Is iTunes changing my OS X desktop picture momentarily?

My iTunes has been doing the same thing.

And when I have another application minimized, say Chrome, it will mazimize that applicatix

It will maximize whatever application i was in last before i switched back to iTunes i believe

& Every time i import stuff into my iTunes, it freezes up.

I'm thinking iTunes is screwed up?

I also have this issue. It began happening after a failed OS X update install, hard-drive wipe and the subsequent time machine back up.

Everytime itunes begins a new song, i have a grey flash as my desktop background, my dock does a quick restart and every window I have open maximises.

FIXED

Loaded up Mac Pilot 4 - went to dock options and disabled iTunes notifications in the dock.

This issue happened to me when I upgraded to 10.7.5 on Lion. I too had enabled the ITunes notification icon thing previously which I love.

I typed the below in to terminal to remove the notification and this resolved the problem

defaults write com.apple.dock itunes-notifications -bool NO

Follow this by killall Dock

This worked for me.

I thought I was the only person on the planet that was seeing the Desktop Picture glitch when a new song was played in iTunes. I couldn't believe my eyes when I typed "when iTunes plays a new song my desktop picture changes" into Google and this thread was there right in front of my eyes!

I'd forgotten I'd enabled the iTunes Dock Notification and after following your advice:

Martin-UK wrote:

This issue happened to me when I upgraded to 10.7.5 on Lion. I too had enabled the ITunes notification icon thing previously which I love.

I typed the below in to terminal to remove the notification and this resolved the problem

defaults write com.apple.dock itunes-notifications -bool NO

Follow this by killall Dock

This worked for me.

I launched iTunes and tested it out and the glitch had gone! Thanks Martin. Cheers, Marty

THANK YOU!!! iTunes is back to normal again. That glitch caused emormous lag and now it's gone!

Martin is absolutely correct!

I've been chasing this problem for weeks. I thought it was Mail becuase it would always bring my Mail window to the front and it appeared to coincide with Mail's fetching.

Thinking Martin's solution was too weird, I carefully watched to see if the gray flash coincided with the start of a new song. IT DID! Martin is a saint!! (Saddly, Apple dropped a few pegs down in reliability as it inches ever closer to being much more like MS Windows; many odd problems, worsening GUI, no answers.)

For those not super Mac savvy:

1. Go to your Applications folder > Utilities folder > Terminal

2. Wait a few seconds for a few lines of text.

3. The copy/paste this after the prompt...

defaults write com.apple.dock itunes-notifications -bool NO

4. Tap return. You should see a new prompt again. Congratulations, you're a UNIX programmer! But use great caution in Terminal, it's like doing brain surgery on your Mac.

5. Quit Terminal.

6. Restart iTunes.

Done

Thank you SOOOO MUCH for posting this fix!!

I thought I was the only person in the world with this problem which has been annoying me for several months now. Pasted this line of code into Terminal, problem solved! 🙂

And thank you G.Madigan for providing the step-by-step to those of us who are a little less program savy (I NEVER go into Terminal nor will I unless absolutely needed in a situation like this)

I really should just come to these forums first if I have an issue, the Mac User community can be very helpful!

You're very welcome.

Completely unrelated, albeit unsettlingly too coincidental, was a sudden slow down (freezing) of my Safari and other internet functions. It's like a UFO landed on my roof and scrambled my Mac's internal settings. Apparently, this same UFO flew across the state, because this occurred simultaneously with 3 different people, me and 2 of my friends, all in 3 seperate counties.

The other things we had to do to get our Macs back to resembling "normal" was...

• Turn OFF iCloud unless you really need it (you could lose all Calendar events - Thanks, Apple!) or you're using a screamingly fast connection. - It ties up your modem, especially DSL.
• Make your first DNS entry "2001:4860:4860::8888". - It speeds up accessing webpages. (Without quotes. Yes, there is a colon-colon, it's not an error. Weird numbers, I know.)
• Set your ethernet's MTU to "Manual" with a number lower than 1500. Try "1460". - Apparently, your Mac is trying to bite off more than it can chew. MTU is the maximum ethernet byte size.

I found all of these tips scattered within the Apple Discussion areas. Do a search on them for more information on how to make these adjustments (don't worry, just system prefs changes, no UNIX is necessary).

This could apply to only older (more than 3 years) Macs. Still a pain nonetheless.

Side note: Starting at the sametime, 2 of us are experiencing random system-wide Kernal Panics and freezing. One Mac panics over 8 times per day, the other about once every 2 days. If our 7th trip (in 2 months) to the Genius bar miraculaously nets a solution, I'll post it.

If you are a conspiracy theorist, you'd be in heaven. An undisclosed virus? ...from Microsoft? Apple or Intel (both?) intentionally crippling old Macs, and forcing purchasing of new computers? ... and is this a test for installing (BIOS) programmed obsolescence/aging into current computers? Why no offer for replacement after 6 failed repair attempts? Is Apple quietly reducing expensive programming staff (sloppy coding, numerous updates, no OSX Server, reduced Pro apps, just as MS is dying) with cheap unknowledgeable retail staff? Mountain Lion and iTunes 11, more eye candy, less innovation... much like MS Windows 8. Something's afoot.

Thank you! Just what I needed! 🙂

Thank you G. for the fix 🙂

this worked great thank you !