Q: Just updated to iTunes 12.2.1 for mac and found that it is extremely slow - is anyone else having this issue?

Fantastic!  Worked like a charm.  Thank you Zifix!

I'm having a bigger issue!  Since upgrading to 12.2.1 I seem to have lost ALL my iTunes files!!!!  I'm not very tech savvy and the idea of trying to solve this issue is freaking me out!   Can't get 'Chat Help' even thought it's an Apple Fault.  Any tips for a novice?

This solution worked for me as well.  You have to be jackrabbit quick to go to Account > Sign Out before the Spinning Ball of Death hits, but once you sign out, quit, restart and sign back you're good.  I did get asked if I wanted to add this computer to Match (which I had already done under 11.x) but once I did that IT synced to the Cloud and I'm back in business.

Not Apple's strongest release, for sure.  Thanks to Zifix for this post!

It has helped a bit. I don't get the spinning ball as much now but, it's not a fix. iTunes is still as slow as a wet week.

I was having this problem for a few days after updating to 10.10.4 and installing iTunes 12.2.1. My iTunes is default set to occupy a full-screen window, so it would open into a new desktop and beach-ball unresponsively. I even let it sit for almost a full day but it never worked itself out.

However, I followed the instructions on this page to delete and reinstall iTunes, and now it's working! It isn't even lagging or acting particularly slow.

http://help.overdrive.com/customer/portal/articles/1481557-how-to-reinstall-itun es-for-mac

It was annoying but I'm glad to have my music back. Hopefully this can help some others here.

I'd like to make a correction: the previous solution did not work at all. It seemed like it for a while but it's just as bad as ever. I'm going to try ant dept's solution and reinstall. BTW you don't need to go searching for all those components if you have AppCleaner. It's a very small, free app. All you do it drop iTunes into it and it searches for all related file and you can trash them from there. http://appcleaner.en.softonic.com/mac

OK, just deleted iTunes and reinstalled and got the spinning ball before I could even sign in. It's no better than before.

My issue is that iTunes seems to hang for certain tracks/albums. I thought it was a universal SBOD, but in fact I can play some tracks just fine. I have tried the account sign out/in to no joy. The offending tracks play fine in the Finder, so I am sure they're not corrupt. The CPU just ramps up to 100% and then is supposedly killed off (so the app has to be forced to quit).

UPDATE: If I preview one of these audio tracks from the Finder, and then click the "open with iTunes" button, it plays just fine in iTunes. So there must be something to do with trying to select the track in the iTunes UI. Is it doing some kind of checking behind the scenes, perhaps online? Maybe it only does it with artists it recognises/knows are in the Store?

UPDATE 2: These hangs in iTunes happen regardless of whether I am signed in to my account or not, and whether I am connected to the Internet or not, so it can't be checking my account or doing anything else online. Corrupt preferences file or something like that? Must be doing something locally rather than online.

To everyone who is dealing with a crashing, unresponsive iTunes 12.2.1; after a couple weeks of frustration I finally fixed my problem.

Your iTunes library file is probably corrupted. I has to delete the file named iTunes Library.itl and restart.  There was some info online about moving the iTunes music library.xml file to the desktop and re-importing it, but it didn't work for me.

I closed iTunes (not that it would really open), deleted the library files (iTunes Library.itl and iTunes music library.xml) then restarted.  iTunes will be a fresh unpopulated app, you will lose the database of all your files.  To re-add it, deselect all the options that copy or organize music for you iTunes library, then "add to library." I used Senuti to add the playlists from my iPhone back to my Mac and I was just about back to normal.

Good luck

This "solution" is the nuclear option. No thanks. I'll wait for Apple to fix it.

I would say that calling the loss of all the playlists not on a device "the nuclear option," is quite the exaggeration.  It get's iTunes working again. Wait as long as you like, I was simply offering my version of a fix.

I would call it disastrous. If you have close to 100GB of music, all organised into playlists like me, it would be devastating to lose them all.