KD8SHH
Level 1 (1 points)

Q: How to fix huge iTunes memory leak in 64-bit Windows 7?

iTunes likes to allocate as much as 1.6GB of memory on my dual-quad XEON 8GB 64-Bit Windows computer and then becomes unresponsive.

 

This can happen several times a day and has been going on for as long as I can remember.  No other software that I use does this - only Apple's iTunes.  Each version I have installed of iTunes appears to have this same memory leak.  Currently I am running version 10.7.0.21.

 

I love iTunes when it works.  But having to constantly kill and relaunch the app throughout the day is bringing me down.

 

Searching for a fix for this on the internet just surfaces more and more complaints about this problem - but without a solution.

 

Having written shrinkwrapped software for end users as well as for large corporations and governments for more than 25 years I know a thing or two about software.  A leak like this should take no more than a day or two to locate using modern software tools and double that to fix it.  So why with each new version of iTunes does this problem persist?  iTunes for Windows is the flagship software product Apple makes for non-Mac users - yet they continue to pass up each opportunity they have had over the years with each new release to fix this issue.  Why is this?

 

Either the software engineers are not that good or they have been told NOT to spend time on this issue.  I personally believe that the engineers at Apple are very good, and therefore am left thinking that the latter is more likely the case.  Maybe this is to coax people to purchase a Mac so that they can finally run iTunes without these egregious memory leaks.  I would like to offer another issue to consider.

 

Just as Amazon sold Kindles and Google sold Nexus tablets at low cost - not counting on margin for profit - but instead they wanted to saturate the marketplace with tools for making future purchases of content almost trivial to do with their devices.  Apple also counts on this model with their pricer hardware - but they also have iTunes.  Instead of trying to get people to switch to a MAC by continuing to avoid fixing this glaring issue in iTunes for Windows I would like to suggest that by allowing their engineers to address this issue that Apple will help keep Windows users from jumping ship to another music app.  The profit to be made by keeping those Windows users happy and wedded to the iTunes store is obvious.

 

By continuing to keep this leak in iTunes for Windows all it does is lower my esteem for the company and start to make me wonder if the software is just as buggy on Macs.

iTunes, Windows 7, 64-Bit 8GB Ram dual quad core Xeon

Posted on Nov 29, 2012 7:00 AM

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KD8SHH

Q: How to fix huge iTunes memory leak in 64-bit Windows 7?

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  • by hogger129,

    hogger129 hogger129 Nov 29, 2012 7:07 AM in response to KD8SHH
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 29, 2012 7:07 AM in response to KD8SHH

    I found a workaround that seems to be working. Hide the Genius sidebar and hide album artwork. I haven't had the program freeze and shutdown since I did those two things.

  • by adream,

    adream adream Nov 30, 2012 5:11 AM in response to KD8SHH
    Level 1 (50 points)
    Nov 30, 2012 5:11 AM in response to KD8SHH

    Same issue on a mac with a large library

     

    Screen Shot 2012-11-30 at 12.02.49.jpg

  • by gwlbe,

    gwlbe gwlbe Nov 30, 2012 12:33 PM in response to KD8SHH
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 30, 2012 12:33 PM in response to KD8SHH

    Very frustrating indeed.  Go back to version 10.3.  Since I downgraded 2 weeks ago, I haven't any problems.  And Apple while your ignoring this issue, don't forget to ignore the dual monitor issue when in full display.  Thank you for not correcting it in Itunes 11.

  • by DrTom from NH,

    DrTom from NH DrTom from NH Mar 16, 2013 4:06 PM in response to KD8SHH
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 16, 2013 4:06 PM in response to KD8SHH

    iTunes 11 seems to have resolved all the memory leak issues.

  • by Sylvan012,

    Sylvan012 Sylvan012 May 28, 2014 8:40 PM in response to DrTom from NH
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 28, 2014 8:40 PM in response to DrTom from NH

    This bug is back, with a vengeance. Version 11 crashes, constantly, whenever I try to update my podcasts. While tracking processes, it just keeps growing and growing, sucking up more and more memory until it crashes and becomes non-responsive.

     

    I did not have this before the most recent 2 updates.

     

    Anyone have a work-around? I've already uninstalled and re-installed.

  • by ashurra,

    ashurra ashurra May 28, 2014 10:03 PM in response to Sylvan012
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 28, 2014 10:03 PM in response to Sylvan012

    Was hoping 11.2.2 would fix it. Nope, the memory leak is still there in the podcasts tab. The workaround is to refresh podcasts and jump to the music tab. Boo Apple.

  • by Sylvan012,

    Sylvan012 Sylvan012 May 29, 2014 4:17 AM in response to ashurra
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 29, 2014 4:17 AM in response to ashurra

    Any idea for a workaround? Or am I just going to have to uninstall and revert to an older version of iTunes?

  • by ThomasBetz,

    ThomasBetz ThomasBetz Jun 21, 2014 12:41 PM in response to Sylvan012
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 21, 2014 12:41 PM in response to Sylvan012

    I had the same problem, Win 7 64-bit. Uninstalled and reinstalled the current version following these instructions:

     

    Removing and reinstalling iTunes and other software components for Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8

     

    Didn't fix the problem.

     

    I finally uninstalled 11.2.3 and reverted to 10.3.1.55. I found the 64-bit installer here:

     

    iTunes 10.3.1 for Windows (64 bit)

     

    There are a lot of bogus places offering bogus installers; this one's direct from Apple, and is working fine.

     

    I did have to delete and recreate my iTunes Library; it was incompatible with the older version.

     

    I recommend before uninstalling that you export your podcasts.opml so you can easily re-subscribe to your podcasts after installing the older version.

     

    Podcasts, How to export to .OPML file in iTunes 11

  • by lottytx,

    lottytx lottytx Jul 31, 2014 9:36 AM in response to KD8SHH
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Jul 31, 2014 9:36 AM in response to KD8SHH

    I have same issue. Ongoing for more than 1 year and currently running iTunes 11.3.

     

    My PC is Dell OptiPlex 990 I7 processor, 8GB ram, W7 64 [always keep things patched up to latest OS updates etc]

     

    I use this iTunes install to stream music videos etc to multiple appleTVs, ipads, iphones etc .. via Home Sharing

     

    Store all my media including music, videos and apps on separate NAS  .. so the iTunes running on PC is only doing the traffic cop role and streaming / using files stored on NAS .. creates lots of IO across my network

     

    Previous troubleshooting suggest possible contributing causes include

     

    a) podcast updates  .. until recently I had this auto updates on multiple podcast subscriptions, presumably the iTunes would flow this from the PC to save on the NAS across the network .. if the memory leak is in the iTunes network communication layer (?bonjour?)  this may be sensitive to IO that would not normally occur if the iTunes file saving was local on the same PC

     

    b) app updates .. have 200+ apps in my library and there is always a batch of updates .. some updates 100s of MB is size .. routinely see 500MB to 1GB of updates in single update run .. all my apps are

     

    c) streaming music / movies .. seems when we ramp up streamlining of music or movies . memory leak grows faster .. ie within hours of clean start

     

    c) large syncs of music or videos to ipads or iphones .. noticed that get big problems when I rebuild an ipad .. I typically have 60+ GB of data in terms of apps /  music / videos to load .. have to do rebuild in phases due to periodic lockups

  • by Vegan Advocate,

    Vegan Advocate Vegan Advocate Dec 30, 2014 5:51 PM in response to KD8SHH
    Level 1 (27 points)
    iPhone
    Dec 30, 2014 5:51 PM in response to KD8SHH

    itunes is not a true 64-bit program, its simply designed to run safely with x64 windows

     

    i have posted that on https://www.facebook.com/applebonkersanonymous

  • by jfgvui,

    jfgvui jfgvui Jan 29, 2015 8:32 AM in response to Vegan Advocate
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Jan 29, 2015 8:32 AM in response to Vegan Advocate

    Old thread, but it still seems relevant - I'm getting seriously fed up with iTunes (12) and its constant 'not enough memory' errors.  It seems as if it just can't cope with large libraries, endlessly running into this problem with consequent lost tracks and corruption.  Is Apple ever going to fix this?

  • by lottytx,

    lottytx lottytx Sep 25, 2015 4:07 AM in response to KD8SHH
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Sep 25, 2015 4:07 AM in response to KD8SHH

    Update and new issue iCloudservices.exe


    Sometime this year (2015) one of the releases pretty much resolved or at least substantially mitigated the memory leak with the iTunes app. Nothing has changes on my PC and I run the same appleTVs, streaming music, etc and iTunes runs for days without issue.

     

    However over past couple days the icloudservices.exe began presenting in similar manner.  I am about to add a new post for this. 

  • by Vegan Advocate,

    Vegan Advocate Vegan Advocate Sep 25, 2015 4:13 AM in response to lottytx
    Level 1 (27 points)
    iPhone
    Sep 25, 2015 4:13 AM in response to lottytx

    I am using a recent build of Windows 10 and the recent 64-bit version of iTunes. I do notice it to use a lot of memory and I only have 2500 albums.

     

    I guess if I want to expand the library with more compact disks I am going to have to invest in more memory.

     

    Right now I have 8 GB installed and it seems to be holding up but iTunes loads the memory heavily.

  • by lottytx,

    lottytx lottytx Sep 25, 2015 4:33 AM in response to Vegan Advocate
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Sep 25, 2015 4:33 AM in response to Vegan Advocate

    VegAdv

     

    You have 2x foot print over my media but I do have 100s of movies and stream to upto 10 devices.

     

    I run 16 gb and an SSD drive .. all my media is saved to separate NAS and thus a stream routes from the requesting device to iTunes on PC then pulls media from NAS and sends back to requesting device.

     

    Adding an SSD drive for me was a night and day experience in performance across the board. I replaced my old HD with Samsung 850 pro. The cloning process was incredibly easy. I was skeptical that there would be issue post clone but not single issue. As one indicator my previous boot time was 10 minutes .. after the SSD 30 seconds. I mention this as just a general metric on the disk I/O on the PC hosting the iTunes.

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