My iTunes 12.9.4 keeps freezing

I happened to have the 64bit 12.12.8.2 version installer from a separate computer. So, I uninstalled iTunes version 12.12.9.4 and so far the old version is running fine...but I will keep testing.

NOTE: On my Windows 11 machine...and following directions on how to uninstall and re-install iTunes from youtube, I notice something strange about the files 12.12.9.4 installed (or didn't install) while uninstalling it. You are supposed to uninstall all Apple apps (like Apple Software Updater, Apple Mobile Driver, Bonjour etc) before the re-install can take place. The only Apple file I could find was the iTunes executable. Odd....

Ok, So then I went in and reinstalled an old version, 12.12.8.2.....and when I check what was installed, all the Apple Apps I expected to delete previously...they were all reinstalled. Not sure if that helps anyone, but 12.12.9.4 must be doing something weird behind the scenes. ALSO, if you do reinstall...make sure you turn off Automatically Install Updates in the iTunes preferences> advanced. AND, I opened Apple Software Update and set the preferences in it to NEVER check for updates. Hopefully this will keep me stable for the time being. Good luck.

None of you tried to do a backup of your iphone with this new update? Need to know if this new version is the one crashing my computer when I try to save a backup of my iphone on my computer. For me it crashed so hard that my computer restarted and went to bios, had a hard time getting windows to load. Unplugging power from my computer and waited 5 mins got it to load windows again. Tested and tried to do a backup again but it crashed again after a few minutes, the backup process was going so slow and eventually it crashed all. I'll try to uninstall and find an earlier version of Itunes.

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 -

@JMCT that doesnt sound good, that means maybe I will face the same problem if I try to uninstall Itunes and reinstall an older version. Right now I can't do a backup of my iphone on my computer because Itunes freezes and crashes my computer. I do have another computer I can try and install it on, I never had Itunes on that computer so it might work. Then just make sure not to update the program until they fix this problem.

Same thing with me!

Since the last update iTunes hangs all the time. It doesn't matter what you do. Sometimes it hangs when adding new tracks to the library, other times it hangs when researching Apple Music. So you can't pin it down to a specific scenario. Apple should test more and better before issuing such bugware to users. I'm waiting for the updates!

Greetings from Germany

Rainer :)

@mstone972

My guess is it hasn't been raised up with greater urgency or they have a bug refresh/update coming very soon. What I think it a massive miss is when organizations do not acknowledge there is an issue and note it in the bug log for others to know its captured as an issue being investigated. Keeping customers and users in the dark does not help solve issues.

I have continued to test the many variations to try and resolve the bug including a total removal of apple services and products and re-install. Same outcome. I suspect it's an issues with the iTunes Library.itl file. I can remove items from my library and create playlists as normal in my library from existing songs. The second you add a new song from Apple Music into the iTunes library, it locks up the app. Task Manager is required to end Itunes and restart iTunes. At that time, the new file is ok to play as "new" in my library and operates as normal. However, if you go and add another song from Apple Music, the lockup cycles repeats.

Win11 64bit

12.12.9.4

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?

Exactly the same for me: Windows 10 and same iTunes version. When I leave my library for "Pour vous" (For you in French) or "Parcourir" (Browse in French) or anything else, all of iTunes freezes. Must restart the PC. But all other fonctions seem OK. Restart is the only way to go back to my playlist in progress BUT...

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.

We are on Windows machines. Apple doesn't give a fig about what kind of experience we have when we use their products on Windows machines. That's why there are 31 responses without a reply. The answer to our issues, insofar as Apple is concerned, is to buy an Apple branded machine to make iTunes work properly.

I'm having the exact same issue as people have mentioned here (Windows 11 user). I'm currently on creating playlists for my wedding day and was planning to use my laptop to play the music from. Not only is adding music to playlists almost immediately causing the program to freeze, but I'm losing faith in being able to use it to play music for an extended period of time without freaking out. If they don't fix this bug by the end of this month I'm GONE.

That does help, thanks for the suggestion. However, I have experienced a freeze just from playing music which is definitely putting me of the idea of relying on it for my big day. Using Apple Music to play music feels like a really low bar for them to hit!

I have been having exactly the same issue as described throughout this thread ever since the iTunes 12.9.4 update. I use Windows 11. I have been a loyal user of iTunes since the early 2000s and love the ability to integrate Apple Music and my own library of music. I also love using star ratings to create Smart Playlists BUT this is driving my bonkers.... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE fix it Apple.

Latest freeze - looked at Task manager 'Details' in Windows and found 'One or more threads of iTunes are waiting to finish network I/O' so assume something related to getting data from the cloud. It seemed to happen randomly when moving from one playlist to another.