My iTunes 12.9.4 keeps freezing

I have the same problem on Windows 11 since upgrading to 12.9.4. After a few minutes of working with my library (usually editing a Playlist) iTunes freezes and I'm forced to do an End Task. Interestingly, while the screen freezes, if I have a song playing, it keeps playing. I've read a bunch of articles online and tried Safe Mode, Administrator Mode, disabling anti-virus, running Repair, auto-sync is disabled, cleared iTunes cache, disabled APSDaemon.exe, etc, but nothing fixes the problem and I really DO NOT want to have to re-install iTunes. HELP!

Hello,

it didn't take me long to realize that version 12.13.1.3. also hangs regularly. Apple, shame on you - the problem has existed for many months and still no solution.

Best regards

Rainer :)

I've had this problem since long before 12.9.4 but now it's just rediculous. I bet if apple could say what they wanted they would say: "Itunes will work better on a MacBook Pro, here's a link to some of our great deals go fu** yourselves"

For those who have this problem and have their music downloaded I found an intermediate fix for Windows users with the information provided by tollbridge above. It's the equivalent of slapping some scotch tape on a broken shovel but it'll work temporarily for me and I assume a few others. All I did was create an outbound firewall rule for iTunes.exe to block network access to it.

1. Press the Windows key + R to open the Run dialog box. Type "Control Panel" and press Enter to open the Control Panel.
2. In the Control Panel click on "Windows Defender Firewall." You may have to click "System and Security" first.
3. On the left side of the Windows Defender Firewall window, click on "Advanced settings." This will open the Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security.
4. In the Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security window, click on "Outbound Rules" in the left pane.
5. In the right pane, click on "New Rule..." to create a new outbound rule.
6. In the New Outbound Rule Wizard, select the "Program" option and click "Next."
7. Choose the "This program path" option and click "Browse" to locate the executable file (Typically C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe) of the app/program you want to restrict network access for. Once you've selected the file, click "Next."
8. Select the "Block the connection" option and click "Next."
9. Choose the network types for which you want to apply the rule and click "Next." You can select all three options (Domain, Private, and Public) if you want to block the app/program on all types of networks.
10. Give the rule a name and, if desired, add a description. Then click "Finish" to create the rule.

Hopefully some people can use this temporarily because this issue has been going on for over a month.

Same challenge.

I am on a Win 11 desktop. I have spent a lot of time narrowing down what drives the freeze. This is what I have sound so far. As a note, I had both the Microsoft team and Apple Support teams screen share and watch what was happening and what caused iTunes to freeze. As usual, they both blame each other.

My iTunes 12.12.9.4 app freezes when:

• I add a song to my iTunes library from the apple catalog. As a note, the song will play if played on the Apple platform but will freeze when moved into your library. The song may play once you move it into your library but the iTunes app freezes after that requiring the user to force the app closed through Task Master.
• If I replace a song in my library with a new file from the apple platform

I can play all songs on the apple platform with no issues. I can play all my songs in my iTunes library once the app is restarted and I don't add any new songs.

The bottom line: The iTunes app freezes if you add a new song to your library from their platform.

I also have no problems with adding songs through Apple Music from my iPhone or iPad. This appears to be an issue limited to iTunes 12.12.9.4

All other apps and software on my Win 11 machine run as normal even after the iTunes app is frozen.

I have uninstalled, cleared all apple entries and have the same result. When trying to downgrade, the upgrade will not proceed due to the library. itl file requiring the most current version (12.12.9.4) to access and finish installing. We are stuck using other apple devices to add music until they debug and update this more current release with iTunes.

Hi Garth,

I wanted to inform you that I've found a solution to the problem, at least in my case. Like you, I have numerous playlists, but the majority of them are automated. I enjoy using the star rating system in combination with music genres to generate automated playlists.

However, I do have a few manual playlists, one of which was quite extensive, containing more than 2000 songs. I decided to delete this particular list since it was essentially a duplicate of an automated one. I preferred using the manual list so I could adjust song ratings without interrupting the music.

In any case, after deleting this manual playlist, the problem disappeared. My automated playlists remain stable and are quite useful to me.

So, it's possible that the issue may be related to lengthy manual playlists for some reason.

I hope this information is helpful!

I will add that all of my music came back because I had all my music matched using iTunes Match which syncs everything in your library to icloud. I also subscribe to Apple Music. iTunes Match costs $24 a year but it may be worth the expense in case your library is lost or damaged even with songs that iTunes doesn't carry on Apple Music.

I saved my current library and renamed it to library.old and allowed the previously downloaded iTunes version to create a new library. Once it installs the previous version 12.10.11 check the iCloud Music library box shown in the embedded image below. Once that is checked on, all of my music in the cloud came back as it was before.

As a note, my library is extensive with 22,000 songs accumulated over the last 20 years and added along the way. Literally everything I had before with playlists, albums and songs was returned to the same state it was in.

I did use this article as a guide to make sure I renamed the library correctly. It may be helpful for you as well.

https://windowsreport.com/itunes-library-itl-cannot-be-read/

As with anything, things can go wrong so make sure you take every step you can to backup files and make sure to note where your music library is saved in your system if it is not the default iTunes creates.

As a progress note from earlier this week, my iTunes is as stable as a rock and allows me to add, delete and update my library with new music with no freezes or crashes. My music is a major part of my life and it was a huge relief to be able to bring it back to the way it was and enjoy it again.

Good Luck!

Same issue for me... drives me absolutely bonkers.

I don't think this will ever be fixed.

@sem6x3ag

I was thinking the same thing! This issue has crippled the functionality and use case for iTunes since May 24, 2023. Close to 5 weeks ago with no acknowledgement as to the issue or a solution. I have also seen other posts calling out the same problem around the globe. There is no way they are unaware of it.

The question is if they aren't going to fix it, will they offer relief? Historically, not likely. Either way its arrogant to leave paying customers in the dark and not expect them to start asking for some engagement one way or another.

I am having the same issue with 12.9.4 - plays tunes for a while and then freezes randomly so have to stop process. On one occasion I noticed that the CPU and memory were very high for iTunes, so re-started. Everything is OK just playing from the library (~few % ~ 100Mb) but as soon as I went on 'Browse' or 'For You' the CPU and memory jumped (~10%, 800Mb) and then kept on going upwards even though not doing anything new. My guess is that it keeps on rising and eventually runs out of memory so just freezes.

I've been using the web based pages to build my playlist. If you log into your account from music.apple.com, you can build your playlist there. It seems to only be freezing when you add songs to your playlist from Apple Music via the iTunes app. I know it's not ideal, but it's been working for me without iTunes freezing.

tollbridge wrote:

So having said that 12.12.10.1 (Windows 11) seemed OK, as soon as I upgraded to the new version 12.13.0.9 it froze almost immediately and has frozen since. So a backward step for me...

You could roll back to the previous build.

• iTunes 12.12.10.1 for Windows (64-bit) - iTunes64Setup.exe (2023-09-11)

tt2

Im experiencing something similar with this new itunes update, but something even worse. I just got the update yesterday from the apple update program, it pupped up and said there was an update and I accepted as always. Then today I was talking with friend who recently got an Iphone for the first time, I wanted to show him how to do a backup of his iphone with Itunes, then while showing I thought I might as weel do a backup, it had been a while. Then it began but after several minutes it had still not completed the backup so I started to wonder what was going on, then suddenly my windows 10 computer crashed completely and restarted and went into bios. From there everything was very unstable and could not get it to boot into windows without crashing or just going to bios. One time I did manage to get into windows but after few minutes it froze again. Then I tried updating the bios with new firmware and after that I got into windows again. Then I was tempted to try and see if I could make a backup now, I was like maybe it's better to wait but I decided to do it, same thing happened, after a few minutes it crashed computer again. I then took the power from computer and waited 5 minutes, then powered it back on and got into windows. Now after reading the replies here im wondering if this is Itunes causing this for me, cause it happened after I tried to do the backup. And same thing when I tried the second time. If one of you are willing to risk it you can try and see if it will let you do a backup of your iphone or ipad. Just beware it might crash everything. Do you think uninstalling the program and then installing an older version will help? Im using an itunes I got from the website and not the one from microsoft store. If anyone else get the same crash problem when trying to do backup please let me know so I know that im not the only one.