer, relaunch iTunes, etc (which were all useless, although not as useless as the ones that tell you to use some shoddy and shady unknown computer program to restore it as the final step). My iPod is not jailbroken and has no extra apps - bone stock with a rather empty iOS 5.1.1. The only file on it is a picture of Arisa Matsuda that I put as a joke.

Is this because I'm trying to sync with a computer running 10.13 High Sierra? Or is it something else?