Ever since I updated my iTunes to the new version yesterday, it keeps freezing. I can play a few songs but it will always freeze in the middle or toward the end of a song and then you can't bring it back to life. When you force quit on cntrl-alt-delete it shows that iTunes is not responding. This happened a number of times on both Windows 10 and Windows 11 machines.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Windows, Windows 10
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 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.
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!
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.
Hello,
currently it is very bad. As soon as you start iTunes, it hangs - without having done anything before. Very annoying - Apple has left its customers out in the cold for months with this problem and does exactly nothing.
Many greetings from Germany
Rainer :)
Hello,
the changes I made yesterday to the system settings did nothing. This morning iTunes hangs as usual. I have the feeling that with the new version everything has become much worse - with the previous version iTunes only hung when you actively did something in the program. With the new version, iTunes hangs even when it's running in the background.
Many greetings from Germany
Rainer :)
Hello and good morning,
I can only confirm that it seems that with each new version the problem gets worse. Now it happens all the time that iTunes freezes right after startup - I've never had that before; until now it always seemed to be related to a previous action.
Apple is getting on my nerves - there must be a capable mind among the highly paid developers to find the problem and finally solve it?
Greetings from Germany
Rainer :(
Same problem here, started right after I switched from my old Windows 10 computer to my new Windows 11 machine. Problems galore. In the past I always refused to update iTunes out of habit because I disliked the installer, seems like I unconsciously made the right choice there. This is a broken mess and I find it infuriating that they are apparently not able or willing to fix it.
I have the same issue with my WIN11 laptop.. started a few years ago. iTunes either (1.) completely locks up when I connect my iPhone via USB to my laptop or (2.) simply won't recognize my iPhone. My iPhone asks me to "Trust This Computer" and asks me to type in my passcode. I am trying to add some songs to my iPhone but this obviously can't be done until Apple fixes this issue. Glad I am not the only one with this problem but it's been going on for a few years.. C'mon Apple! Fix this.
Also having this issue. Switched to Apple Music and then switched RIGHT back to Spotify. Apple Music is severely lacking in ALL features almost compared to Spotify. Get Spotify instead. Had it for years and ONLY switched due to a promotion from Apple and boy do I regret it. I’ve listened to less music because of freezing problems than ever before. Apple Music / iTunes is something you should definitely avoid.
Good morning,
This morning the program is constantly hanging. I have already had to consult the task manager 3 times to close iTunes.
I wonder how long customers will have to wait for a solution?
Greetings from Germany
Rainer :)
It's now gone next level... store won't fully appear... nothing but a blank screen on 'for you' and 'browse'. Continuous crashing on the browse page. Completely crashes my PC at least once a day.
Add this on top of freezing when I try to download music from my iCloud and/or edit tracks.
Nice job, Apple... you win. I'm now ready to stop giving you my money!
Someone who worked on iTunes has moved to Spotify and left a parting gift.
I've put up with it for almost a year and now I'm officially out!
So the problem persists for a lot of people it seems. I haven't updated from 12.13.09 because while the freezes still occur, they don't as often as at the beginning and I am afraid of making it worse. Has anyone updated iTunes recently to one of the versions after 12.13.09?
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!
And I bought a new PC workstation that is a monster: AMD Threadripper Pro, 96 cores, 192 Threads. 192 GB memory, two Gen5 4TB SSD, with an RTX 4090 GPU.
The machine is *fast as *****, but not with iTunes... It freezes -constantly- and runs soooo slow you'd think it is running on a 1999 PC computer... When it refreshes, it's painful to watch. I even tried switching to Apple Music and that was also buggy as ****. I wish I could speak the software engineering team.
Nektarios
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.
Thanks. I even switched to Apple Music but that was also full of bugs - just as a bad. So I went back to iTunes. One of the reasons that I am not switching is that I also like the iTunes music recommendations and I discover a lot of great music I like. Also, with thousands of songs, it's just not possible.
At the moment, it seems that iTunes is an abandoned piece of software sadly...
My iTunes 12.9.4 keeps freezing
