Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Screensaver now says I have no iTunes artwork

Hi all,

For years, I've used the screensaver (MBP, Mountain Lion) that shows iTunes artwork. Suddenly, after installing Mountain Lion, when my MBP goes o a screensaver, I just get a black screen that says "Your iTunes library doesn't contain any songs with artwork." This is, of course, not true; all the artwork is still there, but somehow the screensaver is malfunctioning. Does anyone have any experience with this or any ideas?

Thank you.

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4), Aperture 3.2, iPad 2, iPod Touch 5G

Posted on Aug 19, 2012 10:15 AM

Reply
17 replies

Nov 18, 2013 5:25 PM in response to swanksalot

I was searching for a solution to this bug half a year and finally found the problem in my case (as this error seem to have multiple reasons).


I am using OSX Maverick now and quite a while ago all of a sudden the iTunes artwork screensaver stopped working (already in previous operating system versions, updates did not fix the problem).

I had no voice memos. I was rebuilding my library several times. I deleted all files which use uncommon syntax, and almost all hints you can find in the net. Nothing worked out for me.


I had my media folder on a network drive but kept the library files (like itunes library.xml and .itl) local on my MacPro. When the network drive was not mounted iTunes fell back to the local /Users/(Username)/music/itunes/itunes media folder. So far so good.


But finally I discovered that the most important file for the iTunes artwork screensaver as well as other iApps like iMovie or iPhoto is the file "com.apple.iApps.plist" stored in /Users/(Username)/Library/Preferences. This file contains the current path to the iTunes as well as iPhoto library (and maybe some other iApp Libraries). Always when the iTunes library gets switched (e.g. by holding down the alt key and starting itunes by choosing a new library .itl file) this file gets updated. Due to the multiple library support of itunes it might happen that the information inside that file is not up to date. This can be easily solved by selecting the current itunes library as described before.


But in my case resulting from an incident that I can not explain the "com.apple.iApps.plist" - file was replaced by an Alias (icon with a small arrow in the lower corner) which referenced to "com.apple.iApps.plist" in the same folder. But it was not existing as there was only this Alias. It seems to be that the OS does not recognise this error as a program like itunes itself do not need this file to operate (except iPhoto but iPhoto probably checks only for the iPhoto library and not for iTunes library path). But as I said I never got any error message resulting out of the fact of having only an Alias in the preference folder.


So to make a long story short I deleted the Alias "com.apple.iApps.plist" and started iTunes again by holding down the alt-key choosing my current iTunes library file. Voila, "com.apple.iApps.plist" was rebuild correctly as a "real" file and half a year of frustrating search ended up with a working iTunes artwork screensaver. How "com.apple.iApps.plist" ever was changed to an Alias instead being the file itself I must say I have no clue. I never did that actively. I am left guessing that this must have happened when updating or using any of the iApps or due to the mounting/unmounting of the media folder on my network drive.


One more piece to the puzzle. I hope it can help some frustrated users as well. But be careful when removing "com.apple.iApps.plist" because it contains the references to all iApp Libraries and I don't know exactly what this might mean to others. In my case I had the iPhoto library at a default place which means that iPhoto at the next start up had no problems to find its library. I had to select it from the menu which popped up (as if I was starting iPhoto for the first time) and all photos where back again (please don't ask me how iPhoto managed to work before with that Alias in preference folder).

Screensaver now says I have no iTunes artwork

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.