iTunes video skips and freezes, jumps to 100% CPU

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iTunes video skips and freezes, jumps to 100% CPU

I've been on this site a lot in the past few weeks, looking for a solution to my problem. I'll go ahead and say it's a weird one, but I'm running out of ideas to fix it, and, if I can't, I'll probably have to stop buying video on iTunes until I get a new laptop, which won't be for several years.

I've been able to play video successfully for the couple of years that I've had iTunes. A few weeks ago, however, I downloaded a new video, part of a season pass, that couldn't play for more than two minutes without freezing for several seconds, then skipping ahead several more; audio and video both stop during this, and the CPU usage jumps to 100%. All my videos downloaded before a few weeks ago continue to play with no issues. Below are the things that I've tried to solve this problem.

Re-downloaded file in case of corruption. Unlikely, since the skipping happens in different places every time, but the new video does the same thing.
Did all the steps on the iTunes troubleshooting page for Windows 7. No change.
Did `netsh winsock reset` as has been suggested several times on this forum. No change.
Fresh install of Windows 7 (formatted hard drive and installed iTunes only). No change.
Booted in Safe Mode and played video. No problems, but there's no audio in Safe Mode (by design), so that's not really ideal.
Booted in Clean Boot and disabled all but Windows services. Problems persist.
Re-downloaded a video from several months ago and attempted to play. Problems appear! The old file still plays normally, though.
Moved a video from a friend's computer to mine and attempted to play. Again, skips and freezes, though the same file plays normally on his system.

I'm really running out of things to try, and I'm willing to try just about anything, because I hate not being able to watch content that I've already paid for. Below are my system specs. All drivers are up to date.

Model: Dell Inspiron 1545

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional, SP1

RAM: 4 GB

Processor: Intel Celeron 900 @ 2.2 GHz, 1 core, 1 thread

Video: Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family

Audio: IDT High Definition

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Windows 7

Posted on Oct 3, 2012 12:58 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 9, 2012 3:01 PM in response to eprice81

I wish I could help! I'm having the exact same problems, and have tried all of the same things to no success. I can even watch episodes of the same show from the previous season, but not the season finale or the premiere of this season. This is ridiculous.

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Answer 2

eprice81 Author

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Oct 9, 2012 3:09 PM in response to sageandthyme

I finally found that downgrading to iTunes 10.6.3 completely corrected the problem (so far as I can tell from the tests I've done). I'm not sure why 10.7 should make that big a difference, since the release notes mainly indicate that 10.7 provides security updates.

I actually removed my hard drive from my laptop and booted it on a friend's desktop PC. There are clearly observable CPU spikes at regular intervals, but, since he runs an 8-core processor and 24 GB RAM, it doesn't cause a hang or a skip. This might be a bug in iTunes that my system just can't handle, and I'm hoping that it's corrected in a future version. Until then, I'll keep the installer for 10.6.3 around and refrain from updating.

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Answer 3

Nov 21, 2012 8:30 AM in response to eprice81

I can confirm the exact same symptoms and solution on a Windows 7 64-bit HP G62 laptop.

The iTunes "update" for me was part of an OS re-install and I failed to consider that a newe iTunes version was the culprit.

I had tried everything short of a sledgehammer before finding your post.

Thanks for sharing.

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Answer 4

Nov 28, 2012 2:02 PM in response to eprice81

This worked for me as well. No mater what I did with the most current version of itunes it would still skip. I have an 8 core I7 w/ 8GB of ram and it was skipping like crazy. Rolling back to itunes 10.6.3.25 worked great.

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Answer 5

arcker

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Nov 30, 2012 5:15 PM in response to eprice81

how do you reroll to an older version 10.6.3 ? plz help having same issue will al my video movies or tv series !

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Answer 6

eprice81 Author

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Nov 30, 2012 5:25 PM in response to arcker

You can just Google for "iTunes 10.6.3 installer." The 64-bit one is still hosted on Apple's site, and the 32-bit version can be found on several software hosting sites (like Softpedia, FileHippo, etc.).

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