My iTunes 12.9.4 keeps 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

Can I share a fix for this? And admittedly you won't like it.

My PC died a couple of days ago... no power going through to it at all.

I bought a new PC... quite cheap actually, only $550. Does what I need.

Since then, zero issues.

Touch wood!

I'm so sorry, I wish I knew what to say to fix it for you.

Trust me, I KNOW how frustrating this is. I considered moving to Spotify so many times, just didn't want to transfer all playlists, plus I found the sound quality lacking compared to iTunes.

Like I say, knock on wood - I haven't had any issues yet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I hope Apple does something for everyone else. I won't hold my breath - they just don't seem to care.

I don't know what else to say but I wish you the very best of luck.

Trust me, I know what it's like.

My solution is not ideal, but it works for me. When I run iTunes on my Windows 10 computer, it never freezes if I do not go to the browse tab. When I browse to find a new song to add to my library, iTunes will freeze once I go back to my library. This happens every time, and I have not found any way to fix it.

I also have a Windows 11 computer that I run Apple Music on. The two computers are synched. As many users have noted, Apple Music is not ideal for working with playlists. So here is my solution. Whenever I want new

music or just want to listen to one of Apple's playlists, I do that on my Windows 11 computer running Apple Music. If there is a song I want, I will add it to my library. When I want to put songs into playlists, I go back to my

Windows 10 computer and modify my playlists. If I do that, iTunes never freezes.

As I said, this solution is not ideal, but until Apple solves the freezing issue, this is a workaround I can live with.

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.

JMCT -

I actually renamed the .itl file to .bak, also.

Here is the Apple link to previous iTunes: Apple - Support - Downloads

iTunes 12.10.11 for Windows (Windows 64 bit)

Post Date: Dec 7, 2020

I haven't had any issues -- this is an older version, but works fine.

Creating a new .itl loses your playlists, play counts, ratings, etc. You can try opening iTunes with ctrl+shift held down, which opens it in safe mode, and sometimes helps with odd issues. Otherwise try a clean reinstall of iTunes.

For general advice see Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates.

The steps in the second box are a guide to removing everything related to iTunes and then rebuilding it which is often a good starting point unless the symptoms indicate a more specific approach. When reinstalling right click on the downloaded setup file and use run as administrator. It may also help to temporarily disable any non-Microsoft anti-virus.

Review the other boxes and the list of support documents further down the page in case one of them applies.

The further information area has direct links to the current and recent builds in case you have problems downloading, or want to revert to an older version if the current one won't work properly for you at the moment. Links to the most recent builds are now at the bottom of the page.

Your library and device backups should be unaffected by these steps but there are links to backup and recovery advice should it be needed.

tt2

ichigami008 wrote:

I followed the tip to download iTunes from the Apple page instead of Microsoft Store + Safe Mode startup. It worked much smoother for probably a few weeks. But now every time I plug in my iPod Classic, sometimes even when I don't it is abhorrently slow yet again. I have to force close the app at least two or three times before it finally picks up and loads my devices. Fresh cords and everything. Really disappointed that this is the standard we're at now

See Corrupt iPod Classic - Apple Community. What are your HDD stats?

tt2

And here we are without any fixes or response from Apple. Starting to wonder if we are all wasting our money on their services….

I'm using iTunes on Windows and Macbook Pro and both are screwed up.

Okay it's now July and this is still going on. I have been using iTunes religiously for almost 20 years and never have I experienced something like this. Please help us!!!!!

Sadly, it seems the new update has made the problem(s) worse. I couldn’t even search Apple Music yesterday. Growing increasingly frustrated that there in no response or remedy from Apple…

I recently upgraded to Version 12.12.10.1 and made it worse. Much worse. Getting to the point of looking into dumping iTunes.

Hello,

I can only confirm - such a bummer, Apple seems incapable of solving this problem and has been for many months. :-(

Greetings from Germany :)

I've had this same issue. I tried downgrading but then got an error message about the older version of iTunes unable to access my .itl file because it was made with a newer version of iTunes.

Anyone have an idea how to access my iTunes library .itl file with an older version of iTunes? Thanks for all recommendations! Can I just rename it and a new iTunes Library.itl file would be created with the older version?