How to stop iTunes from launching when using Keyboard media keys

Apple REALLY doesn't want us to use anything but iTunes, it appears.

I have recently discovered Clementine, a free music player which is quite nice, though not as attractive as the Windows based Media Monkey and some others. I've done side-by-side comparisons between the same music files recorded in Apple Lossless and AAC 320 kbps. played in iTunes and Clementine and Clementine hands down sounds smoother and airier, lacking in the harshness displayed by iTunes in playback. I used AKG K240 professional studio headphones and Numark studio monitors and a Focusrite DAC for the comparison.

Also, as long as Clementine is running, it retains control over the keyboard Play/Pause and arrow keys even when Clementine's window is not on top or even maximized. While it doesn't solve the problem of iTunes launching from the Play/Pause button if Clementine is not running, it at least cuts down on this iTunes annoyance while providing a better library and audio playback option for me ....and it's free! It integrates with iTunes library IF you want it to.

What an obnoxious "feature". Tried for about 30 minutes to solve this issue and can't seem to find a workaround....

I solved this issue using the advice from this website.

You basically have to hex edit the binary of remote control daemon (rcd) which is in /System/Library/CoreServices

http://www.driestone.net/2012/08/10/stopping-the-media-keys-from-launching-itune s/

Now I can use Vox.app and VLC without iTunes messing around! 🙂

Perfekt!

This fixed it. It was a bit of a hassle but I got it to work.

You also have to change the write permissions on the file aswell, but after that I could save the edited file.

I used 0xED to edit and found the bit to delete starting at offset 0701E.

Thanks again for linking to the solution.

Hello,

I tried the above solution of editing out the "tell application id "com.apple.iTunes" to launch" line from rcd, but now I see my console giving me this error every 10 seconds:

kernel: proc 1038: load code signature error 2 for file "rcd"

If I try to run rcd from the terminal, it immediately segfaults.

Any idea what's going on? This happens when I edit out that line using 0xED or using vi. Did you leave blank space in the line? Or delete it entirely?

Thanks,

Gabriel

I've noticed I'm getting the same error on the console:
17-11-12 16:43:01,000 kernel[0]: proc 80763: load code signature error 2 for file "rcd"

i don't know how to solve it, but for now my mac has been working as usual without the hassle of iTunes popping out every time I pause the music.

I you find a solution, please share it with us.

Regards.

As far as I can tell, the hex editing isn't actually doing anything except making the file crash. If someone figures out how to make it run yet still not load iTunes, that would be ideal, to prevent the system from trying to start rcd every 10 seconds and failing.

It seems to me if the hex editing is only going to make rcd crash, then a better option would be to just remove executable privileges from the same file. chmod -x rcd. I think that was an earlier solution posted in the thread before the suggestion of editing the file. The system will still try to load rcd every 10 seconds though.

what about disabling code signature check?

there a response for this issue in AskDifferent:

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/64408/can-you-disable-a-code-signature- check

Er, as far as I can tell, they couldn't actually figure out how to do it for just the rcd file in that thread, right? It seems not ideal to globally turn off signature checking..

Well since the rcd got corrupted or can't be launch because of codesigning issues, we can disable the launch request for the app using:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.rcd.plist

I got this terminal command from: http://gavinroy.com/disabling-default-itunes-launch-behavior-with

Now the console is not showing the error anymore. I still don't know if this setting will remain after a reboot, I always leave my mac in sleep mode.

I Hope this will be helpful for you all. Regards

Great! This seems to work for me, and seems to remain in effect over reboots.

Worked for me too. Awesome, I've been struggling with this for awhile now. Thanks

Thanks, absolutely brilliant.

Finally I can launch iTunes when I want, not when my Mac want!

Nice one. Simple to do and works well. Many thanks.

I tried the command described above:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.rcd.plist

iTunes no longer launches when I use the remote, but now iTunes doesn't respond at all to the remote.

I tried the terminal command to revert back to the prior state: launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.rcd.plist

But the problem remains.

Amazing how such a simple problem is so difficult to resolve. You'd think only one active application at a time would respond to the remote, but apparently there is no easy way to control this????

Thanks for any help from the gurus out there.