Q: iTunes 9 Starts Automatically

No, no time machine being used on my computer. It hasn't done it for over 24 hours now though. I have trashed the old iTunes application and downloaded a fresh copy. I had done this before, but without trashing the old copy first. The other thing i did, and this will sound crazy, but i unplugged my external speakers from the headphone port. I can't argue with success. Plugging them back in and making sure all the connections are good has kept things normal.

At this point, I personally would have to say this question is NOT answered. I have had no recurrences of the itunes autostart. But then, I have also updated to iTunes 9.0.3 so that complicates the issue. All I can tell you is that since the time machine thing and the update, I have had no autostarts of iTunes.

Keeping my fingers crossed

For anybody that may still be interested. My iTunes seems to have stopped auto starting. What I have done;

Complete cleaning of all duplicate files on my computer, almost all from the USER folder where I had duplicate users. These were from using isync between this computer and an iMac I was preparing for sale. There were two extra user folders that I did not use.
Secondly, updated to 9.0.3, BUT, I did have two autostarts using 9.0.3.
Finally, used Onyx and did a lot of cleaning, maintenance, etc.

So to summarize, iTunes seems to be okay now. Cleaning the computer of duplicate files and junk may have helped.

At this point, I have gone two days with no autostarts.

Spoke to soon, had a five minute episode of iTunes auto starting. I may have to go through the complete disk cleaning and deleting of itunes followed by a complete reinstall. First time I have ever had to do this in an apple machine.
This leads to the question --- Is Apple QC/quality slipping?

Warren Mcbride wrote:
Spoke to soon, had a five minute episode of iTunes auto starting. I may have to go through the complete disk cleaning and deleting of itunes followed by a complete reinstall. First time I have ever had to do this in an apple machine.
This leads to the question --- Is Apple QC/quality slipping?

The disk cleaning, deleting and re installation of iTunes has not solved the problem. I also reset PRAM and NVRAM. Set up a test account, logged into that and iTunes autostarts in that account also. So it would seem it is not a problem with my login, but rather a problem with iTunes, OR???

I too have the problems with itunes 9.0.3. Opens randomly and starts/stops play without any input from me. Anxious for a fix to this, as I basically stopped listening to my music as I have not found a solution.

sugarbaker wrote:
I too have the problems with itunes 9.0.3. Opens randomly and starts/stops play without any input from me. Anxious for a fix to this, as I basically stopped listening to my music as I have not found a solution.

I have been through a lot to try and figure this out. What it MAY be, is my aftermarket keyboard. I am using a MS keyboard and the preference pane for it had a number of settings that affected iTunes. I disabled all them and so far it has been 24 hours since I had an auto start.
Do you have an aftermarket keyboard or mouse? If so, check out what the key assignments are.

After a lot of troubleshooting I think I have an answer. The problem seems to be using external speakers. The evidence is pretty incriminating in that I can almost always cause an iTunes autostart by plugging in the speakers. Also just leaving them plugged in causes autostarts. When the speakers are disconnected, ie not plugged in, no autostarts.

So if anyone is still following this thread, are you using external speakers or maybe headphones?

Warren Mcbride wrote:

So if anyone is still following this thread, are you using external speakers or maybe headphones?

There seems to be multiple ways to start iTunes, so people are finding multiple solutions. Mine was starting at random, but i've never used anything but the internal speakers.

talmy0 wrote:

Warren Mcbride wrote:

So if anyone is still following this thread, are you using external speakers or maybe headphones?

There seems to be multiple ways to start iTunes, so people are finding multiple solutions. Mine was starting at random, but i've never used anything but the internal speakers.

You say "was", did you fix your problem if so, how?

Warren Mcbride wrote:
You say "was", did you fix your problem if so, how?

I posted the fix that worked for me earlier in this thread:

Stopped it (yet again!) by going into the Bluetooth preference pane, unchecking everything but the mouse and keyboard I use and removing entries for older bluetooth devices that I'm not using.

That was two months ago, and haven't had a problem since. But as I also said, there is no definitive solution as there seems to be multiple causes. For me the root of the problem seems to be that I used Migration Assistant to move to my new Mac. Other Macs in the house (five of them) haven't exhibited the problem at all.

I'm using external speakers. When I killed itunes helper, took it out of my startup items, the itunes autostarts halted completely.

It has now been over two weeks since i had a problem with the autostart. I haven't updated to 9.0.3 for fear that it will start again. I agree with Warren that there seem to be multiple ways that people have gotten this behavior to stop. There does not seem to be a common thread among all the people posting. I can tell you that some of the fixes that others tried did not work for me, like getting rid of iTunes Helper. The thing that seems to have fixed it for me was unplugging the external speakers. But I did a reinstall of iTunes at the same time. I did remove iTunes Helper from the Login Items, and it's still not there, but the autostarts were still going after that attempt.

I have plugged the external speakers back in, and still no problems. And i would also agree that while many are fixing this problem, i would not say that this is "answered" by any means.

Will keep my fingers crossed for you. Mine is still behaving and I put iTunes helper back in also. I am convinced it was my speakers.

Im not sure if this will solve everyone's issue as it can probably be caused by a number of things.. but for anyone having this problem, shut down iTunes then try jiggling all the connections into your computer. I tried this and when I got to the jack my external speakers where plugged into, the speakers made a lot of static noise and iTunes started up.

I've since replaced the 1/8' headphone jack cable that connects my speakers to my iMac and the problem has stopped. I notice other posts on this form have found a faulty USB connection caused the issue.. just try wiggling them all around and see if this is your issue..

Hope this helps someone out there!!