iTunes freezes downloading app updates

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Level 2

210 points

iTunes freezes downloading app updates

I'm running 10.5 (141) on my iMac running Lion and am running into a problem where iTunes will constantly freeze when I download my app updates. If I download updates individually, there doesn't seem to be a problem and if I turn off simultaneous downloads, the probelm will be less frequent but it always seems to happen if I have a bunch of apps to download. The scenario is this, I will click on "Download All Free Updates" and it will start downloading away. Things will be fine for a while but after a few minutes of downloading, I'll notice that suddenly the progress bars stop moving and the estimated times start going up. At this point, iTunes is effectively hung. I can sometimes press a few buttons like "pause all" and this will pause all the non-active downloads but not the ones in progress. Even though I can get to the Finder, I cannot quit iTunes, force quit iTunes or restart my system. If I try to force quit iTunes from the dock, that will usuually cause the dock to freeze. Each time this happens, my only recourse is a hard reboot. I've tried having Activitiy Monitor running and a Termimal window open at the same time but when this happen, both of those apps hang at the same time so I'm not able to type any commands or quit any processes.

This is any annoying problem because each time I do a hard reboot, I risk corrupting my iTunes library. I've had similar problems with iTunes in the past freezing but those were random. This always happens during app downloads. I had hoped that this kind of thing would stop once iTunes was a true Cocoa application but it still seems to bring the whole system down whenever it has a major problem. My guess is that it's crashing some network process and that in turn in hanging the whole system.

Luckily, I don't actually need to update the apps on my computer and can do it directly from my iDevices but it's frustrating that this problem exists. Any ideas?

iMac 3.06 GHz 24, Mac OS X (10.7), 4 Gigs RAM

Posted on Nov 6, 2011 8:49 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

mamouse124

Level 1

4 points

Feb 4, 2012 1:29 PM in response to Eric D.

I can't believe that no one answered Eric D's querry! It has been over a year! Come on Apple iPad users, help us out.

I have a similar problem that arrose recently. I have had my iPad for a couple of years, no problem. But recently, I notied that I had a number of apps that had free upgrades so I began to download them. ArtRage is one of my important apps as I use it on my iPad andI have ArtRage Pro on my iMac. However, when I attempted to download the latest upgrade, ArtRage froze. The app is greyed out on the iPad and it can't be used and I can't download the upgrade either. When I try to upgrade, it goes to "waiting ..." then, I receive an error window, "Unable to Download Application." ArtRage" could not be downloaded at this time: with a "Done" and "Retry" button. If I hit the Retry button, eventually the same error window reappears. This is a Catch 22! Moreover, the ArtRage App is frozen so I can't even use the previous version.

I checked with ArtRage help and they say this is an Apple problem (or a Appstore problem). I now have my SketchBook Pro app frozen like this also. These are two of my most importat and most used apps. I need help.

Just to make things clear, I was able to download Dragon a few minutes ago. So this problem does not effect all the apps I need to download.

Message was edited by: mamouse124

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Answer 2

dylanor

Level 1

0 points

Feb 5, 2012 1:29 PM in response to mamouse124

I have been having a similar problem on my iPad. Just today did I figure out a solution. I was able to resolve the problem by deleting each stalled App from my iPad, and then reinstalling those Apps from within the iPad's App Store app. Detailed steps below.

This worked for apps that had been free and paid-for -- they were all saved within the App Store. I assume, but don't know, that that would be the same for all users.

The only downside to this process was deleting the stuck App also deletes its data. This was not a big deal to me because none of the stuck apps had data that was important to me. I suppose you could backup the data to iCloud or save it some other way, but since I wasn't worried about that I haven't thought through whatever process you would use for that.

Delete it.

1. Press and hold on the App until it wiggles.

2. Press the 'X' to delete it.

3. Confirm that doing so will delete your data.

4. Press the home button to stop the wiggling.

Reinstall it.

5. Go into the App Store app.

6. Select "purchased" at the bottom.

7. Locate the recently deleted App, and select it.

8. Press Install.

9. Go enjoy your app.

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Answer 3

Feb 6, 2012 6:18 AM in response to dylanor

Thanks for the advice. I figured this out for myself yesterday. In fact, I didn't delete my Apps from my iPad, I simply downloaded the Apps to my iMac, linked my iPad to my iMac and syncronized thte two devices. The two stuck Apps loaded flawlessly. For whatever reason, the Apps just would not download directly from the web to my iPad. Go figue?

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