iTunes won't burn CDs

You just described my problem exactly -- it says it's writing, never goes anywhere, and freezes up and have to restart to get the disc out -- I just ran into this yesterday. I'm guessing it's a problem with Itunes 8.0.2 because I never had any problems burning discs with older versions (but it's been so long since I've burned discs that I don't know what version I was using). I know it's not my cd burner because it works for data or even for mp3's if I just drag & drop thru Finder. I've been reading a bunch of discussion about this on Apple's website, a few variations on the theme of "can't burn discs w/iTunes" but NO SOLUTIONS IN SIGHT. Eeek, very discouraging.

If the burn speed is set to "Best" try x8
Best is always too fast

Just keep using Toast, it blows itunes out of the water anyway !

I keep tellin' people but they don't listen !
I can burn at x52 but I would rather be safe than sorry
Old versions of Toast would show how fast your computer would throw the information at the CD Burner........ and guess what, x8 was the one on my old "Spec'd to the limit iMac"
Sad fact is most computers are not as fast as the blank CDRs or the Disc drive

Glad its sorted

Okay, I need help. Throughout this forum I have found that burning at 8x or slower will help this issue. I was able to burn 2 music discs using this method. Now, it won't burn a music disc again! I have even tried at 6x....getting frustrated.

Situation is: says it is 'writing xxx' (first track), but it never really starts. So I try and cancel it and it never spits out the disc until I restart the computer. Any ideas? Thank you!

Having the same problem ... But I'm still using iTunes 7. Guess I'll try to updated now. Has anyone found an answer to this problem? Very frustrating!!

Same problem here. Wasted 2 discs because of this already. Anyone know of any workarounds? Is it only on an PPC Mac?

I'm running the updated itunes and I had the problem for the first time tonight. The playlist I am trying to burn is from an actual audio cd, not purchased from itunes and I haven't burned anywhere near 7 times, so i can't figure it out. It will split it into, get this, one track per cd. What I finally did is drag the files out of the itunes folder, bypassing itunes library altogether, and put it in the burn folder. Or you could just create a folder, drag mp3's to it and burn it as a data disc with mp3's on it. But how to make audio discs with this problem remains a mystery to me.

Also, I don't get the message that I have burned too many times. Itunes just says that not all songs with fit on the disc, but when I delete enough songs, it will only burn one. I'm getting very ticked.

I'm wondering if maybe some discs come with some kind of block on burning from itunes.

Anyway, good luck.

If anyone's still having this problem - of the CD just never actually burning - even though it says initializing, etc. - I found a recommendation to:

shut down

restart with your CONTROL, OPTION and P, R keys held down to reset the PRAM and it worked just fine... they said you might have to reset your clock, but i did not.

good luck!

My iTunes is updated and for some reason, it is not finishing the CD's. It will initialize, write the songs, and then it hangs on the "finishing" process -- but never finishes. It will stay on "finishing" for hours if I leave it. I have to Force Quit iTunes and then I can restart iTunes and eject the CD.

After that, the CD usually does not work, though sometimes it does. It worked before, I'm not sure what the deal is here.

Having the same problem. It seems to create a CD-R of MP3's (no DRM issues); makes a sound as it finishes, the disk in Finder has the name of my playlist, and while it will play when I load the CD back into the computer, it won't play in my car audio. I have occasionally had issues before that were resolved with different brands of CD-R, but I've tried 3 different brands (TDK, Maxell, Memorex) and none of them work. iTunes won't get around to ejecting the CD (but iMovie will eject a DVD, so I don't think it's the drive). I've had these problems since upgrading to the latest version of iTunes.

Anyone still having issues burning discs after 8.1.1.? My discs get stuck with "Writing Song <the first one in the playlist>"

I can burn mp3 cds.

Any ideas?

Im having a complete crisis!!!

when i try to burn a playlist onto a disc it initializes then stop, pops the cd back out and says 'unknown error occured, 2131) ive tried every thing you have all suggested and i get the same message.

does anyone know what error 2131 is???

or have any tips on how i can overcome this problem?

I had the same problem where I would start a burn, it would appear to start the first track, then the status of the burn would disappear and the CD would show up in the left nav of iTunes as if it had burned completely. However, it did not burn, and I couldn't eject the disc. I thought it was the quality of the media, so I bought new, high quality media. Nope. I thought it was my burner, so I bought a new burner. Nope. I updated the burner firmware. Nope. I uninstalled Nero. Nope. Also, every time I tried to burn (and failed), I was setting the speed to 8x. I tried 6x, 12x, 16x, fastest possible. Nope. I re-installed Nero, opened Nero, put in a new disc (from the high quality batch I purchased) and burned a disc without any problems. It worked fine, so that seemed to rule out disc quality, and definitely ruled out anything wrong with the burner or firmware. I then re-opened iTunes (I'm using 8.1.1.10), selected the same playlist I had always tried to (unsuccessfully) burn (btw, the files are .m4a files), clicked Burn, chose 8x Audio CD (I had always chosen Audio CD - I didn't try any other format during this entire debacle) 2 second gap, CD Text.

This time, the CD burned without issue. Same tracks as before. Same burn settings as before. Not sure why it started working (once, at least).

So, maybe try burning with Nero or something else (if you have some other burn software), then come back to iTunes and see if you can burn again.