iTunes 12.2 Very Slow On Search etc.

Pathetic. Apple was a company once used to be able to rely on. They made products that worked. That has been in steady decline. This new version of iTunes is a disgrace.

I'm pulling my hair out too anodyne.

Driving me mad.

It's working so badly that I haven't been able to use it for going on 3 weeks and I also have a big collection.

Been on with apple and so far been through 5 people.

Waiting to hear back now after they sent files from my computer to their engineers.

I also have a hard time believing that they didn't know or hear about it.

My situation is exactly the same as yours but when it first updated (it updated itself with no usual warning) my whole

487 GB library vanished and was replaced with a single U2 Free download album!

Nothing else just that.

I found my library luckily and apple helped me get it back, the only problem is it's pretty much useless

because there are 40 second beachballs between any command.

I'm 3 weeks in and going crazy!

I use iTunes both for pleasure and professionally in that i do lots of research of vast amounts of music (a lot of obscurities-something apple probably doesn't like).

I have no need for match, genius or apple music and make my own decisions of what i like or choose to buy.

I don't need the little guy inside my computer that is always trying to sell me something.

Please let me know, and i'll do the same if there is a miracle fix at hand!

Thanks for making your problem visible.

Apple can't keep saying that they no nothing about it when there are seemingly so many of us!

Take care...

Hey JStrab,

I would be curious about a few things here. How's things working with your library now? I did consider moving back down to an earlier version of iTunes but the updates now are tied to OSX updates, cleverly, Apple has tied everything together and you can't update iTunes separately and thus stay with an earlier version of iTunes.

I was also curious what your initial "performance issues" were, did they mirror mine? Overall super slowness, inability to edit tracks in quick time...another issue I've identified which is almost the most unacceptable is that I can't import songs from a cd rapidly, it takes forever!!

Just wanted to update with my experiences with Apple Care people.

BongoBetty, thanks for sharing and I'm sorry about your problems, I can totally relate as you know!

I have talked to Apple Care several times since my last post. The latest "expert" I've been talking to seems to thinks its a corrupted library. He now wants me to backup and then delete my old iTunes folder and then create a new iTunes folder and incrementally add my library of music from the backup to this new folder to identify the corrupted files! All 360GB of it!!!! Now, I'm not necessarily against this but it will not recreate my playlists, I will lose all of those and will have to recreate them, so its not exactly mirroring the problems. I do think that is part of the issue and so I haven't decided what to do.

I could do what JStrab suggests, going back to an earlier version then having it update but I'm a bit skeptical about that as well. However, that seems to indicate that the problem is 12.2 which clearly is "incompatible" with earlier versions and in the rebuild of this update has changed something in the very architecture of iTunes which doesn't like massive libraries made up of hard copies of music files and all the other stuff which comes with them. Of course, the Apple guys, say that's impossible, etc, what else would they say.

Basically I might try this rebuild over the next several weeks and see if it works, without the playlists, knowing that I have the backed up iTunes folder and library files (obviously these should always be preciously guarded and backed up, iTunes Library.itl, folder in your iTunes folder). Mine is 18.5 mb.

I wonder if its possible to get a straight answer from somewhere high up in the iTunes hierarchy? Any suggestions?

Ok, thanks all, good luck and please keep posting updates and developments.

Hi anodyne75. It is NOT your library! I have proven it.

They are so full of sh@t and it infuriates me that they continue to keep their heads in the sand or play innocent.

The engineers also told me it was my playlist or library. I told them, if it is, then iTunes 12.2 corrupted those files because it was fine until the update.

I have proven this by doing a total restore of my computer/operating system (via time machine before the iTunes update was released) that restored literally everything, and guess what, I am finally "no problems at all now"!

This proves that before the update to itunes 12.2, my library was fine and it was iTunes 12.2 that caused the problem.

(BTW, if you restore, always back up everything! or you will lose it-photos, files, work carried out)

I have now sent copies of before and after the update, my iTunes library and playlists!

It is DEFINITELY iTunes 12.2 that did it.

I am very happy to be in the iTunes version before this nightmarish update but feel very untrusting toward apple.

I really feel that they don't care at all about the customer and I bet, even though i did the donkey work for the engineers, they do nothing about it!

I have never felt so de-powered by apple as i have been this last 3 weeks.

I finally have my library back and in working order and have turned off all "auto-updates" in both iTunes and preferences.

I turned off wifi to do the restore. Before getting back on, when the restore was finished,I opened iTunes, went to advanced and unchecked "check software automatically". I also went to system preferences and went 4 lines down to app store and unchecked "automatically check for updates". Then i went back online.

Another thing is that this new version of iTunes updated itself making all of this, not our fault but apple just doesn't give a sh@t!

they have proven it by their lack of interest, by saying no one else has this problem and they haven't heard a word of it, and blaming the users that DO report it as THEIR (the user's) fault, not apple of course. Disgusting behaviour if you ask me.

Seriously thinking of dumping their ***** and i never thought i'd say that.

I've always been a big fan of apple. But right now, i really am considering things because i have really been taken for a jerk by apple and i don't like it.

All they had to do was first of all, be more honest and admit hearing about it. Then apologise and kick into gear helping the people that they caused the problem for.

Not that hard it is?

Anyway. Good luck anodyne75. Let me know how you get on...

All the best, Bongobetty alias me...

The fault here lies 100% with Apple Computer and iTunes 12.2. They have proven time and time again they are unreliable and unresponsive to their customers. Any time they get involved with software, it always ends up badly. Remember they way they pulled support of iWeb, Aperture, and all the other applications many of us relied upon? I will buy my music and audio purchases on Amazon from now on.

I have a huge iTunes library with far too many playlists to re-create. I suppose we can only hope they fix the mess the created. Of course, they'll never own up to it. But maybe in time, they will fix it. There are people on this thread who have done more work to solve the problem than the world's richest company has! Apple Computer you are so disappointing in so many different ways! It's truly outrageous!!!!

I'm glad you found a solution to your problem and that it worked for you!

Unfortunately, I also don't like to use Time Machine and therefore don't have a backup with Time Machine from before the update. I do have an older version of iTunes on another computer but, as someone else pointed out here, it won't work with Yosemite and the system asks you to update to 12.2...that person stated that once they reinstalled 12.2 it worked again but I find that hard to believe.

So I'm really stuck here. I really don't want to go through this process of creating a whole new iTunes library and losing all my playlists. Although, of course, I backed the whole iTunes folder up so theoretically I could just go back and install the whole library again!

Aghhh! If anybody else has ideas or experiences let us know!

I'd contact applecare again and tell them that there is proof that it's not your library that is a problem and that they owe it to you to get things back to how they were! Sorry this is happening for you anodyne! Good luck and keep updating so we find out how it ended up.

Have you posted applecare to this forum? You should if you haven't.

Take care...

I don't know if my experience will shed any light on this. But I experienced the problem of extreme slowness during the update process itself, which was set to happen automatically. It affected all the operations of my computer. Even the most trivial procedure (like clicking a menu header and waiting for the menu to drop down) took forever. I was freaked out. Very s-l-o-w-l-y I opened Activity Monitor, which revealed that a root process called systemupdated and some unspecified kernel process were using a lot of CPU power -- though seemingly not enough to account for the paralysis of the system. I tried to kill those processes but I can't remember if that was effective or not. Anyway, I managed to shut the computer down properly and to restart it -- only to find that the slowdown occurred all over again, and now the App Store app was completely unresponsive -- everything in the Updates pane was grayed-out.

I theorized that maybe the update process had gotten hung up somehow. So I followed a direct link that I found somewhere to the new iTunes version and clicked to download it. I got an error message (can't remember what it said) and clicked Cancel -- but then the download went ahead anyway, iTunes 12.2 got installed, and somehow that resolved the whole problem. The computer sped back up (relatively speaking -- it's a very aged iMac) and I've had no issues with iTunes 12.2.x.

I have no idea whether any general conclusions can be drawn from this. Maybe the problem is rooted not in the app itself, but in the installation process? Maybe deleting and manually reinstalling the app will be helpful in some cases? I don't know, and I suspect at this point Apple doesn't know either.

I came home from holiday today. When opening ITunes I was asked if I wanted to update to 12.2.1. I didn't dare. Anybody in this forum more courageous or had the fearlessness to try?

My suggestion is to not go anywhere near it Rum Tale.

Just read the content here for some of the reasons.

Happy to report that the slow response has not returned after I deleted and re-installed 12.2. Before I did that it was taking for ever to add new music, change info on tracks and even just play music. When music was playing with would pause randomly and when I tried to stop or start is would take 30 secs or so to respond to my clicks. Quite frustrating. Not sure that this will solve your problem but only took ~10 mins and didn't lose any of my playlists. So seems like its worth a shot. I have a large library - ~2TB of music and videos. So I was really concerned that this update had rendered them useless.

So for now, I'm thinking something got corrupted when I did the initial upgrade and that caused the slow performance issues. Fingers crossed it has been resolved.

Well, I've already installed the terrible 12.2 a long time ago, and with 450gb music and lots of playlists I became part of this group (obvious). I just want to know if anyone here knows if there's an improvement for our sake with the 12.2.1. version. I'm a newly born Apple coward and I don't dare to try myself.

I'd go for it, Rum Tale. Two reasons:

1. I'm not sure exactly what bugs are addressed by the 12.2.1 update -- only two are listed, affecting a subset of users, though I'm guessing there are more under the hood -- but it does represent at least a slight improvement over 12.2, and it's been working okay for me since I installed it.

2. The installation process for 12.2 seems to have gotten screwed up for JStrab and for me (though in different ways). Both of us seem to have solved the problem with a new, clean installation.

I tried upgrading to 12.2.1 when it first came out--I figured it couldn't be any worse. It made no difference in this particular instance. It's still painfully slow to add new music. Not worse by any means, but certainly no better.