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How do I stop Determining Gapless Playback?

Yet again, another iTunes upgrade has caused the horrible gapless playback scan to occur on my iTunes library. As a result, iTunes is totally unresponsive until this action completes. In my case, it's really slow as I'm accessing my files wirelessly from a network drive. I have to keep canceling the rescan to use iTunes. For the most part it keeps track of where it left off, however some files keep getting rescanned.

Here's what I've observed so far (not that it solves anything)
- it appears that rescans are triggered whenever an upgrade rebuilds the library. After going through this once for iTunes 7 upgrade, I remember it occurring again for 8 (and probably a point release in between) and version 9.
- The gapless playback mp3 tag doesn't seem to stop the rescan from occurring. I tested this for files that kept getting rescanned. I first set them to No and they still got scanned. Next I set them to Yes and still no luck...
- The number of files being scanned are less than the total number of files currently in my library, which leads me to believe the rescan trigger has to do with either when the file was added (i.e. before iTunes 7 release) or based on what version of iTunes the file was created.

Based on the above, I think this is a bug as it should only go through this once and if needed when new files are added to iTunes. Better yet, there should be an option to shut this off completely!

Any info on what causes this to occur or how to make it stop would be greatly appreciated!!!

Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8), iTunes 9

Posted on Sep 11, 2009 9:01 PM

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66 replies

Sep 11, 2009 9:10 PM in response to Brian Thull

Just let it run overnight
The gapless playback mp3 tag doesn't seem to stop the rescan from occurring. I tested this for files that kept getting rescanned. I first set them to No and they still got scanned.

The ONLY thing setting the tag under Options to Gapless does is keep the songs from cross fading when turned on if they are played one after the other.

Sep 12, 2009 5:13 AM in response to Chris CA

Yes, with previous upgrades, I had to let it run it's course (usually overnight). However, this still doesn't really answer my question.

If the scan isn't used to auto update the gapless flag, then in my option it's completely useless and renders iTunes unusable until the process completes or is cancelled by the user.
(1) What does the scan actually do??
(2) Why does it reoccur after every major upgrade??
(3) Why does the rescan only occur on a subset of the songs in the iTunes library??

I'm convinced this is a bug and iTunes is hard coded to scan for gapless playback on files added prior to the iTunes 7 release date, which per Wiki was on 9/12/06. If I create a smart playlist of songs added before this date, then the total number of songs in the list is nearly identical to the number of songs that are scanned after a major upgrade.

Sep 12, 2009 8:54 AM in response to Brian Thull

Scanning finally finished and my theory as to what gets scanned was blown as it rescanned some newer items. So now I have no idea what triggers the rescan. Also, I noticed that for some reason 94 songs keep getting rescanned every time I re-open iTunes (tried this a couple times and same batch keeps getting scanned). Never saw that behavior before in the previous releases.
(1) what qualifies a song for a gapless scan??
(2) why are there songs that keep triggering a rescan??

Sep 14, 2009 3:33 PM in response to Brian Thull

The gapless playback scanning issue is ridiculous... ever since I moved my iTunes collection from my PC to my Mac, iTunes immediately does the gapless playback scan for ~75 tracks. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't completely lock up iTunes in the process, but someone at Apple in their wisdom decided it should be a high priority.

This has been endemic in both iTunes 8 and iTunes 9. And "just letting it run overnight" isn't an option - I'd love to let it run overnight and be done with it. But it never scans more than 100 or so tracks at a time.

This bug needs to be fixed, pronto.

Sep 25, 2009 1:25 PM in response to Charles Jenn

Agreed, iTunes still wants to rescan on opening and then hangs. The fun part now is iTunes 9 wants me to enter my account password on launch to check for downloads and I can't hit cancel in time to stop the gapless playback before the freeze. iTunes 9 is pretty much useless now. Library rebuilt, etc, etc, and no joy now that gapless playback won't stop : /

Oct 18, 2009 9:54 AM in response to Richard Pini

same issue, not sure if its every time, seems unpredictable. but still yes every couple times it rescans the same 30 tracks out of my collection for no **** reason.

also its very bad because of how itunes behaves during such scans..it doesn't seem to know how to do it on a low priority, luckily i have dual core so i don't notice it killing my other stuff, but the itunes program itself gets sluggish while it does that stuff. its just bad behavior. also its not multithreaded to speed such stuff up. also the progress bar disappears if you start to use itunes, i could see how that would mess with newbie users minds if their system felt bogged down after installing itunes and not knowing exactly why. its bad user friendliness.

Nov 1, 2009 7:44 AM in response to Brian Thull

yes this is also giving the me right hump.

I'm a working DJ using my macbook primarily for playing out and have recorded a horrendous amount of vinyl into MP3 format and it is specifically these files that itunes always rescans for this gapless nonsense EVERY time i start up itunes. I have the most recent version and problem remains...

someone in Apple take notice as this problem is massively widespread...

keep this thread alive!

How do I stop Determining Gapless Playback?

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