Updated to iTunes 12.1, now iTunes crashes every time it attempts to access the internet through our internal proxy - cannot access store!

For me, it crashes before the store actually displays anything other than a blank page.

Do you know, or have any sort of idea what proxy software/hardware appliance that your network is using?

EDIT: I'm also going to cross-reference this topic, iTunes 12.1 still frequently crashes when accessing store as it appears to be discussing the same problem.

I'll be monitoring both this topic and the referenced one.

Hi, I'm not sure how to clear my Keychain file, I'm not even sure Windows has one...

We used to use Microsoft's Forefront Threat Management Gateway but now that it has been discontinued, we're using a different Web Proxy, but the problem is still affecting both of us, so it probably doesn't matter what proxy software/appliance is used, the problem will still happen. Which pretty much confirms that this is bad coding on Apple's part. This didn't happen in iTunes 11, but that had different issues which still made it unusable for me.

TMG was very flaky for me anyway, although it had a good run, it didn't seem to like me playing Call of Duty or running Steam games...

Thanks for the link, but the directory specified in the linked topic doesn't exist on my PC.

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\ [DIRECTORY ENDS HERE]

Preferences folder does not exist.

The only folder in this directory is "iTunes".
We don't have the iCloud Control Panel installed.

We're using "roaming profiles" which I think means that our roaming AppData folder is actually kept on a server, and a 'lightweight' one is placed on the local PC. So I looked in my roaming AppData folder on the server.

\\<server>\UserProfiles\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer

No Preferences folder here either.

I've got "iTunes", "Logs", "MobileSync" and "SyncNotifier".

Do you and your colleague have any other Apple software installed, excluding iTunes (obviously) and Quicktime?

Might be because I've never saved or remembered any passwords, I always respond to the prompt.

Even then, you said it didn't really solve the problem with proxies.

But can you do me a favour? Go to your Control Panel and Internet Options. Choose the Connections tab and then press the LAN settings button.

Ignore the fact that everything is greyed out. Notice how an automatic configuration script has been set. I believe that the problem is caused if either "Automatically detect settings" is ticked AND a WPAD file exists on the network, or if "Use automatic configuration script" is ticked AND a WPAD file has been specified.

If the "Use a proxy server for your LAN" box is ticked and a proxy server is specified explicitly, the problem does not occur. But that makes life difficult because proxy exceptions would need to be set up on each machine, whereas WPAD allows each machine to automatically configure proxy settings from a single file.

Hi,

I've already tried manually specifying the proxy settings, and when this is applied, iTunes does not crash. This would solve the problem for you.

However, this is not a valid workaround for me because it can only be done on the admin account. My iTunes library is on a regular user account, and as the screenshot shows, these settings are locked. We use auto-proxy configuration because it simplifies proxy exceptions, so manually setting the proxy settings would break countless other programs.

This is clearly a fatal bug which Apple have introduced into the iTunes auto-proxy configuration, and I'm not happy, especially because it never used to happen, which means it's not only shoddy programming on Apple's part, it also means poor or non-existent quality assurance and software testing. It's a disgrace for a company on this magnitude.

I've already given up hope and my iPhone is now back in its box for the foreseeable future because I can't do much now without iTunes crashing.

I will also refuse to spend another penny on the iTunes music store until this is fixed (if ever), [not that I could anyway!] And for now, I'll buy some good old vinyls from my local record shop!

Update:

Had to send my BlackBerry back due to a screen defect. Spent the last day attempting to set up my iPhone 4S without iTunes crashing.

It seems if you cancel all the prompts where it asks for your Proxy username and password, it would delay the crash. But it's still not long enough for iTunes to be useful, and cancelling the proxy authentication prompts means iTunes Store will not work!

Raised a bug with Apple Bug Reporter. Don't expect them to do much but right now, I'd try anything.