Itunes not responding, running extremely slow

Hi UKNY....

I was one of those people very frightened to use the Terminal to remove the broken version of iTunes and revert back to the previous working version... 12.3, but one day I just couldn't take it anymore.... I hadn't been able to sync any of our family devices and I had completely no access to my vast iTunes library (1.86TB) built up over 10 years plus with an incredibly detailed playlist structure (a playlist for every album imported into iTunes along with a Playlist folder for every artist to put their album playlists inside) plus album art for about 95% of my entire library.... so I took the gamble/plunge and did it... and it worked perfectly.... it was a little sluggish at first but that was explained to me that the Genius feature was indexing my library again... but after that it was pretty much the same as I had it. Only issue was some of the Album art was missing.... it took two full working days of on and off updating to get my album art all back... by using Google Images search.

But now I'm back in business.... my three Apple TVs are now back being served by my MacPro 12 Core machine instead of my MacBook Pro and all is great.

I recently updated to the new 10.11.2 release.... but I read on the thread the iTunes update that accompanied this update did nothing to resolve this issue. So for now I'm just going to stay on the version I have that works. I need iTunes to play my music and sync my devices. I don't really buy iTunes music anymore as I use Spotify.... so I'm happy for now.... but like so many others on this thread, I'm so disappointed in Apple for not fixing this real and on-going issue.

I submitted multiple detailed feedback submissions about this issue and not even a reply.

Shame on you Apple. We are loyal fans and are being dismissed so badly and unfairly.

Anthony

Yes! Using Russel's Terminal directions and link for reverting to iTunes 12.3.0.4 really does work so far for me and others. Don't forget to uncheck auto update in BOTH the system prefs and the iTunes prefs! Otherwise iTunes will update within a day or so back to the dreaded current version.

It seems clear that Apple are not going to do anything about this anytime soon so I moved my NAS library back to one of the spare drives on my Mac Pro. I took back up copies as well of all the media (music & apps) and then deleted the contents of the media folder on the NAS.

Fired up iTunes (holding the 'alt' key) and asked it to create a new library. Then asked it to search for media so it then identified all my Cloud purchases (with a cloud symbol next to them). I then asked it to add all my music files to the new library (took about 3 hours altogether) and then asked it to add all the App files as well. This created a new library file.

I'm currently downloading all the app updates that have built up over the last month and it's absolutely flying speed-wise. No slowdown at all. 157MB App file downloaded in one minute flat. I don't seem to have any lag moving around iTunes itself either so it must be one of the two things others have suggested here in this thread:

1. The iTunes Library file got corrupted during the latest update.

2. iTunes doesn't like libraries that are sitting on an external hard drive or NAS.

My library runs to about 38,000 songs so it's not as big as some on here and it's a mix of CDs and downloads. I've yet to move everything back to the NAS but when I do, I'll follow the same procedure (take backups, create new library, search for media and then add music and apps to the new library)

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/12/11/apple-releases-itunes-12-3-2/

About &%#@*^$$ time, Apple.

That only took a month and a half.

Truly stunning level of incompetence and unresponsive disregard.

Still waiting for the apology, too.

I hope this fixes the mess for all of you on this thread, and that they didn't just break something else that will take another month and a half.

Gah.

So, has anyone taken the plunge and installed 12.3.2 yet? Any improvement?

EastDog-

Have you tried the 12.3.2 update? The "what's new" section makes no mention of fixing problems we are all having, but that would require admitting there was a problem. I'm going to try it now and see if it breaks things like 12.3.1 did...

I would definitely recommend that those who haven't done it yet fill out an iTunes feedback form. Complain NICELY but clearly and firmly so we are taken seriously. This level of product disfunction is the exact opposite of what is supposed to happen when using iTunes with iPhone and iPad...

Best of luck to us all!

Tried the 12.3.2 update and problems are still there.

Just downloaded iTunes 12.3.2.35 on both my Mac Pro and MacBook Pro. That did the trick for me. No more swirling beachball of death. Tunes is now functions and doesn't hog the CPU cycles. I also reconnected to iTunes Match and that worked as well.

Finally!

I just installed 12.3.2 and it's MUCH FASTER than it's ever been. FINALLY. My iPhone 6 and iPad Air now sync perfectly again. All operations in iTunes are instant. The first update that's made this level of improvement. I suspect it was a bug in Apple Music, too... Anyway, smooth sailing for me on a 2013 27" iMac with 24GB and 200GB of iTunes library locally.

Many of us are aware that if you create a new library, iTunes is back up to speed. The reason many of us have not done this is because we don't want to lose all our playlists we've created over the years.

Also, some folks seem to have had problems w/ ext. drives, but many like me have our iTunes library on our internal drive. So there's more to this than where the library is located. Also, I don't believe the files are corrupted, since when I reverted to 12.3.0, things worked fine. If it were a corrupt file, I think the problems would persist w/ the older version, too.

But glad you got things working to your satisfaction.

Russell-

First of all, grateful for your 12.3.0 fix. 12.3.2 is working great, much faster than going back to 12.3.0, so glad that's OVER! I have an enormous library and it's local, which is and has always remained intact throughout this process. I do agree that external libraries seem to be problematic and the corruption theory. I have spent years accumulating purchases and importing CDs, so I wouldn't want to mess with my playlists.

Thanks again!

I just installed it and it seems to work great so far. I couldn't even open iTunes and get a track to play at all before for the last month. Keeping my fingers crossed but it seems to be fixed

The 12.3.2.35 version works fine for me. No more beachball.

12.3.2 eliminated all problems here as well.

Does anyone know how you can follow a discussion without adding a reply?

I added this comment so I can follow additional replies on this thread. Seems like there should be another way to do this!