Q: iTunes 10.6 crashing after upgrade

There are multiple and apparently independent iTunes issues being reported here. Each issue must be treated separately as there are different causes. Clearly the overwhelming majority of the literally hundreds of millions of iTunes users are not having any of these problems. I know many folks on Macs who have upgraded with no issues whatsoever. I have visited forums where these issues are still completely unknown. So, if you are having big problems with iTunes, you are an unfortunate member of a large group of unhappy folks, but still very much part of a minority.

I have personal experience with only one of these iTunes bugs. Apparently any iOS devise that is synchronized with photos from their iPhoto 8.1.2 library may have a crash occur whever attempting a sync with such a device. Many people in this thread have experienced that one. This particular bug seems to be completely eliminated if you can remove the sync to this library by any one of a number of ways. Way back on page 8, I posted a very simple way to accomplish this if you are experiencing this particular problem. For some it is a temporary work-around, for others like me who have moved from iPhoto to Aperture and have no further need of iPhoto, this is a complete cure. My heavily used iTunes is now running perfectly. It is as solid as it has ever been.

Other bugs related to iTunes library corruption, album artworks, or whatever are another matter entirely for which I can offer no help. There may be multiple different causes for these crashes. Keep in mind that anyone who updates iTunes to 10.6 and experiences crashing will likely end up on this forum thread, so it feels like iTunes 10.6 is one big mess. That cannot explain why millions of people including me at this point are not having any problems with 10.6.

If you only experience iTunes crashes during device syncs with photos, you can get past this bug and move on.

Everyone else, unfortunately, needs to either wait for a bug fix from Apple that hopefully addresses your particular situation or try to diagnose the problem yourself. Try holding the option key down while starting iTunes and then creating a new empty iTunes library. Drag some music into it and see if it still crashes. If it doesn't you at least know there is something in your library that is making 10.6 crash. Some of the other methods posted here may work for you. If you can't solve it, hopefully you have Time Machine, or some other backup to enable you to restore the previous version. Take the time to post a bug report to Apple. Instructions for doing that are posted elsewhere in this thread. If everyone with iTunes 10.6 problems does this, it will have a better chance of getting some attention soon.

Thanks for the suggestion David, but that didn't work on my iMac.  The funny thing is iTunes 10.6 works perfectly on my MacBook Pro.  I also tried repairing disk permissions to no avail and restarting my iMac several times.  I just paid the $14.99 to upgrade to iPhoto '11, and the iTunes 10.6 now works on my iMac.  I'm still using iPhoto '09 on my MacBook Pro. 

Thanks for the advice and clear description of how to downgrade to iTunes 10.5.3.    I was having exactly the same problem as you described with my iPod Touch (4th gen) and my iPod nano (6th gen).

What's going on over there at Apple lately?

Rushing out "upgrades" makes quality suffer.

Please take your time and do things right.

I had to trash iTunes 10.6 and reinstall 10.5.3.

S\'Mac :

You have no idea how pervasive the problem is with 10.6  When you say "Clearly the overwhelming majority of the literally hundreds of millions of iTunes users are not having any of these problems" you have no basis for saying this.  Neither you nor I know how big the problem is, but there are many here for whom it crashes.

Only a tiny minority of iTunes users even know about this forum.  So don't make assumptions that you cannot prove.

When I crash iTunes in 5 minutes by hitting the double arrow and changing the video from partial screen to full screen, and it is repeatable every single time, there is something amiss that has nothing to do with iPhoto.

Add me to the list of individuals with problems after upgrading to 10.6.  Using 10.7.3 Lion as well.  Crashes with iPad and iPod in sync mode.  Had upgraded the iPad to 5.1 on Tuesday and then did the iTunes upgrade after than. 

Thanks David, I was 2 minutes away from re-installing OS but I installed the old iTunes and it seems to be working just fine again. Oddly it didn't ask me for the itl or xml files (maybe that's because I just re-added everything to the library?)

Seriously, this is a huge let down on Apple's part, this is a major flaw and they haven't even acknowledged it.

nategold,

You are correct that I cannot really say with authority how pervasive these problems are. It's just a guess, but I do have some basis for it. There are at least three reasons why I believe this problem is not too widespread:

1. I frequent forums (eg: Ars Technica) where people are posting their Mac problems every day. When a new update from Apple is released people post any problem they run into. The only things I see posted concerning iTunes 10.6 are the new features and the new HD video stuff. No complaints or reports of crashes

2. These days whenever Apple stumbles in any way, such as releasing an update that has major problems, it gets written about in blogs all over the net pretty quickly. By now, this should have been a major story. This is either the best kept secret ever, or it's just not a problem for a very large number of users.

3. I have four Macs in my household and the only one that had any problems was my iMac, which had the iPhoto problem, and once that was corrected it has no problems whatsoever. BTW, we can all switch to full screen videos all day long with no issues. I tried out a 1080p TV show and that worked great as well.

I do not mean to imply that the problems being reported here are not real, or that they are not affecting a great many Apple customers. There are probably tens of thousands of people affected, and possibly even hundreds of thousands (which could still be a relatively small minority of the total user base).

Crippling bugs in iTunes are a major disaster for anyone affected and are completely unacceptable. My own experience with iTunes 10.6 informs me that there appear to be at least two or possibly three different bugs being reported in this thread. I experienced one of them but not any of the others. Some of these reported bugs may be more widespread than others. Each one of these needs to be understood by Apple and root causes need to be determined in order to fix each potential problem. Naturally, the most widespread bugs will be more likely to be corrected earliest.

It's a chore to do, but I urge everyone affected to file bug reports. I have been told Apple pays some attention to those.

This bug in the new upgrade is making us all sad

They have our money and we have no access

You have no idea of how big this problem is.  It seems that quality controll is no longer as issue at apple.  There are 17 pages of complaints and most people have not tried to sync their phone or pad yet.  I only sync about every two weeksand that is probably more often than most people.  Until a;;le fixes the problem there will be several pages added each day and most people will read this and no it is not their computer and  not add a comment.  Apple knows there is a problem and is working on it.  They have sent out email to their online customer service reps.

The iphoto upgrade solved my issue - thank you!!!

I posted a similar issue ... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3799931

This is for OS X 10.6.8 - I updated my systems on 3/6/2012 (iPhoto 9.2.2, iTunes 10.6, Application Loader 2.5.1)... and now iPhotos won't start up and whenever I connect my iPhone can't sync.

When I connected my digital camera to my computer, iPhoto starting up automatically start up. Instead now, iPhoto immediate crashes and it would give me the crash reporter. When I tried to open iPhoto manually without connecting my digital camera, iPhoto's would crash.

Also, whenever I connected my iPhone via USB after the update, iTunes would not recognize my iPhone. I couldn't even sync via bluetooth anymore.

...so I restored a back-up using timemachine before the update and iPhotos is working again, and my iPhone can connect to my computer/sync with iTunes. NO MORE SOFTWARE UPDATES FOR ME until I know which program it is or both, etc.

Agreed! Same issue here!

Gilbert,

I am very glad to hear that Apple is actually working on these issues! Hopefully they will have an update available soon.

Well..., they needed to get this version out in time for the new iPad launch. I wonder if the hurry caused them to get a bit sloppy.

As I said before, this does not appear to be just simple a bug. There seems to be multiple issues going on here.

FWIW, I filed a detailed bug report complete with crash log for the iPhoto related problem I experienced. I can't report on the other crazy stuff people are reporting in this thread because I haven't had any of those other types of crashes. If I do see any of those things I will file more reports. It can't hurt!

Yeah, my iTunes works fine in list mode, but not in "coverflow mode", really tends to crash when I do that.