iTunes Match crashes

i have the same exact thing happening here. itunes match goes thru the 'gathering information' first step, hangs for hours, then crashes itunes. i've tried restarting, reinstalling itunes, rebuilding my library, removing the SC folder...nothing.

called apple, and basically their two options were

a) read the support boards to look for help (yeah...thanks, 'genius'), and

b) pay an additional 50 bux for 'support help' (for a subscription service that i just paid 25 bux for that doesn't work...sure)

so, if anyone has any words of wisdom here, i'd love to hear them. i'm pretty discouraged about both it not working and apple's lack of answers or willingness to delve deeper than just telling me to go fish.

I'm experiencing the same issue: iTunes 10.5.2 on Win7 x64.

I don't have a huge library of music (<1,000 songs) and iTunes hangs indefinitely at the end of the the "Gathering information" stage and never completes, Step 2 "Matching your music" never starts. iTunes is using about 20-30% CPU time while this is happening.

I have a case open with Apple Support, but still awaiting to hear anything back. Any tips from anyone else?

OK, I have had some success after the above steps with ProcMon. In addition to the infite looping of the two files above, I noticed (very quickly because there were thousands of attempts for the above two files) that a specific track filename appeared in the list of file attempts.

I stopped iTunes Match, browsed for the track in iTunes and then found the file in Windows Explorer to confirm that the file matched the one shown in ProcMon. I deleted the file via iTunes and then exited iTunes and started again.

Now it works.

So, here is a bit of a write up of how I resolved it, just in case it helps anyone else. Apologies if it gets a bit messy, or doesn't resolve the issue for your environment:

1. Downloaded Process Monitor from Microsoft Sysinternals.
2. Run this on your machine that has iTunes installed.
3. You will see a lot of information appearing on screen here. As soon as you see iTunes.exe appear on the list under Process Name, right-click on it and select "Include iTunes.exe" - this will ignore all other processes in future.
4. Press CTRL+A to enable Automatic Scrolling of the events recorded.
5. You will see it process all of the songs in your library (which might be a lot).
6. After a while you will see that it appears to go into a loop looking for the files: itunes library Extras.itdb-journal and
   itunes Library Genius.itdb-journal
7. This may go on for some time, if you watch closely, you may occasionally see a music track name appear. This is likely the culprit, try to find this song in iTunes and remove it from the library.
8. Close iTunes and launch it again. Then try to run iTunes Match. It should run through successfully.

Notes: If you have a library larger than mine (~750 songs), it is possible that there may be more than one problematic track and you may need to repeat the above steps a few times before it actually works successfully.

It would appear that the issue for me stemmed from 'Missing Artwork' for a song - Extreme Ways by Moby - which is a song that I had actually bought from iTunes about a year ago.

Anyway. Hope that helps anyone who may be having the same problem.

i dont store or buy anything on my itunes account now and evertime i look at my pc or my iphone u guys are asking for updates sorry guys but i havent agreed now to the new terms becase

download want's evertime

1 i wont use cloud 29.52mb

2 i never use quicktime 25.65mb

3 i dont use the safari 37.27mb

4 and i tunes 64.05

but to get this down the line i end up useing 2gb extra of data bec ase of bt retail wast of data useage

i wood like to to of i need all of this installed i wood like a basic phone update so i can go ahead and delete the rest of this off my hard drive becase

apple updater support 61.2mb

apple mobile device support 24.3mb

apple software update 2.38mb

qicktime player 74.mb

not that i dont have the space but it alot to be holding for not in use

so if there is an option to keep the iphone working do with out all of this and agreeing to other stuff that i dont need it wood be good to no as useing all this hard disc space and u guys renewing ur terms just for a songs e.t.c it be really good to no becase im thinking of going back to other smart phone i had before because there is still the issue with the power aswell becuase cant belive that i gos down that quckly when i have all things swtiched off and its on stand by for some 1 to call me and it dies so qickly than other phones

hopfully some 1 will get back in toch

sos guys for the add on to ur post but i do agree with what u have said for some reason aswell ive been sent 3 albums from the artists and becase they where sent for free itunes have blocked them even lo they have been downloaded from the artist account on itunes and they have never been seeni have to go to utube to play them witch belong to utube and not the personnel copys witch i have agreed to the downloads and i can see that they have been installed to itunes aswell but i tunes cant find them

and i have only stoped agreeing to the new terms since the icloud appered

and i have had to change my bank details because i tune demand bank details before u can set up ur iphone setting !!!!!

looks like i just delete all of apple off my pc and when the phone dies or it ends up with a fault then report apple to trading standards and offcom

i see there is still no reply to this by apple ill ask at consumer direct and of-com about the next steps to take to addresses this to apple

all apple product are removed from my divices aswell as all app's witch are not under the imatch t's and c's !!! because live again i needed an update for the skype app and was asked for to agree to imatch just like i had to remove 5 other app's because apple was demanding me to agree to treams for icloud witch has never been used so all apple products are off of my pc and now i cant update my apple mobile because its asking for me to agree to things that arnt applicable to my useage!!!!!!! or better still not part of the standards of updates

(NOW MICROSOFT GIVE'S OPTIONS TO DOWNLOAD A PRODUCT UPDATE FOR 1 ITEM OR MORE AND U DONT NEED TO AGREE EVERTIME WITH T'S AND C'S FOR 1 LIL CHANGE OR NEW PRODUCT)

I had a similar problem. Match ran all night and when I came back in the morning it had matched or uploaded all but about 115 tracks. Every time I restarted it would rescan then crash. I managed to fix it by doing these few steps:

1) I sorted my library by iCloud Status.

2) Any track marked "Error" I dragged into a folder on my desktop and then removed them from my library ( I plan to convert these to AAC later and see if that fixes their error). At that point it would still crash on at the end of step one.

3) I looked at the remaining 105 tracks marked as "Waiting" in iCloud status. Several of the tracks were listed as having 0:00 for "Time" (i.e. Track Length).

4) For the tracks listed as 0:00, I played them for a few seconds and iTunes updated their track length to the correct value. (I guess I hadn't played these for a while and their entry in the library was corrupted)

5) I restarted iTunes Match and the upload proceeded without any issue.

Hope this helps!

I had been having the itunes crash on step 2 issue, I'd done every thing, reinstalled lion, used different networks reinstall itunes, everything apple have suggested all to avail. I had 1 track of less than a seconds duration and binned it I also organised and consolidated the library - why didn't all the people from apple I spoke to suggest this? This has solved the problem so far. I will later try and add the tunes purchased from itunes store that imatch had rejected!

the wired thing is guys i havent sigined up to the cloud or even matched any of it now i have blocked app's all over and its only been ur self's that have got back the apple tech folk are not interested what so ever

thanks guy's

and if i have to rmove everthing again i will because ive never none a device that needs charged so much and i have everthing turned off witch is a waste of good smartphone

FingleBerrys, Your post was very helpfull! ProcMon allowed me to create af ilter on Open items to find the MP3's that were causing iTunes to crash.

I have written up my experience and how I am fixing issues with broken songs as a result of ITunes Match crashes.

http://redrocktx.blogspot.com/2012/06/botched-itunes-match-post-mortem-on.html