My iTunes 12.9.4 keeps freezing

Same here. Windows 10, same version. It freezes all the time, especially when downloading music. The song does download but i can only play it back after I've closed iTunes through task manager because its frozen.

As a DJ, I use iTunes to store and organise my files. Need a super quick solution otherwise I'm gonna have to switch to Spotify or amazon music asap

Its been 90 days since Apple updated iTunes with a buggy version that makes the application unusable or extremely painful to use with constant freezes requiring a restart.

Not one Apple Tech support person has acknowledged there is a problem. This is what a trillion dollar company thinks of people who use and pay for their products. Absolutely nothing.

Yep. Really disappointed with them. I've now unsubscribed from them and gone with Spotify. I've been using ITunes for over 20 years so was just used to it. In hindsight, Spotify is way better as a streaming service anyway.

My iTunes upgraded recently and it kept freezing.

I uninstalled iTunes and installed a previous version and it appears to have resolved the issue.

I had to remove the iTunes Library.itl file in the /Music folder and allow the new install create a new version.

Hi @Chris_2023

I am thinking I may try that as well and saving my current iTunes Library.itl to .old and downgrading to an earlier version allowing the system to create a new .itl.

Which version of iTunes did you downgrade to and have you had a chance to test adding and deleting files outside of your library?

Chris_2023 -

Removed all Apple products and renamed the old library as we noted.

Everything is running smoothly with no freezing in 12.10.11 for Windows (Windows 64bit). Adding and deleting songs in the library is running perfectly.

Turned off Auto Updates at install and again in Edit/Preferences/Advanced (Good call on this note :-) )

At this point this version 12.10.11 is my ride or die. Makes my life enjoyable again. Thanks for your post kicking this solution into play.

Chris_2023 - Thanks for this - sounds like the only solution for the moment, but do you lose all of the playlists and track listen information if you create a new .itl? (built up over 20 years or so...)

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

Good day,

I think Apple has made things much worse with the update to version 12.12.10.1. I get the impression that the hangs are even more frequent now than with the old previous version.

Greetings from Germany

Rainer :)

I spent a few hours on this today with Apple technical support. I did not come away with a solution, but I did learn that this issue had only been logged once before in their issues database. So it's now doubled.

I also learned that it takes a large number of users to identify an issue thru tech support before it gets visibility with Engineering.

It was also clear that our Support Community discussions were not impacting any of this.

The tech that I spoke to wanted to get into deep Problem Determination with me on my system, but I did not have the time to do reinstalls and set up shadow libraries etc. Tried to argue that the issue is pervasive and should be recreated in a lab.

Hope this input helps and provides thoughts on next steps.

Thanks .. this sounds helpful .. but I'm a little worried about deleting anything that might make things worse. I actually have 3 'Apple' folders in the Local folder .. Apple, Apple Computer and Apple Inc.

The Apple folder has a single subfolder - Apple Software Update

The Apple Computer folder has some old subfolders, but does have a recent iTunes subfolder which has a number of files including a very large (35MB) Cache folder dated yesterday.

The Apple Inc. folder has a 5 subfolders that all seem to relate to iCloud and Firefox

Can you help guide me a bit further .. and I'd hate to delete something that messes up my iTunes library of 72K songs.

Thanks so much!

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.

Vera, please see my post about my discussion with Apple technical support yesterday. If we want them to pay attention we need to raise the issue through their support organization. The Community is not sufficient. It took me over an hour yesterday but I think it was a worthwhile investment to bring visibility to what we are all dealing with.

you might be able to move the playlists out of the folder temporarily for backup and move them back in again after itunes have regenerated the folders on startup, but I can't say for sure it will work, and you would need to figure out what files are the playlists, I have no idea really.

Also, what I deleted and worked for me was located in Roaming folder

And I just realized I have my playlist still, sorry about that. I guess playlists aren't saved there. Ignore everything above xD You should be good to delete those.At least roaming if you have anything there.

I've had this issue for years. Literally started 5-6 years ago, and itunes would freeze completely needing a force close, only when I played a movie.

Now today, I thought I'd listen to some music on it, and opened it up for the first time in years. Upgraded to new version. And freeze almost immediately, just browsing the options in the tool bar.