iTunes 12.3 with el Capitan not responding

Right, I've done that several times and also tried to even go back to an older version of iTunes and El CRAPitan won't let me...

Ever since I upgraded to El CRAPitan, I have not been able to use my iTunes and that is one of the main things I use my MAC for...

this is Very Frustrating and I have tried doing everything that the people on this discussion board has said to do and NOTHING is

working for me...

I wish I would never have upgraded to El CRAPitan... if anyone is thinking of upgrading... DON'T!

Some people w/ the last OS are having similar problems. Seems more a problem w/ iTunes update that El Cap.

Using Terminal or AppZapper seems to work for most people to delete 12.3.1. Not sure why that is not working for you. Plus, most though not all see significant improvement reverting to 12.3.0 and making certain App Store and iTunes doesn't auto update anymore. If you've tried all that, then I'm uncertain what your specific issue is.

As a last resort, if you are willing to lose playlists, you can create a new library and import your files into that. New libraries have changed a main subfolder from iTunes Music to iTunes Media. That change may or may not be relevant, but some people claim iTunes works fine if you start from a fresh library.

Appzapper did nothing that I can see. I have thought about creating a new library but you have no Idea how much music and play lists I have, my music library is massive and I even have 3 external 1T hard drives filled up with music, so to rebuild my library is something I have been avoiding... my itunes was working great before the El Crap upgrade and hasn't worked since and no matter what voodoo I do, it is still the same.

I may just take my computer in to the apple store this weekend.. I am totally frustrated and ****** off at this point. If I would have know El Crapo was going to screw up my iTunes, of course I would have never upgraded.

my work computer, iMac, which I am on right now is running Yosemite, have not upgraded to El Capitan yet and I am running 12.3.1.23 itunes....

iTunes is working perfect here. My home computer, iMAC is upgraded to El Capitan and I am running 12.3.1.23 iTunes and it is NOT working , soooo

my conclusion is upgrading my home computer to El Crapo is the reason my iTunes at home is not working. Anyway, as I said, I may take it in and let

the genius's take a look at it.

Ok you mustfollow these steps. Zap itunes 12.3.1 but before you do download itunes 12.3. Then go the app store and block itunes from updating by right clicking itunes 12.3.1 and hiding it. Proceed to install 12.3 and after it installs make sure to uncheck automatic update with in itunes. After that it will work.

Make sure you are using app zapper, and do not restart your computer until you have followed the steps above.

This is my first post on here, so bare with me, and I hope this makes sense.

SOLUTION FOUND! (for Mac OS X Only).

I know how frustrating this is, and have been looking for a solution for a long time!

So after much trial and error, and eliminating possibilities - the following is what worked for me.

I have had the exact same issue with iTunes being unresponsive.

Running El Capitan 10.11.1 & iTunes 12.3.1.

The exact issue being that iTunes takes a while to load, and then whenever a song is playing, the next track will play, but the artwork does not display for what seems like ages (spinning beach ball and app freezes during this).

The CPU goes crazy above 100% in Activity Monitor and anything GPU related seems to struggle. I even had the whole screen freeze with pixelated distorted horizontal lines at one time! This initially made me think I may have a GPU hardware issue. But that would be extremely unlucky, considering this is happening on my [saved for ages!] brand new Retina 27” i7 Skylake Late 2015 iMac maxed out with 1TB of Flash!

However, I still have my old 2011 iMac to hand (not sold yet). I cloned my drive back to that, AND the SAME issue occurs (even more slowly). This confirmed to me that it was a software issue. Searching online, I found this forum and this also confirmed it has to be software, as you have all had issues around El Capitan and the latest iTunes.

So - is it an El Capitan or iTunes issue? Well, kind of both. Clearly there is some kind of clash between iTunes 12.3.1 and El Capitan. Ironic in that the install notes it says iTunes 12 has been built to work with El Capitan.

Anyway, I took the approach someone else mentioned here, and downgraded one step back to iTunes 12.3.0.44. (One step at a time).

THIS DID WORK FOR ME!
HOWEVER - the trick is to do it in a certain way to make sure it works properly. One step missed or the wrong way, and it may not work.

Clearly there is something in the iTunes 12.3.1 update that is causing this RIDICULOUS issue.
Apple REALLY NEED TO FIX THIS with the next update. Funny how it says that it improves overall stability and performance when in fact it does the opposite.

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The method below are the exact steps I took (link where needed).

BEFORE DOING ANYTHING - PLEASE BACK UP!

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I will not skip anything here, incase anyone reads this and is not so tech savvy. So please, tech people - don’t hate me for being over explanatory!
This is pretty painless, but a bit fiddly. No need to remove your carefully made Music Folder, etc.

Because iTunes is now protected from being deleted under El Capitan, you need to uninstall iTunes 12.3.1 in the following way;

01 : Locate iTunes in the Applications folder, click on it and press ‘Cmd key + i key’ for the info panel.

02 : Click on the padlock at the bottom of the window that appears (type in Administrator Password if needed to unlock).
Now change all the permissions to Read & Write. Re-lock and close the window.

03 : Now you can drag the iTunes app into the trash and delete it.

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Now you need to locate the following files to delete;

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04 : Click the ‘Go’ menu in the Finder — hold down the ‘Alt (Option)’ key — you will see the hidden ‘Library’ appear in the list.
While still holding ‘Alt’, click on it.

05 : In the window that appears, scroll down and double click into the iTunes folder in that list. Delete anything that is not in a folder.
DO NOT DELETE any of the following if you have them — iTunes Plug-ins, iPhone Carrier Support, iPad / iPhone Software Updates.

06 : Navigate back to the main ‘Library’ list (back button above). Now scroll down and double click on the ‘Preferences’ folder in the list.
Select ALL files with iTunes in them;

e.g.

com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist

com.apple.iTunes.plist

com.apple.iTunesHelper.plist

Drag them into the trash (type in Administrator Password if needed) and delete. Close the Library window.

07 : Go back to the ‘Go’ menu and select ‘Utilities’ near the bottom of the list and click to open. Double click on ‘Activity Monitor’ in that list.
Click the ‘Process Name’ Tab to put things in Alphabetical order. (This helps you find things easier).

08 : Scroll down the list, find and select the ‘iTunesHelper’ Application. Go to the ‘X’ button above to Quit the process.
If it doesn’t Quit, then just select Force Quit (it WILL Quit then!). Once done, you can now close the window.

09 : NOW you need to go into your System Preferences. Select ‘Users & Groups’. Select the ‘Current User’ on the left (usually the Administrator / Admin). Under ‘Login Items’ on the right tab, select the ‘iTunesHelper’ Application in the list. Click the minus button underneath to delete it from the list.

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After you have done all this, YOU MUST RESTART your Mac!

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10: After you’ve restarted, you need to download iTunes 12.3 (12.3.0.44) from the following link:

http://www.iphonefirmware.com/download-old-versions-of-itunes/

Select iTunes Mac OS X from the list, and in the list that appears, iTunes 12.3 is 2nd from the top. Click the arrow button to start the download.

11: Once downloaded, you can double click the dmg file to open, and just double click the ‘Install iTunes’ icon and follow the instructions.

12: Once installed. Close all open apps and do another RESTART.

13: Once you have restarted, open iTunes. YOU SHOULD NOW HAVE A MUCH BETTER WORKING ITUNES!!!

IMPORTANT : YOU MUST TURN OFF AUTOMATIC UPDATES - otherwise iTunes will update again to 12.3.1

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It still may have a bit of lag initially, but you shouldn’t have any hanging and spinning beach ball at all, or not for more than a few moments on occasion. You will need to ‘Sign In’ to your iTunes Account again. But only if you need to download things, etc. Doing so should not cause a problem.

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I hope this fixes things for some of you (or all)?

I’d love to know if this has helped :-)

Thanks, but can't find in iTunes where to turn off automatic update. So it updated back to evil 12.3.1 Also need it turned off in apple store. Right click then hide makes no sense to me. Anyone decode?

Turn off automatic updates in System Preferences > App Store.

Go to 'System Preferences' and click on 'App Store'. Un-tick 'Install app updates'. (You can actually leave the others ticked).

If you do this, iTunes won't automatically update, but you will eventually get a message asking if you would like to. Just dismiss this.

Glad that doing all that worked for you. But I initially thought this was leading to a solution in which we could run 12.3.1. For me, I just deleted 12.3.1 and reinstalled 12.3.0, and iTunes is working fine (or as fine as 12.3.0 did, anyway). Maybe deleting all those other files is useful, but for me, anyway, 3-4 steps was all I needed to have a functioning iTunes.

For folks with problems such as this, maybe try the simpler version of this temporary fix first then the 13 step process if the 3-4 step process fails to make a difference.

Obviously, none of these solutions works for all folks. Some claim the issue is El Cap. Others have the same problem w/ 12.3.1 while still using Mavericks. Some think it's because of an external library. My library is on the internal drive. Lots of folks have really old libraries. Etc. etc. etc.

In any event, it's been — what? — a month, month and a half since this issue started for some of us. Should have been addressed long ago by Apple. It's ridiculous that such elaborate workarounds are necessary to use one of the most prominent Apple apps.

I agree...you only need to remove the current iTunes, download and install the previous iTunes (12.3.0.44) and turn off automatic updates. The problem is independent of El Capitan - 12.3.1.23 creates the same behavior on my other machine running Yosemite.

As solutions go, it is a relatively easy one and if you do the main 3-4 steps and turn off updates, you only need to do it once.

In other news, I have not had an update on my initial bug report from Apple in about a week so I have no idea how soon a proper update will come.

Under iTunes preferences, Advanced, at the bottom, to stop auto updates.

Can someone try this? It might have worked for me. I did the reinstall several times so that might also be the reason that it worked. I've been noticing behavior that seems to be a window or spaces issue. I created several extra spaces, although I don't think this really was part of it. In the dock icon for iTunes click and hold until you can assign iTunes to the specific space. After an install, Itunes wasn't working and I did this and it popped up normally, works fine.

I have followed your instructions (which were very complete AND explicit, by the way...thank you) and have switched back to ITunes 12.3 and am now no longer a prisoner of the f...... beach ball of death. Thanks for giving me the ability to correct this. I will be thinking long and hard before I trust any updates Apple puts out and not automatically install them as I have in the past. As far as I can tell, they have been essentially silent on this problem with ITunes and are leaving many loyal customers hanging, figuratively and literally.