iTunes freezes 3-5 seconds after launching and goes into not responding mod

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Level 1

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iTunes freezes 3-5 seconds after launching and goes into not responding mod

Hello. Everything was working fine until yesterday when my iTunes decided to freeze 3-5 seconds after i attempted to access it. You can move around in the playlist for those 3-5 seconds before it freezes. I get no error message, but in the task manager it reads "not responding." Everything else on my computer works fine, even while iTunes is frozen (although sometimes the cursor will not go all the way to the menu bar when iTunes has frozen). I initially tried restarting the computer over and over again with no luck.

I called Apple customer support and they had never heard of this problem (despite several posts i found on this discussion forum (with no solutions)). They had me try a few minor things on the phone, shutting off this and choosing repair for that, all to no avail. They then advised me to uninstall iTunes and quicktime which i did, then reinstalling both. Still no luck. I then installed the quicktime independent stand alone player. Still no luck. I then went to MSConfig and disabled everything per Apple's suggestion. Still no luck. I've now tried all of the recommendations on Apple's troubleshooting guide.

Has anyone been able to solve this problem?

Dell, Windows XP, Service Pack 2

Posted on Nov 6, 2006 9:00 PM

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Answer 1

b noir

Level 9

72,324 points

Nov 7, 2006 12:39 PM in response to snipesm

Everything was working fine until yesterday when my iTunes decided to freeze 3-5 seconds after i attempted to access it. You can move around in the playlist for those 3-5 seconds before it freezes. I get no error message, but in the task manager it reads "not responding." Everything else on my computer works fine, even while iTunes is frozen (although sometimes the cursor will not go all the way to the menu bar when iTunes has frozen).

a preliminary question aimed at narrowing in on possible culprits.

what do the scroll bars look like in the frozen itunes screen? are they normal-looking or missing/completely-black?

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Answer 2

snipesm Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 7, 2006 5:09 PM in response to b noir

Everything was working fine until yesterday when
my iTunes decided to freeze 3-5 seconds after i
attempted to access it. You can move around in the
playlist for those 3-5 seconds before it freezes. I
get no error message, but in the task manager it
reads "not responding." Everything else on my
computer works fine, even while iTunes is frozen
(although sometimes the cursor will not go all the
way to the menu bar when iTunes has frozen).

a preliminary question aimed at narrowing in on
possible culprits.

what do the scroll bars look like in the
frozen itunes screen? are they normal-looking or
missing/completely-black?

hi b noir....thanks for your response. I know you have tried to solve this before for others and i appreciate your assistance. The scroll bar on the right is a gray color. i am on the phone now with apple, which acts as if they have never heard of this problem despite the multiple posts on this forum. Ok, so what is the next move?

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Answer 3

b noir

Level 9

72,324 points

Nov 8, 2006 6:23 AM in response to snipesm

The scroll bar on the right is a gray color.

okay. we're going to try an experiment aimed at working out if this is a systemwide problem on the PC, or if it is associated with a specific XP user account on the PC. this experiment isn't a cure in itself, but it can give us a strong heads-up on possible cures.

here's the experiment.

head into your user accounts control panel and create a new user account with full administrative rights. (there's help documentation on how to do that at the left of the control panel screen.) while you're in that control panel, switch off "fast user switching" in your logging-on preferences.

now log out of the old account and log into the new account.

does itunes launch properly (without the subsequent freeze) from inside the new account?

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Answer 4

snipesm Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 8, 2006 8:26 PM in response to b noir

The scroll bar on the right is a gray color.

okay. we're going to try an experiment aimed at
working out if this is a systemwide problem on the
PC, or if it is associated with a specific XP user
account on the PC. this experiment isn't a cure in
itself, but it can give us a strong heads-up on
possible cures.

here's the experiment.

head into your user accounts control panel and
create a new user account with full administrative
rights. (there's help documentation on how to do
that at the left of the control panel screen.) while
you're in that control panel, switch off "fast user
switching" in your logging-on preferences.

now log out of the old account and log into
the new account.

does itunes launch properly (without the subsequent
freeze) from inside the new account?

OK! I did what you said and we are making progress. In the new account iTunes opens and works fine. There are a bunch of random songs in there that are not mine. I assume that comes with the 7.0.2 download? Roughly 30 songs or so? I am afraid to hook up my ipod to the computer for fear that i will lose all of the stuff i have on the ipod, only to have it replaced by those 30 songs. FYI--i did use a program called copypod to back up everything on my computer (per Apple's suggestion).

Back to the bigger issue....so what is the next step of restoring my original account? Thanks for all your help so far. I am waiting for Apple to call me back....they now have their "engineers" looking into the issue.

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Answer 5

b noir

Level 9

72,324 points

Nov 9, 2006 7:26 AM in response to snipesm

okay. one possible cause of your symptoms here is damaged itunes preferences files in your usual XP user account. (there's a different set of pref files in every account, which is how we can get this "launch in one account, freeze in another" behavior.)

if that's what is going on, folks can usually get past it by rebuilding the preference files in the account that itunes is crashing in.

for the preference file rebuild technique, see my reply to kusma in the following post. (kusma was getting a slightly different problem, but the rebuild technique is the same.)

b noir: Re: iTunes 7.0.1 crashing

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Answer 6

snipesm Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 9, 2006 7:44 PM in response to snipesm

b noir is the man!

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Answer 7

snipesm Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 9, 2006 7:48 PM in response to b noir

WOW! That totally worked! Unfortunately, i now have another problem in that everything has doubled in my itunes library. My bet is that this happened b/c Apple told me to download the copypod software and copy everything from my ipod back onto my computer as a back-up for iTunes while they were trying to help my problem. My guess is that when iTunes launced, it read everything already in iTunes plus everything i copied over.

Do you have a solution for me to get all the duplicates off of iTunes, even if it is a cumbersome one? How can i prevent this from happening in the future?

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP. You are on my christmas card list man.....you are the bomb.

Best,
William

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Answer 8

b noir

Level 9

72,324 points

Nov 10, 2006 8:34 AM in response to snipesm

🙂 excellent news.

My bet is that this happened b/c Apple told me to download the copypod software and copy everything from my ipod back onto my computer as a back-up for iTunes while they were trying to help my problem. My guess is that when iTunes launced, it read everything already in iTunes plus everything i copied over.

that sounds plausible.

if that is what happened, all the "new" songs should have the same "date added" information. so let's first bring up your "date added" column in your main library screen ("View > View Options", check "Date Added", click OK), and then click on the "Date Added" column header to sort the library on that column. that should gather together all of the "new" songs into a contiguous lump.

check to make sure that the the "new" song references are going to different music files than the "old" song references. probably the easiest way to confirm that is to take a sample of the "new" tracks, right-click the track name, select "Show in Windows Explorer". if they have are references to a completely different file, they should be showing up in different files locations from the "old" references when you do a Show in Windows Explorer on the old references.

if you've got doubled song files, select the new ones in the library screen and delete. (you can choose to get rid of the song files.)

if you've just got doubled references, delete from the main library window but choose not to delete the song files. (you might want to doublecheck with a sample of the references, just to make sure this isn't messing with the "old" references to the files.

keep us posted on your progress.

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Answer 9

snipesm Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 10, 2006 11:04 PM in response to b noir

Well, i wish i could try your proposed solution (and the doubling of songs is definitely from the copypod software, i am certain of this now), but my itunes is freezing again. It worked fine as I reported, but when i turned the computer off and then tried to get itunes to work after i turned it back on, it froze on me again after 3-5 seconds, just like before. I went through the whole process you recommended again (creating the 1 and 2 files, etc.), and it worked again....until i turned my computer off and back on.

I have tried both deleting (after moving to my desktop) and leaving on my desktop those 1 and 2 files you had me rename and move out of the itunes folder, and it does not seem to matter whether i do or don't do that.

There is clearly some bigger problem that is causing this to happen and while the solution you posed overcomes the problem while the computer is on, it does not prevent the problem from reoccuring once turned off.

So, what is the next step?

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Answer 10

b noir

Level 9

72,324 points

Nov 11, 2006 5:53 AM in response to snipesm

hmmmmmm.

okay, once or twice i've seen that symptom produced if security software was interfering with reading the preference files.

if you exclude those areas from any realtime antivirus scans, do you stop getting the freezing behavior?

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Answer 11

snipesm Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 14, 2006 1:50 PM in response to b noir

hey b noir. turning off the virus scan did not work, but it got me to thinking about other "active" things that are running when i turn on iTunes-- and i figured out the problem. I was subscribed to automatically update podcasts for More Hip Than Hippie, Jim Cramer's Real Money, Mad Money (the lightning round video podcast), Kiplinger's financial podcast, and a couple other financial podcasts. I turned off the automatic updates and wa-bam! No problems, even after i turn off my computer. I bet that was the problem all along, which you eventually led me to figure out! Yeah! I'm back up and running. Thanks for all your help, including the help about sorting by date added (which made deleting about 5000 songs much easier).

Best,
William

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Answer 12

b noir

Level 9

72,324 points

Nov 15, 2006 6:43 AM in response to snipesm

well done William!

Jim Cramer's Real Money, Mad Money

lordy ... that's the second time i've seen a Jim Cramer podcast implicated in an itunes launch problem. i'll have to start checking on podcast downloads earlier in proceedings with weird hangs. (you're right, it's a heck of a lot less painful than checking through the library for song files problems, so it makes sense to try to at least get it off the table first.)

glad you're up and running again, and many thanks for reporting back with your resolution.

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Answer 13

Dec 1, 2006 3:54 PM in response to snipesm

Hey guys this is exactly whats happening to me, but I can't find this user control panel???

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Answer 14

bonkel

Level 1

0 points

Dec 3, 2006 8:32 AM in response to snipesm

I am having the same problem with my ipod- I am not computer savy. I saw one possible way to solve the problem is to turn off the podcasts. I have never set any up to download automatically-looks like there are 15 in the folder. How can I delete them, or stop them from downloading?

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Answer 15

Dec 3, 2006 8:45 AM in response to snipesm

Hi.

I'm also having the freeze problem a few seconds after opening. My question is how are you able to change any of the prefences when itunes freezes so quickly? Is there another way to get at the preferences files?

thanks.

toshiba tecra Windows XP 1 gig ram

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