iTunes 12.2 Very Slow On Search etc.

I tried deleting/re-installing iTunes 12.2, but found no relief from the problems. I have about 80,000 files in my iTunes library and am getting pretty much all of the freezes in the application that others have mentioned.

It's pretty obvious that this is an Apple quality problem. I mean, iTunes 12.0 gave me nightmare syncing problems, freezing iTunes for 30-45 minutes whenever I tried to sync my iPod Classic--a doubly painful problem when watching Apple TV since the freeze also meant the Apple TV device couldn't access the iTunes content on my computer until iTunes stopped freezing. iTunes 12.1 fixed that.

But iTunes 12.2 suddenly means long freezes for routine editing of playlists? Obviously, this is an application defect/bug. If iTunes 12.1 had few freezes and delays, it isn't a large library that "suddenly" breaks iTunes repeatedly. Instead, this is probably a design problem or a true bug. I've encountered other issues with iTunes 12.2 that are clearly bugs: my favorite is when I use the "Edit Playlist" function and find that when I attempt to drag and drop content to the end of the target playlist, the interface jumps to the top of the target playlist, blocking me from adding the content.

But back to the freezing problem. iTunes freezes when I:

• Switch views between the Music, TV, Movies, and Podcasts views. This is typically a 10-second freeze for me and occurs with every attempt.
• iTunes intermittently freezes when I attempt to start or pause a song play, typically 10-15 seconds.
• iTunes freezes when mounting a device via USB. The iPhone 5s freezes iTunes for about 60 seconds, the iPod Classic freezes iTunes for 45-60 seconds. I have not had the patience to test the iPad 2 for this behavior.
• iTunes freezes when loading a CD, typically about 60 seconds.
• iTunes freezes intermittently for about 20 seconds when a song ends. The freeze usually begins 2-5 seconds before the song actually finishes and unfreezes about 14-15 seconds into the new track. While this doesn't happen every time, I'd guess the freeze occurs in about 98/100 cases.
• iTunes freezes for about 10-20 seconds whenever I drag content from one playlist on to another playlist, Skipping the buggy "Edit Playlist" steps punishes me with this freeze.
• iTunes freezes for 15-30 seconds when I delete content in a playlist (I use the "Songs" view exclusively).

I've tried turning off all Apple Music functions, going so far as to take the MacBook completely offline (WiFi off, ethernet disconnected), hoping that the delays were related to excessive calls to the iTunes store to build recommendation engine information. That seemed to slightly reduce the delays when deleting songs in playlists, but had no other benefit.

While there are many factors that could lead to these problems, the fact that iTunes 12.1's only freeze issue was the view change (Music, Movies, TV, Podcasts) leads me to conclude that this is most likely a design defect. My first guess would be that the write process to the iTunes library file was changed or that some supporting process was modified, creating the delays/freezes. My own ITL file is just under 35 MB, and if the write process, say, is forced to re-write the entire file each time I delete a song from a playlist, that could explain the delays, but there are other possibilities. It's interesting that the iTunes popup alert for adding duplicate songs to a playlist does not cause delays, nor does the popup alert for deleting content from the library. In both cases, the freeze only begins after I confirm the popup choice.

As others have mentioned, using the Activity Monitor reveals interesting behavior. My dual core MacBook shows that when there is activity in iTunes, the kernel_task activity owned by root is running around 120%-140% of CPU capacity despite the fact that I have no other applications open. Memory usage seems unaffected, but perhaps the defective iTunes processes are related to the kernel_task behaving in such a strange fashion? If iTunes is left inactive for a long time, the kernel_task eventually stops hogging CPU cycles, but this takes a long time (as much as an hour of iTunes inactivity).

Given that I'm also seeing design defects and bugs in Safari, Mail, and Finder, it's likely this is all about Apple's focus on quality (or lack). I find it amazing that it appears they haven't made it a practice to test iTunes on extremely large libraries and with devices like iPod Classics. It's clear their design focus is on pushing users to a streaming solution, but I live and recreate in a US state that has large areas without cellular coverage, so it's an impractical solution. Besides, beyond the problem of Apple Music lacking all the content I desire, I expect the streaming music industry to increasingly adopt the practices of the streaming video providers who sign exclusivity deals with content owners, forcing you to purchase multiple subscriptions to see the content you want. $10 USD isn't bad for a big streaming service, until exclusivity deals force you to pay 3 or 4 different providers so you can hear what you want. But as long as Apple focuses on streaming, it may be time for music fanatics to consider abandoning the Apple ecosystem.

Hey JStrab and Richard Grant,

I wanted to check in, great that things are working again for you. I'm very, very curious to see how things are going and how exactly you did the delete and reinstall. Did you delete the app completely from the applications folder? Did that leave the iTunes folder and all your music and .ltd library files intact? Or did you back those up and then recopy them directly back to the newly created iTunes folder? Where did you find the new iTunes application to install?

The reason I ask is that I did this with the Apple Care people and it didn't change a single thing, but I left my folder on my hard drive and it basically just used the old folder, etc.

Any details would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks again for your help and hope that this works!

Hey Richard,

I just replied to jstrab about this, curious to hear the details of your delete and reinstall. Let me/us know exactly how you did that and see my reply to Jstrab, I'd really like to try it again because I've already tried once and still the same problems...extreme slowness in all operations.

I mean it sounds like your issue was just in the slow download process and not that iTunes itself worked very slowly. How big are your libraries...like I've stated, I really think the problem is due to massive libraries of over 250GB and 50,000 songs and thousands of playlists, etc...

Please others update if they've found that iTunes 12.2.1 works with these huge libraries and playlists.

Thanks!

Anodyne, my library has about 70,000 songs, a fair number of which are lengthy classical pieces, along with a few hundred videos -- the music library alone is over 450GB. The past few iTunes versions have been pretty slow on the old iMac I use to manage it -- iTunes 12.2 is no worse, and may be even *slightly* faster than the last couple of iterations. But I don't use any cloud- or internet-based features like iTunes Match, iCloud Music Library, or Genius -- it's just a self-contained library management system.

I think my problem was not a bad download, but a download that got caught up somehow and never completed -- slowing my whole computer down in the process. There was no new version to delete, so I just followed a direct-download link, and somehow that resolved the issue. I've had no problems with 12.2 or 12.2.1.

Hey Gavin,

I feel your pain here, these are basically all the things that are happening with my iTunes with the same frustrations and anger. I don't use the video elements that you rely on but all the musical stuff and playlist freezing and lagging is all present in my version.

I'm thinking of redoing everything, copying my iTunes folder to a hard disc then reinstalling iTunes but really don't think its going to do anything, it will potentially mess everything up again.

Please keep posting if you have any solutions or find some relief...

Best of luck

Hi Richard,

So just to clarify you did not delete the old version and start anew you just did the direct-download for the update? The other frustrating thing is that Apple seems to embed these new iTunes updates with system updates, which makes them clearly tied in to the system somehow and not just a single application update, etc...I think that I actually did this already with the Apple Care folks, just reinstall a new version of iTunes but I'm not sure.

Not sure what I'm going to do next...

Thanks for your help, glad that everything is working fast for you...wonder what system computer you have or what differences your system is to mine?

Its frustrating that there aren't more people posting with problems to get the sense that everyone who has over 40 or 50,000 music files is having problems.

Oh well, thanks

Hey Picklgreen,

Just had a clarification in your text, I've been following this problem issue, having same trouble, but curious, you say people who have lots of music stored on their computer don't use iTunes" just curious what they use? Is there something better? I'm so ****** off I'd love to ditch iTunes but I have tons of music on my computer in playlists etc, well organized, etc...dying for a workaround or a fix.

Thanks!

Hi anodyne75,

I'm unwilling to consider the solution of rebuilding the library from scratch. My overall iTunes library is 3.8 TB (1.8 TB movies, 1.4 TB TV shows, 600 GB music) and I have well over 3,000 playlists, so the task would be immense. In addition, I would lose my metadata for dates added and play counts, which I find useful. While everything is backed up using the 3-2-1 practice, rebuilding the library would pretty much require me to buy another 4 TB drive and spending $140 US just to see if iTunes would behave isn't my idea of fun!

By the way, my iPhone 5s is now refusing to sync correctly. If I try to sync while any other task in iTunes is active (music playing, Apple TV streaming), the iPhone sync will freeze and fail. If I stop all other activities and sync the iPhone, iTunes indicates success. When I open the music app and access the playlists, they show all the music is synced and on the phone, but in fact, about half the tracks will not play and the Music app simply skips them. Even if you tap directly on the track in question, the Music app will just move on and play the next track--or sometimes, it will skip a half dozen tracks.

And did I mention that if I sync the same tracks to the iPhone 5s and the iPod Classic, the artwork will be correct on the iPhone, but incorrect on the iPod? Oh well, at least all the tracks play on the iPod, which is nice, even if I didn't expect to see a photo of Ludwig van Beethoven as the artwork for a Meek Mill track.

Rebuild the iTunes library

Quit iTunes

Go into the music folder, make a copy of the file called iTunes Music Library.xml and put it in a safe place

then trash the file called iTunes Library.itl

Launch iTunes, and choose File > Library > Import Playlist. Navigate to the iTunes Library.xml file you moved earlier, and click Choose

This will take a very long time

I am personally not gonna do this because I have over 156000 songs in a library that exceeds a few TB and they're arranged in order of arrival

Rebuilding the library changes all the "date added" metadata to today

Thanks for the detailed notes about this. The question is, where you having the same problems with iTunes that other people were having that posted here or is this just for the information, which is very useful I might add. Did doing this solve the problems of slowness or whatever "bug" might have gotten in to our systems somehow all at the exact same time. With all your songs and playlists, were you having the same slowness, etc?

Thanks again...

Hi Gavin,

Yes, I agree, I'm not willing to do it yet at all, I have no desire to completely mess up the way I use iTunes and organize/find my music, its just ridiculous that we are even discussing this option. Kallisti seems to be saying there that we can actually make copies of the xml file which contains our playlists etc, which would be a major help to this reinstall option. I'll have to think about trying it, but this is really becoming untenable here...

Thankfully, and I'm sorry that this is an additional bother, I don't really put much music on my iphone or feel the need for playlists with it because of the way its being organized, hope that works itself out at some point...

you dont lose any organizational data

the only thing affected by rebuilding the library is the "date added"

that is all

everything else remains the same, all your organization and playlists remains the same.

So Jayessemm, are you going to try this?

I'm kind of seeing how it works and trying to think if I can live with the changes to the "date added" files, because I actually I use that to to reference new music etc...

I'm actually just simply skeptical that the people that did do this were not having the same extent slowness, sluggishness, unworkability with the new iTunes beforehand...

Still trying to figure out what to do...