iTunes 11.3 freezing when refreshing podcasts

but shouldn't Apple have a system that analyses and highlights the automatic crash reports I've sent them by the dozens?

and shouldn't Apple be ashamed of having beautified one view of podcasts without even checking whether the other - obviously preferred by dedicated users of many subscriptions - one is still functional?

or are those wizard developers at Apple so high up in the excellence chain that they've stopped realising that glitches might even happen to them? thereby causing immense stress and hours and hours of clean-up work for users?

and with all that they feel entitled to never ever say sorry - on the user hotline they say sorry all the time but never ever admit that a mistake's source might be at Apple.

There is a nice word in English, widely in use in Germany, so they wouldn't even have to translate it. It is SORRY - but in Apple-lingo it doesn't exist. They prefer to make the user feel stupid and that reminds me of ages and ages having to work with Microsoft.

It is always the user who is at fault was the fashion in computer-departments from day 1 - they softened with the decades but it is alive and well at Apple. Just as another once accepted antiquity i.e. you throw half-finished objects at the market and let the consumer do the testing.

which reminds me that the automobile industry started that way also more than a century ago - why Apple has to revert to that after years and years of excellence is incomprehensible to me.

A crash report tells you the status of the system when the crash happened.

Does not tell you what went on just before it. If you just send the crash report without commentary they know you crashed and thats it.

With commentary helps - step sequence etc.

They may be working on it now because of someones reporting to apple through apple support - or from crash reports but it does not happen overnight

PS:

if Apple after the pile of my automatically system generated crash reports plus that 5 hour monster session with the help desk from Saturday still "doesn't know" then there are two possibilities

either - they don't care

or - they aren't the super-company they claim to be

we live in the age of excellent screening programs - therefore the developers responsible for the the beautifying of MyPodcast view in iTunes Podcast should be on red alert by now, there should be customer info all over the place that the List view is the path to catastrophe

and if Apple were as friendly with its customers as it claims it is - it would give them an automatic info of their intentions as to the list view - as much as I am pleased by the extra features in MyPodcast, for my purposes most of the time List View is superior. Did you notice that Podcast subscriptions in MyPodcast appear now in alphabetical order - I wonder whose Eureka moment caused that marvellous improvement - and no I am not being sarcastic.

Sorry for the rant, but with a German "the high ups just don't know" creates immediate and not suppressible allergic reaction

notcloudy

they got commentary and detailed descriptions galore from me and what about the help desk conversation??????????

They know and either they are incompetent or don't give a sh....

PS:

and if they really don't know by now then it is because they don't care enough to make sure they know

and what galls me most, after the last glitch had been repaired far enough to make podcasts administrable again, did they say sorry for theinconvenience caused? They didn't which makes me conclude that I am their cash cow to be milked without even the slightest pretence at politeness (except help desk workers, they are very polite though telling me that I should upgrade to more expensive machines aka that somehow it is all my fault)

Anyway this is it for me - from now on my eyes are open looking for another halfway but reliable other gimmick for my dearest recreation and it ain't going to be Apple - two such even in less than 9 months - Apple my be indispensible for people with more varied hobbies than I have like photos and music and social networks and heaven knows what else. I want to listen to lectures and audio books and radio features and have as wide an offering as possible.

Apple gave me all that 8 years ago till about 3 years ago when the grading down started. Whoever does the programming for podcasts at Apple has no user experience and doesn't ask for one - since we seem to be a rather rare breed - OK but then they should be honest about it and open a feed-back site for it.

... now I have to say something in (partial) defense of Apple.

When the last iTunes glitch happened End of September last year (a bit moree than 9 months ago) I screened for a while all those news outlets who like to criticise Apple for this, that and the other. None of them, especially none of those I alerted to what was happening, filed even the tiniest report about it.

There they are salivating day in day out hoping for something against Apple but when something comes their way, they inform me, that Apple has informed them that there are no major changes and therefore I don't know what I'm talking about.

Since then I suspect that by which means ever - generous info, lots of geeky help or other completely "non corrupting" benefits - Apple has them in their pocket so that for the eternal moaning that it is a closed system they never ever will report something on Apple.

Even sending them discussions threads like this one doesn't catapult them into investigative reporting mood.

Thus when all the (German) media don't give a sh... why should Apple since it can be sure that the news won't spread.

Most people think its always them when a program has problems and balk at telling an analyst what keys they pressed just before the kaboom.

A programmer can look at the code to see if they can find the problem - but with the size of real code sometimes it is hard to find it.

Some problems can be caused by a third party plugin or third party software causing using resources that another third party plugin or third party software is trying to use.

On crash reports - to windows was told by IT manager not to report them as Microsoft would not fix it anyway - after 6months - instead of problem not found up came a note to install some software from the site to take care of it.

Apple (Microsoft no different) lately is catering to the crowd that will stand in line for hours to be the first to have a new device to play with - and will go bored with it after awhile and need a new one. Or the crowd that sits in the auditorium or is bullied by commercials for the latest and greatest.

As to calling apple support - time I dealt with a hardware problem took a number of calls to get the correct person to agree with what I knew what it was under warrantee. This is no different then other support sites I have dealt with where instead of spending a long time with a person who doesn't quite know what to do - cut it short - try at a different time and you have got it.

I have the same issue with my Mac Pro running Mavericks and iTunes 11.3. Instead of updating my podcasts in the List View, I change to All Unplayed. Then I update the podcasts and they update almost normally. Never update in List view -- I guess that is where the problem is. By the way, I have a large number of files (mostly old time radio) of 340 GBs.

Good Luck,

- Russ in Santa Barbara

notcouldy,

You are correct to say that Apple does not "monitor" these discussions - there does not seem to be moderator.

But this is maybe only particular to Japan support, but when I contact Apple support here in Japan (in Japanese), I point the support staff to the thread for the issue I am dealing with. (Unfortunately, the Japanese-language forums are not as active as this USA forum). The support staff then look at the thread to see what related issues other uses are facing. If there are lots of posts, it certainly gets attention and I am often put in contact with the high level technical engineers. They are brilliant! 🙂

So my earlier call for people to post their issues in this thread was for this purpose.

I would encourage those who face this issue to post as specific as possible the issue they face. This would help me greatly when I contact Apple support and the engineers.

Thanks! 🙂

PS. The quality of the comments and input by those who make the community in this forum are mostly wonderful. If I come across an issue, I can usually find a fix here on the forum by community members who are so giving. That is why I like the Mac - it is not just about Apple, but the supportive community. 🙂 Another BIG thanks to you all! 🙂

dear notcloudy

my person at the help desk on saturday didn't strike me as incompetent - I got along with her quite well - she did a nice and competent research and cleaning up job while denying Apple could have had a glitch in its update, it would have been the same with everybody else - I do the cutting short and calling again, if I feel I won't be taken care of

but with podcasts the problem is that there is apparently nobody, apparently not even amongst the Apple Developer crowd, who is really into podcast listening i.e. who has or cares about everyday experience applying the thing.

My latest guess is that we got a revamped version in the MyPodcast view solely because Apple doesn't really want to give up having a foot in on the iTunesU whatever - last time I looked there was money in it and it keeps them in contact with universities and thus students - they are apparently working hard at getting a big deal through in Turkey becoming their main supplier of schools and/or universities. Maybe this version was needed for demo purposes at sales conferences there - lets hope nobody in the audience gives the list view a try ;-) or could it be that they'd block that view for demos like that?

(latest research claims that hand-written notes are memorized better than typed in ones - I got a good laugh out of that one - it syncs so perfectly with my own life experience)

Anyway since about 3 years ago I feel that I am getting thrown the crumbs in podcasts as befits a customer who isn't interested in the big money makers Apple and the others are trying to impose on me.

As to crash reports - it isn't my job to help a company that sells its stuff to me to do its business - my job is to complain if I get thrown trash - they generate the crash reports, they ask me for commentary at which action the crash occurs. I provide it as detailed as (non-geeky) humanly possible.

If that doesn't help - they can ask me - if there are privacy issue they have the update alert button in my dock where they can give instructions, they have trillions of possibilities - they just must want to - Microsoft got me ready for switching to Apple because they made me feel disregarded, now Apple does the same. Right now Amazon with its Kindle-family showers me with making me feel my needs and preferences are understood and gladly catered to. Will it last 8 or rather 5 years as did my honeymoon with Apple? and alas they don't have any laptop.

Someone suggested to refresh podcasts from the unplayed list screen. While it's not 100%, it's much better than from the list page.

I'm new to the Apple experience. I was dumbfounded that a community forum, sponsored by Apple, is not monitored. Apple products are much more expensive and I don't expect the problems that I, as well as countless others, have had. I don't like spending that kind of money to get screwed around. I can get screwed by other brands for a lot less.

I am finding that Apple does not recognize this issue yet, officially at least. I simply went into Time Capsule, after trying all other choices like force quitting four times, restarting, shutting down for a while, downloading iTunes 11.3 again, etc, I found my MBA 2012 which has not been upgraded to 11.3 from 11.2.2 that 11.2.2 works correctly. So going into Time Capsule, I went back to 7/1/14, dragged 11.2.2 to my desktop, restarted under another drive (as you cannot replace under the main operating OS), logged in, went to my boot drive, deleted 11.3, trashed it and moved 11.2.2 into the application folder. Then I optioned rebooted to my main drive and launched iTunes 11.2.2. All is working correctly when in list view. Okay Apple, fix this serious issue in iTunes. 11.2.2 was released to fix podcast issues and apparently you must have used either bad code and installed a new/similar bug or in the old days of development, where a code was patched to fix an OS issue, the next change flipped that switch in the other direction so the fix is now the bug. Let us get it back to it works like it did years ago. Thanks Apple.

how right you are samike especially given that Apple is applauded for sitting on a 150 bn in cash and Steve Jobs having spent 200 million on a considered by all fruitless law suit with Google - but spending money on customer satisfaction - that's too expensive ... except when it isn't likely to create mass wow and ahs and show me yours I show you mine

I must concede though from my experience that their support desk personnel is superior, friendlier, better mannered than any I have had to do with in my life including the last one my employer had established.

but then take this experience -

the iPod Shuffle in-ear phones start to fray and then break quite quickly - since I listen only to language and lectures i.e. spoken Language they are quite adequate and they fit my ears perfectly - on sale are only earpods with remote control, now what good a remote control should be with a shuffle eludes me.

So I phoned support and learned after much questioning that I should go to a store, when I informed them that that isn't possible they graciously consented to sell me a replacement for 19,90€ (the comple shuffle costs 49.--) plus shipping charges of more than 12 €.

Amazon has some on sale claiming to be originals (and I can find no difference whatsoever even after comparing them with a magnifying glass) for 5,20 a piece - no shipping charges added.

Thus I conclude that Apple customer service is wherever you dig a bag full of OTOH - OTOH 's - it is as if both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are in charge without ever communicating with eachother aka the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing.

thanks Mike for the explanation - it confirms what the helpdesk woman had told me on Saturday

as to this

Let us get it back to it works like it did years ago.

I wish we could turn that into a battle cry and blast it at Apple's headquarters 24/7 - there have been so many little dis-improvements of the last 2 or 3 years and even though MyPodcast view works fine for me it doesn't display a number of first glance infos from list view I am used to and which helped me to select quickly which ones I wanted to download for the Shuffle and which ones to delete. Thus as nice as the extras are for selecting rare cases for the majority they make the job more time consuming and awkward