My iTunes 12.9.4 keeps freezing

I search for this issue a couple of times a year hoping someone has a solution. It's been 3-4 years and itunes still freezes between 5 minutes and 30 minutes after opening. I don't want to delete my manual playlists because that is the whole reason I use iTunes. The web application is worthless. Anyhow, maybe someday. But for all of you out there don't waste too much time trying to fix this with all the solutions proposed. None work. The only thing I recommend is to leave "Task Manager" open so you save yourself a few clicks when it's time to "End Task" of the iTunes process and restart it. I do this about 10-15 times per day. This happens on all of my family computers, so I know it's not something with just my system.

Hello,

I had a long conversation with Apple support today. I was recommended to enter high performance for iTunes under System/Monitor/Graphic.

I will test this the next few days and hope that this is a workaround. This workaround is only to be used until Apple fixes the problem. According to the employee the problem is known and we are working on the solution.

Many greetings from Germany

Rainer :)

Update from my previous post a few months ago. For other reasons I have had to change PC so now on Windows 11. For a while I just used Apple Music Preview - which at least allowed me to listen to my playlists etc. from the cloud, but it has it's own problems and froze a few times (but much less than iTunes). Also, I couldn't get it to link to my iPods (classic and shuffle) using the Apple Devices Preview - didn't recognise them at all.

So I have downloaded the latest iTunes (12.12.10.1) and so far it does seem to be more stable. However, to sync to my iPods I'll have to download all the matched / purchased music from the cloud (or backup which I have) and I'm not sure whether to bother if iTunes is going to be discontinued, and wait for Apple Music and Apple Devices to work.

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!

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

Hello,

Apple has released version: 12.13.2.3. in the Microsoft Store and I am very curious if the bug has finally been fixed?

Greetings from Germany to all long-suffering users

Rainer :)

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.

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!

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 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

Just delete the iTunes folder and it should fix it. Your library of songs won't get deleted, but your playlists will. This is pretty much a factory reset for all your iTunes settings. Stuff inside appdata folder usually is regenerated when you start the program again.

Salvida - Good question,

It was actually both which I am sure was confusing. This is the sequence:

1) Microsoft Store updated my iTunes version to the newest version. I had problems immediately following that update.

2) When I spoke with Apple they suggested I uninstall the Microsoft Store version and do a new install directly from the apple.com/itunes site. That also did not work - same issues occurred.

3) I uninstalled the new Apple/itunes version 12.12.9.4 and tried to install an earlier version prior to 12.12.9.4

4) While the older version was installing it halted the install stating it was not compatible with the current itunes library file. I would not allow me to continue so I cancelled.

5) I re-installed the apple.com/itunes 12.12.9.4 version again in order to access my library and use iTunes at least partially until a fix can be pushed out.

I hope that helps with the sequence.

Also in reference to backing up my iphone, I did not do that. My iPhone and iPad have no issues with playing, removing and adding new files to my library.

One thing I am suspect about is Genius. It may not be the issue but when I update genius on my itunes it takes an extraordinarily long time to update whereas it did not before. You can't turn off Genius if you have other devices synced to your library which in this case I have a number of devices synced so I haven't tested that theory. My synced devices are (iPhone, iPad, AppleTV, Car)

Hope that helps -

Windows 10 computer. Same problem as everyone else. When iTunes crashes, I stop the program by using the task manager. When I go to the task manager, I notice that iTunes is using 970MB of memory. This is about 90% of my total computer memory. When I first opened iTunes, it used 170 MB of memory. Is it normal for memory usage to go from 170 MB to 970 MB in just a few minutes? That is how long it took iTunes to crash this last time. Could the program crash because of the high memory usage?

Windows 11 Home V 22H2

Realtek Audio Driver: 6.0.9261.1

Having the same issue but I don't have an iTunes library. I only use iTunes to stream Apple Music and I still have this issue, although I may have downloaded a song or two from Apple Music. The issue is resolved when I rebooted. I have noticed a downgrade in the music in general since the upgrade as well.

@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.