iTunes 9 incredibly SLOW [imac 2ghz Intel]

Thank God, I am not the only person who has suffered this problem.
I upgraded my computer thinking it was old and slow.

I read the comments in some one blog about this very issue.
url = http://www.mcelhearn.com/?p=316 ("iTunes and Large Libraries: Still Slow, Slow, Slow")
They figure it is the size of the iTunes library not iTunes app itself that is the problem.
For every change minor (unchecking a tune), iTunes is re-writing the entire library file and thus the lag time and iTunes slow responsive time.


I look forward to Apple's or some one's work-around to this bugging problem.

All I can think is that Apple got a good deal on a few Vista programmers from Microsoft. Apple; releasing something that is this flawed, in not up to your standards! I mean really, this is the reason I left the PC world.

Now, friends, before we go trashing Apple, make sure your machines are cleaned up. I'm having absolutely no problems with iTunes (and shopping the store) on either my Mac Mini (home server) or my MacBook Air.

I had unusual slowness on the Mini a while back, and I clean installed Snow Leopard, no further problems.

i'll pile on. it's very slow.

funny how apple moderators dodge the discussions when they KNOW something is screwed up!

We're not trashing Apple, but discussing iTunes 9 here.

I've tried two different cases, one computer installed iTunes 9 before Snow Leopard, and the other computer the other way around. In both cases iTunes became significantly slower. Hence, it is not OS related.

I briefly flirted with it particularly as I was intrigued by the so-called enhancements for classical music listeners. Underwhelmed, was my opinion. I only listen to iTunes for the music. I couldn't care less for album covers and all the other gimmicks as 99.99% of my music is classical. None of the recent 'enhancements' are relevant and so think I will simply stick with version 8 for as long as I can.

Yes iTunes store downloads have gone form less that 30 minutes for avg movie on my MacBook Pro 2.4GHz to 6+ Hours currently on hour 4 of X-Men 1, 1.13 GB. This needs to be addressed.

The only saving grace is I can purchase movies using my Apple TV then synch them to iTunes later.

I found out that selecting a song for playing becomes slow when a few selections have been made in the column browser, e.g Genre, Artist, Composer etc. In a flat list with no specific selections, selecting a next song is instantaneous. So I guess the underlying data structure for the database is probably not optimized (yet) for this use-case.

Joining the chorus of "iTunes 9 is amazingly slow." My iTunes Library is 75GB, stored on a 1TB external drive (not a Time Capsule).

My download speeds are reasonable. I just spent a day downloading the first season of "Fringe," which at 700MB+ for 20 episodes should take a bit of time. However, navigating within iTunes is uncharacteristically slow. Major delays in navigation. Video and music playback is fine once I get something playing, but the overall delays in navigation are incredibly frustrating.

I've seen some threads in other forums here which suggest it may be the library or an intensive background process (like determining gapless playback). Has anyone had any luck with solutions along those lines? I'd like to see if rebuilding the Library is worth it before going through the hassle. Since I left my system up and running all night to download the show, I'd presume any background tasks have finished by now.

I don't have Parallels, Toast 10 or any of the other suspect programs on this machine.

Thanks!

And then just like that... restarting iTunes appears to solve the problem.

Should have tried that first. Sorry.

Message was edited by: buzz_kill

Yesterday, I purchased Season 5 of Lost via the iTunes Store. It is the only video I have downloaded through iTunes. I tried watching it today and the playback was slow and choppy. I uninstalled iTunes and Quicktime and reinstalled it. No change. I unchecked everything under DirectX in the Quicktime preferences. No change. What do I do? I am so upset that this isn't working.

Thanks for any help

Just wanted to put in my two cents about SLOW SLOW SLOW SLOW. It's practically unusable at home, and I had to remove it from work computer. what's up with that? I'm going back to winamp.

Hm - my posts are not loading... In anycase upgreading my browser to the most current version fixed this for me.

i installed itunes 9.0.1 today and my performance problems are gone - it's back to normal. (bonus - the minimization/green button takes me to the mini-player again). thanks.

I'm with you all. Same problem with SLOW speeds. I restarted and upgraded to 9.0.1 to no avail. I'm going back to iTunes 8 for now.