Itunes not responding, running extremely slow

I assume you've double-checked that the auto update feature is off in iTunes and system prefs? I originally reverted; worked fine; came back and was bad; then realized the computer had reinstalled 12.3.1. If you still have 12.3.0, though, and are having those problems, then… that would be even more frustrating. Good luck and hope an update comes out someday to address this crap.

Auto updates definitely switched off. Currently running 12.3.0.44.

I'm wondering if it might be an idea to download updates and songs to the usual library on the Mac, then quit and boot up with the external library and copy the new stuff across the network or use the 'add to library' function? Just as a temporary fix until Apple pull their finger out (which they are clearly unwilling to do at the moment)? Just a thought :-)

This worked. My iTunes and iPhone were completely messed up with the new version. I revert back and bingo. Thanks! I hope Apple is reading these. This last version of iTunes was so bad it made me rethink Apple Music and my iPhone. Please solve these problems Apple!

I was almost going to buy a new computer to deal with the iTunes pinwheel. Glad I didn't, but I will never download another new version of anything Apple releases until I am absolutely certain that the bugs have been dealt with! This was just awful!

Yes it's unbelievably bad. I thought there'd be an update by now. I can't stomach all these complicated workarounds as of yet. I'll wait a bit longer. Really miserable. Does anyone at apple care? I know if I called them they'd never say, "Oh yeah, we'll fix it with an update." They'd just put me through a thousand hoops. It's always like that.

This is my 3rd macbook. I've iPhone, iPad...all the money spending on this stuff on this. I'm stuck being addicted to apple products. I totally understand people who shun them. Too late for me. I'm too far gone.

But boy do they know how to screw wit my life.

OK, mine's stopped altogether now. Just had super duper broadband fitted too everything else whizzes iTunes...NO

I was experiencing all of the same issues reported in the forum. I was getting the spinning beach ball of death with just about every click of the mouse. I have turned off Apple Music, Match, and Smart Playlists. I've never used Cover Flow and I have Home Sharing turned off. Still having performance issues with a relatively small library of 1,900 albums / 20,000 songs.

I went back to 12.3.0 and performance has improved. I still get the beach ball ocassionally, but not near as often. Thank you for the detailed instructions. Best regards.

I finally* decided to call the support number: the only thing they suggest to fix the problem is to reinstall the OS X (Command+R). I'll try, sooner or later, and let you know.

*In the last few days a new trouble came out: when I search for an artist in NEW and I try to open al the ALBUM or TRACK the wheel spins endlessly....

Calling Apple Support is a dead end for this issue, I'm afraid -- at least for me, I spent a few hours with them (over 2 different phone calls!) weeks ago when I was first trying to troubleshoot the iTunes spinning beach ball problem, and their final solution was to reinstall El Capitan -- unfortunately, it did not solve the problem.

It's clearly an issue with the latest version of iTunes not being able to interface with large "iTunes Library.xml" and "iTunes Music Library.xml" files that have been built up over multiple past versions of iTunes. Like others, my first thought was to create a "Guest User" account on my Mac, restart, and try launching iTunes with a brand new library -- the software works perfectly in this scenario. But when the latest version links to my built-up-over-15-years-in-the-making Library, it grinded to a halt.

This file isn't corrupted, however, because when I revert to the earlier version of iTunes, this version can easily read my Library file and the program behaves as it has for the past couple of years (occasional spinning beach balls, but useable).

To those afraid of reverting to the earlier version of iTunes, Russell's solution took me about 5 minutes and did not wipe out my playlists. Again, you are not deleting your Library files (where all your playlists and media information are stored), you are just deleting the current iTunes application and re-installing an earlier version the iTunes application.

Anyway, I still encourage everyone to send a comment directly to Apple about this issue:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

PS In a final Hail Mary pass, I also wrote an email to Tim Cook -- maybe if he gets enough messages, I hope he'll forward them to the iTunes team so this issue can be resolved in the next update:

<Email Edited by Host>

I'm curious how Apple resolves this. I ended up talking to a senior Apple tech support person who was genuinely interested in the pinwheel iTunes issue. After gathering information about my computer, he got back to me after a week of having "engineers" look at my system. They concluded that I needed more RAM, that I should upgrade from four to sixteen gigabytes. I did that, and there was no improvement. The only thing that seemed to alleviate the problem was to uninstall iTunes

12.3.1 and re-install an earlier iTunes version, such as 12.2.2. I still see the dreaded pinwheel, but it disappears quicker than with the latest version of iTunes.

I hope Apple comes out with an update soon.

That's ridiculous. I'm sorry to hear that the "senior" tech person would make such a tangential suggestion. 4GB is too low for El Capitan, especially if you like to have multiple apps open at the same time, but that's not the core of the issue: Apple broke iTunes with this last release. They won't acknowledge it and they won't fix it. Just in case you haven't seen the fix, what worked for me was Russell Madden's post detailing going back to 12.3, which works perfectly and my iPhone 6 and iPad Air now sync properly again. Under 12.3.1, iTunes would beachball for 2 minutes, then work briefly, then beachball again. It wouldn't sync with my iPhone, getting stuck on step 5 "applying changes" and my iPad would flicker on and off like I was unplugging it. Going back to iTunes 12.3 fixed ALL of that. The thing with Apple was always that things just worked without monkeying around. Now it's getting more like the PC world. APPLE: Please work on speed, stability and reliability and less on useless features and animation that slow things down.

I went to the "Genius Bar" to make them aware of this issue, assuming that they'd already heard of it and had a fix ready. They were nearly useless. It's like no one knows iTunes, likely their largest source of revenue from royalties, is broken. They suggested I reinstall El Capitan and iTunes 12.3.1. I did that there and it did nothing, as we now know. I even wiped and restored my iPhone 6 to see if that would help with syncing and it didn't. The only fix was to use Russell Madden's suggestion of the command in Terminal and re-installing iTunes 12.3. If you haven't see it, look back for his message with the sudo command and the iTunes 12.3 link. The whole process literally takes 30 seconds and my computer works again! Thanks to Russell Madden and everyone else who has worked on this. It's time for iTunes 12.4 with a real fix, but until that day, 12.3 works AND you have to tell your computer NOT to automatically apply updates or you'll wake up with iTunes broken again when 12.3.1 is installed overnight...

I like the idea of emailing Tim Cook. He won't read it, but maybe an assistant will. I sent it with subject line "iTunes 12.3.1 is broken"

Maybe it will at least get someone's attention. I have a HUGE iTunes library of purchases and CD imports (the CDs are long gone). I don't want low-quality streaming music, which sounds like an AM radio compared to high quality MP3 files.

Let's cross our fingers that this issue will get addressed in a fix. Ironically, I've turned off automatic updates because of this, so I won't install anything until I have full confidence that it's been properly corrected. Still working perfectly in 12.3.0.44 and staying there...

Just want to add my name to the list of disgruntled iTunes users. 😟

Awesome! Thanks for your help