Q: iTunes (10.4.0.80) on Windows 7 memory leak

I too had the problem that iTunes reported it could not save the library file after it had been running for some time.  I have Windows 7 64-bit with all current Microsoft patches running on an HP Compaq 8200 Elite CMT with 16 GB total memory.  iTunes was clearly running up a against a per-process limit, since there was available memory.  I had to kill it with the task manager, it would not response to pressing the "OK" button in the notification window and seemed to be looping.

As it happened, when I restarted iTunes it told me that an updated version was available, so I downloaded it and installed it.  It claims to be 10.6.1.7 (the About screen doesn't give a build date, but Windows properties suggest 3/27/2012 as the build date).

It started with a reasonable memory footprint, but after running for about a day or so it's up to 725,324K (yes, that is over 725 MB of private memory) with 33 threads active.  All it's doing is playing back randoms songs from my iTunes library.  It has the largest memory footprint of any running application on my system, including Outlook (a notorious memory pig).

Threads seem to come and go, but the memory footprint just keeps growing and growing.  Eventually I will have to restart it. 

Regressing to an older version is only an option when you haven't added lots of content to your library.  I did that a time or two when Apple recently broke the pause/resume interface on my Logitech keyboard, but once that started working again, I've been keeping up to date.

It certainly is irritating that Apple doesn't seem to be able to avoid a memory leak on Windows.  Other than that, the software seems to be working correctly and reliably.

@DrTomBlinn

I'm also experiencing the same problem with iTunes, v 10.6.1.7 on Windows 7 64-bit.  Over a few hours my iTunes.exe process (which starts at around 70 Mb) grows to over 500 Mb and continues to grow.

The issue appears to be even worse (i.e. memory consumption grows more rapidly) when playing random songs from the whole library.

Some (unscientific) testing leads me to believe that the problem is related to the grid of album art cover - which is refreshed every time the next shuffled song is displayed. If I am viewing "Library -> Music" and click next repeatedly, I can watch the memory footprint grow in task manager each time I click.

If I then click Library -> Apps (i.e. a screen which is not constantly changing with each next track) I can happily click next repeatedly (to play the next song) and the memory footprint behaves what I would call normally (small changes up and down).

Hopefully this will help someone at Apple to look into the problem a little more...

@ChrisKeeble

You may be onto something about the "random" playing as a factor.  I'm not sure about the album art, since I do not have any album art being displayed, and my iTunes still grows until it hits Windows' process limits. 

It does appear to be related to the transition from one song to the next; I can see in Task Manager that when iTunes goes from one song to the next, there is a burst of paging, and an increase in private memory size.  When iTunes is paused (I have a convenient pause/resume button on my keyboard), it doesn't grow memory size, but if I let it just run, it fails after a few days.

I would be really nice if someone from Apple were paying attention to this problem, as it seems to have been around for a while now, and it negatively impacts the perceived quality of the software.  My other Windows apps don't fail in this way.

Tom

Was able to duplicate this with 10.6.1.7 on windows 7. Have a fresh install as of today with very little on here for the record. I only got it up to 500MB and then closed it out.

Used the logitec keyboard to spam skip/previous songs with my 7.2 day playlist and was able to accumulate about 5MB of memory leakage per day on average. I have very little album art installed since I just transferred everything over from my laptop, so this could be the reason it is so low compared to the others if the theory involving album art is correct.

Once, and only once, did ITunes manage to figure out what was going on and drop the usage from just over 60 MB back down to 25 or so (which is where it seems to start). This was after I switch it over to random playback to reproduce the results. After that lucid moment passed the memory leaked away as usual.

Does anyone have any average numbers for their leaks? With/Without album art?

My next question is *** does apple do with all that personal information they tried to get from me just now when I made my account? Apple, Facebook, Google... I feel like I'm being mined for bitcoins...

Hi All,

I am running Windows 7 64bit with 8GB Ram and have the same problem as all of you described after I updated my iTunes to 10.6.3.25 last Friday. Never had this problem before.

I hope Apple solves this really quick but given the date of the first reports of this problem I should no better.

Rob

Seeing as this issue is stil not solved I uninstalled iTunes and installed 10.3.

It's not seeing my ipad 3, how do I get it see my ipad so I can sync files?

I am only guessing, but my guess would be that a sufficiently older version of iTunes might be unwilling or unable to communicate with some newer devices, like the iPad 3.  Was the iPad 3 released before or after the release of iTunes 10.3 (I have no idea, nor am I sure where you'd look to figure this out)?  If iTunes 10.3 was before iPad 3 got released, then it may well simply not have the ability to talk to an iPad 3.

I have the same issue as you all do,  Itunes 64 bit on 64 Bit Windows 7, version 10.6.3.25. Deleting old songs really kicks the memory usage through the roof. I have a bunch of songs that Itunes cant find due to moving stuff around on my hard drive, so in going through and deleting these entries, I can get to over 1 gb of ram usage for Itunes.exe within about 15 minutes! Serious issue that has been going on far too long. 

who does Apple think they are ?  .... Microsoft ?

Similar problem here, with an additional problem.

Similar: a popup that says "iTunes cannot save these items to Library. There is not enough memory available. Download your purchases now." Taslmanager reveals that only 15% of 32 GB memory is used by only 99 running Windows 7 Professional processes. iTunes flakes and flops about with between 20,000 and 120,000 bytes (very unstable application, but well under a 2 GB on any single process.

Additional: user Library attack originating and ending in open iTunes Player. This attack occurs frequently, every 2 weeks to 2 months. The atack results the above popup, but also four more specific and significant attack features.

Currently we (Apple Support and I) are maintaining my Libvrary as ONLY Purchased AAC files.

1. The system data during attack indicates no problem with memory whatsoever. So we must assume the popup denoting memory failure is a component of attack. It must be clicked to be closed. When it is clsoed, The player display flickers, and significant changes ocur within the Library.

2. One or more files have their Purchased Date information removed.

3. Files with Purchased Date information removed are converted to a format not currently engaged in Preferences Import Settings. For example, we have set imports to AAC. The attacker has converted the effected file to Apple Lossless format.

4. iTunes Player bottom panel opens and natively requests user to confgure and access available downloads. From experience, there is nothing to download, but the machine (s) performing the attack are waiting for Apple login credentials. DIE wishing, suckers. No more!

Apple has been aware of this security leak for many months, and no iTunes Player update has addressed this security leak. Absolutely obvious that persons are gaining access to my Player and its music file contents. Apple is going nowhere, if not backwards, in finding and applying the fix. Or, is Apple happy with a current "FIX"?

Oh yes, frequent need here to repurchase songs stolen from Apple due to sloppy Apple security. I use my Apple Care contract to redownload what I have paid for, without cost. However, imagine all those victims without Apple Care! $cam, or what! How many files have you re[urchased this week, dear reader?

Would we not be even sadder to learn that Apple has not a CLUE what is going down with this blatant scam? Is that attack login (remember that configure and download panel popping open) already scamming a bogus purchase and download website, distributing our Apple content to countless users? Likely, or at the very least, possible.

These scenarios always bring out the dark side of human nature. Whose side are you on? A hiney clean Apple, or something devious, somewhere.

I have the same issue and I can replicate it. Everytime I click on a song, Genius loads the iTunes sidebar with suggestions. The memory used by these suggestions never gets recycled after clicking on another song. It stock piles up after each click. My itunes uses around 4-5 mbs of memory for every genius sidebar list. If I "hide" the sidebar, it no longer adds to my memory usage. It does not decrease either.

Does anyone else have their memory page file disabled?

*UPDATE* I enabled my 32gb page file, but it did not help. I was able to crash itunes at 920mbs of memory used within 5 minutes by just pressing the down arrow through my collection and letting the genius bar load for each song.

*UPDATE*

If I hide the sidebar and disable all artwork, the memory leak stops. Album artwork is the leak. If you want to crash iTunes really fast, just reload the iTunes store page about 20 times. Tons of artwork on the page.

I've been experiencing this problem for years. I finally decided to "fix" it today. Apple's not going to solve the problem, so I developed a work-around:

Scheduled task to run a batch file each day that does the following:

"C:\Program Files\PSTools\pskill" itunes

start "" "C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /B

"C:\Program Files\iTunes\scripts\PlayPlaylist" "iTunes DJ"

So, it will leak memory for 24 hours, but won't cause a problem for my server.

Needed to download PSTools and some scripts (from http://www.maximized.com/freeware/ScriptsForiTunes/)

Hello All,

I upgraded to iTunes 11 last weekend and don't have this problem anymore. Of course I have new once but this one is gone.

Regards Rob

My reason for coming onto the site was to look for answers to why my memory is suddenly getting eaten up SINCE installing itunes 11. some people say its fixed their memory leak, but for me its started

but i see coverview was believed to have caused the memory getting eaten up

well, if users now on 11 are using just the SONGS view, with no pictures, maybe thats why no longer a leak

in my case i never used coverflow,before, but now mainly use the ARTISTS view, which contains a lot more artwork on the screen than my old view, so im guessing thats why im getting problems

i currently have 6gb ram i on windows 7 64bit   when i start itunes with no other applications running, it shows memory used at 1.48gb. . i have approx 20gb of music in itunes

it takes about 6 hours for it to take up all my free memory and give the warning message.

i did spot the ability to resize the artwork for each album (it was set by default to max) so im going to reduce to half and see if it extends the time it takes to use up memory

im no it expert, so any extra help would be great, but a pity APPLE doesnt sort this as its been running for YEARS from what i can see.

other than the memory issue I actually quite like the new layout options, ARTIST view works best for me (but why have they removed the option to jump to next track when in editing tracks ? can only do that in SONGS now.......could easily be added to all views)

failing a fix ill just have to stick in 2gb extra memory, so at least i shouldnt get the memory maximum within a normal 'listening day',

from what i have experienced, if you do get the maximum memory warning, closing itunes will not free up the memory taken up by itunes, only a full shut down. but if i close itunes BEFORE the maximum warning, my memory slowly slowly slowly gets freed up (as long as i dont reopen itunes !!)