iTunes 12 extremely slow?

You are right. I just checked with Activity Monitor. When iTunes is performing any task, it shoots up to 100% and more.

And sometimes even when it's NOT performing any apparent task!

Also, synching to my iPhone seems to keep getting less and less reliable, in terms of transferring MP3 files from iTunes to my phone. I synch and synch and sometimes they just don't transfer. Multiple times I've had to delete all the music from my phone (by going into the iTunes settings; synching to remove the music also doesn't work) and start over, and then it works.... for a few days.

I happened to find this Reddit thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/3ep1wi/itunes_12_eventually_consumes _100_cpu_has_to_be/

One person here pointed out that logging out of iTunes can somewhat lesson the demands of iTunes 12 on the CPU. I logged out myself and the CPU demands immediately dropped. Although, from what was said on Reddit, it's not clear that it's a permanent solution. Anyway, one needs to log into iTunes sometimes...

I also have an extremely large library (Pushing 1 TB) on an external USB 3 HD. I was having the same problem with iTunes being extremely sluggish/slow so I came to this forum in hopes of resolving the issue. I tried every thing suggested here and even tried starting over as suggested by one responder but when I was finished and added my playlists I had the same problem although it was a little better. I wondered if it was all the playlists I had, one for almost every album I had so realizing that was unnecessary with the album view I went through and deleted most of the playlists and now iTunes 12 isn't sluggish any longer. I still have several hundred playlists but I deleted provably a thousand. I hope this helps some of you... I had all of the playlists in previous versions so obviously it has something to do with iTunes 12... Way to go apple.

Same problem..except with iTunes on PC...I use my Windows PC as a Media computer and basically only have a 160GB HDD for the operating system and any little misc. things that need to go on there and then a separate 2TB HDD for my media. By no means am I a PC person (been with mac too long), nor am I qualified to diagnose the problem, but on a computer that only runs Windows 10 and iTunes, nothing else, should take minutes, much less seconds to load...and it often times takes quite a while.

So. Its not just the OSX version (though my MBP's iTunes is also the same way now). At least the PC folks have to struggle too.

I managed to resolve my issue with iTunes being unresponsive. I had dealt with second level technical support who in turn sent several log files to engineering however the exact issue was never discovered was resolved, what did work was reloading my library into a new iTunes library from scratch.

First a bit of background and then I'll share what I did that resolve the issue:

1) Issue I was having:

- iTunes unresponsive for 3-5 minutes minutes every time I plugged in an iPhone or an iPad Pad even though auto sync was disabled,

- iTunes unresponsive for 1 to 2 minutes every time I played any track,

- iTunes unresponsive when creating a new playlist or folder for playlists

1) Environment:

Computer: MacPro late 2013 model, 32GB RAM, running El Capitan (purchased in January)

Media location: OWC Thunderbay 4 - Thunderbolt 20TB external drive

# of tracks: 174,886

# of playlists: I didn't have a count although I had about over 3,000 playlists after running a script that had created various playlists by artist etc...

size on disk: 1.63TB

iOS apps: 1399

2) What I had tried (but didn't work):

- moved media to a totally different Thunderbolt drive

- created a new user and imported my library into a new iTunes

- created a new iTunes library - without importing my media - there were no issues although the test was not conclusive since I had nothing in the library

- deleted Sync Services

- replaced iPhone from iPhone 6 to iPhone 6s - same issue with iTunes unresponsive even after the upgrade of the iPhone

- replaced iPad from iPad 2nd generation to iPad Air - same issue with iTunes unresponsive even after the upgrade of the iPad

- converted videos for iPhone format (originally, I had noticed that syncing videos was making iTunes unresponsive even longer then 3-5 minutes, even short videos of 2 minutes)
Note: Every time I was doing testing, I kept exporting my library (File>Library>Library Export) and then re-imported it back into a new library (File>Library>Import Playlist) and I continued to have the same unresponsive iTunes.

3) What I did that resolved the issue:

After several months of trying this and trying that and becoming totally frustrated with iTunes having purchased my new MacPro in January including new external Thunderbolt drives, I finally managed to find a solution to my issue.

- created a new iTunes library

- iTunes Preferences>Advanced:

- disabled: Keep iTunes Media Organized - Disabled

- disabled: copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library

- drag-dropped all music from my external drive music folder to iTunes

- (Note that I

- re-downloaded all iOS apps (ITunes Store> Purchased)

- plugged in iPhone and iPad to the MacPro and synced

- deleted the original playlists that I had originally synced with my previous iTunes

- recreated a few playlists manually (about 20)

Important note: I did NOT import my previous XML (playlist etc...) library into the new iTunes library.

4) Result

I tested that everything was successful. I have 174,886 tracks now in my iTunes and it works fast, I plugin my iPhone and iPad and iTunes only becomes unresponsive for about 1 to 2 seconds, I play any track and iTunes is fully responsive,...

Clearly the actual music files on the external drives were not the problem as was originally thought and the size of the library is not an issue for iTunes nor the Mac to handle.

If I launch iTunes using my old library, I have the exact same problem as before so the problem is clearly with something within that library. There is obviously something wrong with the original iTunes library that iTunes results in being unresponsive.

Reloading my iTunes library from scratch and NOT importing my XML library into the new library resolved the issue. By doing so, I lost all of my playlists that I had previously created and I'm not happy about that however at least now iTunes is responsive. I will not run the script to create playlists by artists as this will result in thousands of playlists and I don't really need that anyway as I can use the media browser within iTunes to find the same info.

The exact source of the problem was never found although at this point and with everything I've done, having spent well over 100 hours of time to look for a solution, I'm so happy that iTunes finally works fast. My suspicion here is that the # of playlists in my original library was the problem although I don't know for sure. I read a thread by Aophiuchus and deleting playlists resolved his issue as well so perhaps the # of playlists is really the source of the issue although I don't know what would be the threshold before iTunes becomes unresponsive.

So if you have a large library and many playlists, either consider deleting all or most of your playlists to see if that resolves the issue, or create a new library like I did, dragging/dropping your media without importing your old library and see if that works for you.

Wow! I updated to iTunes 12.3.2 tonight. They seem to have solved the problem! Synching my iPhone is now lightning-fast, as is using iTunes in general. Activity Monitor shows that it's no longer eating up insane amounts of CPU power. Great!

Is everyone else noticing the same improvement?

It's great that your issue was resolved with iTunes 12.3.2.

I did a test using version 12.3.2 and iTunes continues to be unresponsive for about 3 minutes when I plugin my iPhone or iPad. so Apple did not resolve the issues for my library. For those of you that have large libraries and iTunes 12.3.2 doesn't resolve your issue, see my previous post Dec 9, 2015 5:57 AM where I managed to resolve the issue by rebuilding my library

It seems iTunes has been repaired. I've had this problem for three months. No response from the engineering team yet but iTunes just suddenly corrected itself. It works as it did before. My iDevices are syncing properly, no more spinning ball. I can play songs, change songs, pause, slide up and down my playlists, go to the store, everything. So far, so good.

Tried every trick from every forum, installed, downgraded, rebuilt, you name it. I was about to give up on iTunes entirely... And behold, 12.3.2 is working as it should, finally!

iTunes 12 is god awful. I have a brand new macbook pro with a 512 gig solid state drive and I get the pin wheel constantly with itunes 12. I'm as current as you can get with the OS and all my programs. I have plenty of memory and hard drive space. This reminds me of Apple Maps - it's a huge misstep and is just plain bad. They should never have released it. I have even adjusted my settings (turning off Genius, etc) to try to get it to run more smoothly, but to no avail.

I wasn't sure what I'd do. I don't want to get another monthly subscription service - happy to use Spotify and Pandora for free. I like managing my own library. I don't mind owning music, paying musicians for their work. So this morning...at the urging of my cousin who works at Amazon...I downloaded the Amazon Music app. Installed it on my mac. It automatically found my iTunes library, migrated all my music over into the interface and it runs perfectly. It couldn't have been easier. No more spinning wheel of death. No more slow *** iTunes. I don't yet know if I will continue to use the Apple Store or not, but it sure as **** will be a lot easier to purchase directly from Amazon b/c now I'm hooked up to their teet.

Dear Apple - get your **** together. Fix iTunes or risk losing more people. It's practically inexcusable.

Sincerely,

Me

A Possible Fix (for a specific set of symptoms).

Overview: iTunes 12 running on a Mac Pro (coffee can) 1.7 TB external library on a USB 3 hard drive.

Symptoms: Extremely slow performance across the board. First signs were long lag times to update meta data and preferences, most recent problem was a delay of up to 10 seconds between consecutive tracks on the same music album.

Attempted fix: Move the entire iTunes library to an internal drive on an older 4-bay Mac Pro.

Discovery: Damaged files inhibits database access and hence overall performance.

Result: Almost instant playback of all media wants damaged files are removed from the iTunes library.

Those are the headlines, this is a more detailed description of what my situation is. Most of the content in my library comes from live broadcasts captured through an Elgato TV dongle, the majority being TV series and 300 movies. The music collection is what I would call small to moderate (about 250 CDs worth). I first noticed a decline in performance a couple of years ago when entering details in the meta data window of TV shows and films. Once the text was entered in the info window it could take around five seconds before updating completely. Considering I've been using the Elgato system for more than 10 years it has been something I've learned to put up with. When upgraded to a Mac Pro (late 2013, black can) I thought this would help but even after getting the latest version of iTunes and installing 10.11 El Capitan, things just got worse.

It was through sheer frustration that I decided to move my iTunes library to completely different machine and see if that helped the situation. I had read elsewhere on the web that many of the users with problems have their library on an external hard drive, I wanted to test the theory that running from an internal drive would help. You can imagine the thought of clothing 1.7 TB worth of media was not a happy prospect, it turned out to be how I discovered that corrupt files with the cause of my particular problems. I used an application called Synchronise to make a clone folder of content on a new hard disk. During the copying process the application reported about a dozen errors all of which were faulty video files mostly films but one TV show as well. It was possible to play the files back through QuickTime player but after a certain point in the timeline there was an error which prevented playback through iTunes. This presented the added complication that the files looked okay in most circumstances but contained bad frames or some sort of corruption which inhibited playback partway through the content. An absolute nightmare to detect. It was only because of the copying process that these files came to light.

By recording a list of all of the bad files in my library I was able to delete them from within iTunes and double check that the failed clones were not on the new library either. In the end I have not needed to use the new library because iTunes has now begun to run correctly; playback of films, TV shows and music is almost instantaneous compared to each and every track having a several second lag before each item started playing. I have even changed meta data entries in the Get Info window; both individual files and multiple entries with a noticeable improvement on writing to disk and confirming the changes.

I cannot convey how frustrating life with iTunes has been over the last few years especially the loss of home sharing, I truly hope this helps anyone with similar problems. it puts me in mind in the early days of desktop publishing when a bad font could mess up your whole project. Sometimes the simplest element can cause the greatest pain.

I have a 250MB library on a fresh install of Yosemite 10.10.5 on a MBP Retina i5 8GB 128GBSSD running iTunes 12.4.1.6.

There is a one-second delay after clicking on anything. Clicking in the sidebar there is about half-second delay, but clicking anything in the music library (whether in the bar-that-is-near-the-sidebar-that-is-on-the-side-yet-is-not-called-"sidebar" or making any selection in the main music library window) there is a one-second delay.

I have a >10GB music library on an external hard drive that I was hoping to copy into iTunes, but given the above-mentioned experiences I'm very wary to add any more than 250MB.

Add all these one-second delays to all the online research I have to do to figure out how to do any of the old actions that were intuitive in previous versions, and I must say iTunes 12 is seriously talented at wasting my time.

Wow, this has made such a difference. iTunes has been a nightmare recently, so much better now.

Go to preferences > advanced in iTunes and make sure that "Keep iTunes Media folder organised" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" are checked. Set the iTunes Media folder location to your external hard disk. Then restart iTunes with the option key pressed and create a new library, then import the folder with your music to iTunes. The location of the files should not be changed, but a new library will be built.