Itunes not responding, running extremely slow

Thanks for the revert instructions. Followed them and because I store my library on a separate SSD, it only took a few minutes to install 12.3.0.44.

iTunes is still sluggish (get the beach ball for a few seconds when switching between tracks, etc -- I was suffering from this same sluggish performance before the latest update, which is why I chose to update in the first place, assuming Apple had fixed the issue), but it's not the nightmare we were experiencing with the current version.

Fingers crossed Apple is working on a solution! I will update if things slow down again.

I'm having the same issue though I can't even play songs or get into the menu bar. It's just the beach ball forever and ever. Really hoping this gets fixed soon because as it is now, iTunes is basically unusable.

Ditto. The spinning wheel appears with almost any activity.

WHY DO I EVER UPDATE???

Apparently, removing with Terminal and downloading an earlier version works. Follow the thread found here: iTunes won't open after updating to 12.3.1

itunes worked pretty well for a long time. The last few months have been terrible and this new update - a disaster. I wonder if anyone migrates iTunes to something better that they recommend? I like to stay signed into itunes because I get stuff/buy stuff sometimes. But day to day I'd love another option. It's too much of a headache and stress.

kind of a stress to separate me from my music

I have the same problem...

I tried to use it, after ending session on iTunes Store, and it seems to have some speed improvement... Now I can surf all the libraries (Music, Podcast, Apps, etc), with normal speed.

As soon as I log on to iTunes Store, the slow speed and the beachball, return.

Had the problem of iTunes beach balling for hours on end, >100% CPU etc. Tried the reinstall, rebuilt iTunes Library.itl file etc. Nothing worked.

Finally figured out it was the iCloud Music Library synch in the preferences panel. If I activate the synch, iTunes is 100% unusable 100% of the time. Turn it off iTunes works great. Note I use the Match service, which hasn't worked worth a crap since the launch of Apple music.

I Wish that would work. I don't use cloud sync or Apple Music . I even tried turning off wifi and unplugging Ethernet - but I still get beach balls changing and music metadata.

It's not the iCloud music library for me, either. It's turned off on mine and iTunes is still completely unusable.

Finally gave up trying to fix the problem and downgraded to iTunes 12.2.1, the only installer I still have. Not the best version, but at least there are no more spinning beach balls or mind-numbing delays. It did mean, however, that I had to rebuild the library database. It took two hours. Someone please kick me next time I let iTunes update itself when it asks.

Greetings all! After experiencing the same issues as all of you, I tried an experiment that seems to have worked for me. All of my iTunes media is on an external drive (with additional backups on other drives). I disconnected my external drive and launched iTunes (Option>Click) and created a new iTunes library on my hard drive. iTunes operated as expected.

I then reconnected my external drive and again using Option>Click to select a different library, I chose my external drive's iTunes Library. The application opened as expected with no "hangs" or "spinning beach ball". It seems to be working normally...and actually a little faster that the previous version.

I have no idea why this worked, but I thought I'd share it in case it provides a solution for someone else. All the best...

Syd Rodocker

Yes The user interface and loading is seriously messed up , Beachball of death for long periods of time > Tried about everything i know that might have worked in the past Happened right after this latest El Capitan update. Waiting to see a real fix for this version. Surely with this many people having a problem Apple will respond quickly.This is not a minor problem.

No doubt there are many people who are not writing in the same boat.

iTunes 12.3.0.44 is readily available and fixed the problem for me. If you're interested, I can copy/paste links for that version of iTunes and instructions from the guys who discovered that solution or you can search some of these threads for the info.

Glad that worked for you, but all my iTunes files are on the local hard drive, so must be other contributing problems w/ 12.3.1.

Before I reverted to 12.3.0.44, I did note that 12.3.1 had improved somewhat during the day on Wednesday (or whichever day the update was released), but was never as good as the previous version. These workarounds shouldn't be necessary; Apple has some work to do, especially w/ the release of Apple TV upgrade this week. I sent in two feedback forms, may do another to let them know the reversion worked to correct the lags, hangs, unresponsiveness, videos playing in separate spaces rather in iTunes window, etc. Since the beginning of iTunes, I never had an update that rendered the program virtually unusable; problems, yes, sometimes with missing songs/playlists but nothing this horrendous.