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iTunes stuttering playback

After the big OS X Leopard update, iTunes started skipping or stuttering on playback. It does it often enough that the program is basically unusable. The skipping is NOT related to internet access by my mail program (Mailsmith) or web browsers. It is NOT an mp3 file corruption problem, since the stuttering occurs in different places with each replay of the same song. The songs are those loaded from my own CD's and played flawlessly before the software update. The usual rigamarole of trashing preferences and resetting PRAM has not changed anything.

I have noticed other people with the same problem posting on different boards. I assumed that the 7.6.1 update to iTunes would address this issue. No such luck.

I am at a loss. I have an almost new MacBook which worked flawlessly until the update. I am very disappointed with Apple that 1) this issue is not addressed, and 2) that it is impossible to contact anyone knowledgeable about how to attempt to fix this. As a legacy Mac user (first 128K Mac bought on 2/24/1984 and many, many Macs since, this is a new type of helpless feeling.

Help!

MacBook Pro 17", Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Feb 29, 2008 4:43 PM

40 replies

Mar 21, 2008 10:18 AM in response to Jeffrey Hull1

Kind of pathetic that the article you cite is dated Dec. 14 of last year. Three months of this problem and not a word from Apple or a posted fix.

Mar 22, 2008 4:45 PM in response to Sven Erik

Sven Erik wrote:
The iTunes feedback link is:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

My wife just told me the iTunes stuttering and stalling seems to occur only when she is using the remote speakers connected via AirTunes (AirPort Express). Hope Apple fixes this soon as it would be very difficult to coonect her remoste speckers sdirectly to her computer.

Reported. Fingers crossed that there's a fix soon. I miss my music and it's unplayable as things currently stand.

Mar 25, 2008 12:35 PM in response to Jeffrey Hull1

The plot thickens. I, too, just noticed today that Quicktime movie playback is jerky, just as the iTunes playback. Not so when viewing a movie within a web browser. Does iTunes use Quicktime to play music and I presume videos? That might narrow the problem to Quicktime if so. Perhaps we could revert Quicktime with Time Machine ...

Mar 25, 2008 12:41 PM in response to Jeffrey Hull1

Jeffrey Hull1 wrote:
The plot thickens. I, too, just noticed today that Quicktime movie playback is jerky, just as the iTunes playback. Not so when viewing a movie within a web browser. Does iTunes use Quicktime to play music and I presume videos? That might narrow the problem to Quicktime if so. Perhaps we could revert Quicktime with Time Machine ...

I think you're right- we've got a Quicktime problem here. I got the stuttering when previewing an MP3 in Quick Look yesterday. It seems to be tied to some sort of performance problem- network calls, especially from Safari, seem to trigger the problem.

Mar 25, 2008 7:10 PM in response to Maggie Osterberg

Alright, let's take this on! I bet between us we can work it out. Maybe?

More observations: If I use my headphone jack "fix" I can get my audio working. Some files (some movies, MP3s) work fine, others seem to break it. Everything seems (both fortunately and unfortunately) to be playing fine now. The only significant change since last night is that Spotlight indexed my drive (I was getting stuttering even when I told it to bug off last night; I let it index overnight).

When I go to bed tonight, I will start Leopard installing freshly on an external FireWire drive, and I'll use that install to try to play music. That way, I can hope to narrow down if its an incompatibility with my computer or a corrupted system file, although this intermittency is going to be obnoxious...

Anyone else have any ideas? Can anyone give me more details on their setups?

-Ben

Apr 5, 2008 11:48 AM in response to Jeffrey Hull1

Well, I just installed the update for iTunes and Quicktime (which I believe is the problem), and MPEG1 files and iTunes stutter just as badly as before. Kudos to Apple for ignoring this problem totally. Really classy.

Apr 5, 2008 12:45 PM in response to Jeffrey Hull1

Me too. Come on Apple, do something!

Apr 5, 2008 2:36 PM in response to Jeffrey Hull1

Just upgraded from a PowerMac G5 (single proc) to a Mac Pro 2.8 GHz. Moved my music library using Migration Assistant (which was pretty cool, btw). Now, with OS/X 10.5.2 and iTunes 7.6.2(9), I have the same symptoms you've all described. My music stops abruptly and at random times during most songs. Each interruption lasts 2-4 seconds, and is accompanied by static. The "skips" don't occur at the same point in any song twice, so I know it's not data corruption. Quicktime has similar issues.

I just bought one of the world's best multimedia workstations, and I can't even play music on it! My $50 iPod shuffle sounds better!

I have tried deleting specific songs, and recopying them from original media to no avail. I still get skips. Apple needs to get on this.

Apr 6, 2008 12:39 PM in response to Jeffrey Hull1

I spent about 3 hours yesterday working with a very helpful lady at Applecare support. We went through everything she and ultimately the software engineer could think of to isolate the stuttering problem. Bottom line: no change.

So I reverted to my fallback solution that has worked to fix problems since OS X initially was released. That is to reinstall OS X from the original discs of whatever version (and reinstall all the updates as needed). I archive and reinstalled OS X 5.0, then upgraded to 10.5.2 with the 312 meg combo update at

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1052comboupdate.html

Both the iTunes and Quicktime movie stutter problems are gone. So I would recommend this procedure for everyone with the issue, and hope that those who try it report back to confirm or deny that it worked for them.

Apr 8, 2008 3:05 PM in response to Jeffrey Hull1

Well, here we go again. iTunes worked for two days without stuttering - now it's back.

Crap.

slipperx

Level 1

0 points

Apr 9, 2008 3:53 AM in response to Jeffrey Hull1

I am using Itunes 7.6.2.9 on a dual processor PC with 16 Gig Ram, 250 gig hard disk devoted exclusively to itunes Windows Vista Business. I moved the collection to a new computer believing the older slower computer to be the issue. Guess what I have exactly the same problem. I imported my entire song collection into Media player and can play the songs flawlessly. iTunes ***** and support is non-existent.

mkummer

Level 2

297 points

Apr 9, 2008 9:57 AM in response to slipperx

I have the stuttering of Music playback if I browse through pieces most of the time starting with sec 08. Trying it a second or even third time shows the track is OK. Whenever i start a Movie Playback I have the same stuttering after som 8 to 10 secs but usually the rest of the playback goes well. Another miraculous thing: after importing a movie file w/o changing the location and starting playback for a test, returning to iTunes crashes the whole OS X 10.5.2 completely. I have to restart. If I quit iTunes first after importing and run the movie after relaunching iTunes, all works well. Seems iTunes got a load of bugs recently... So its a good thing I hea the music mostly from my iPhone and use iTunes more or less as base station and database.

mk

Apr 9, 2008 10:42 AM in response to mkummer

i also have this problem, only since updating to itunes 7.6.2

i am running leopard on a powerbook g4 1 Ghz, which is stretching it i know, but i have never had a problem with itunes in the past. The problem is that the stutters are inconsistent. sometimes i will hear a whole song with no skip, but the next song will have a bunch of them.

shanemo

Level 1

0 points

Apr 11, 2008 6:36 PM in response to Jeffrey Hull1

itunes 7.6.2

I had the same annoying problem: iTunes would hesitate at the beginning of a song and then resume playing it. This affected ALL tracks in my 17,000+ library. No quarter.

My fix was to uncheck crossfade playback in preferences. I have never used sound check nor sound enhancer so those boxes remained unchecked.

Worked for me and ALL tracks play now with no stutter.

Hope this helps some.

Apr 12, 2008 11:37 AM in response to Jeffrey Hull1

I (again) hope I am not speaking too soon, but I've been listening a couple of hours now with no stutter. Acting on the tip above about playback preferences, I turned off Sound Enhancer (whatever the heck that is) in the Preferences, Playback section. Stuttering is gone. For now. If someone else tries it with or without success, please report back to this thread. Someday someone is going to stumble on the solution, which will allow Apple software engineers to fix it.

iTunes stuttering playback