Itunes 12.5.3 keeps crashing

I have instructed Little Snitch to deny all iTunes outgoing connections and the crashes stopped.

The problem may be linked to some internet activity like iTunes Match (iCloud Music Uploads) or similar.

When I allowed again iTunes outgoing connections and I restarted iTunes, I have noticed that the iCloud Music Library option (iTunes Match) was unticked in the iTunes preferences.

I re-enabled iCloud Music Library and iTunes immediately started "Gathering information about your music library".

Since a few minutes it is working on "Gathering information about your music library".

I tried this too. But when I re-enabled the iCloud Music Library, I lost a ton of music! It isn't giving me access to all my Apple Music.

Update: I had to log out and log back in.

Unfortunately after a half an hour of "Gathering information about your music library" iTunes crashed again.

I will now try to restart my iMac running El Capitan and give it another try.

I hope this will be fixed soon.

After the reboot I tried again to open iTunes.

It stayed a while at the "Matching your music with songs in the iTunes Store" and then it crashed again!

Hi Oliviero,

This appears to be a common issue with iTunes 12.5.3, bug reports have been raised to Apple however the only known workaround at this point in time is to restore iTunes 12.5.2 which can be done if you have a Time Machine backup by following the steps below:

If you don't have a recent Time Machine backup completed before iTunes updated then there's not much you can do until Apple releases a fix.

1. Stop the iTunes Helper process using Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities).
2. Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities) and enter the following command:
   

   sudo rm -r /Applications/iTunes.app

3. Restore iTunes from a backup that was done before your machine updated (this particular iTunes update was released on 31st October).
4. Restore the following files from the Time Machine backup to your Home > Music > iTunes folder:
   1. iTunes Library.itl
   2. iTunes Library.xml
   3. iTunes Library Genius.itdb*
   4. iTunes Library Extras.itdb*

* Note: not all of these files may appear in your iTunes folder, if any are missing don't worry, the important files are the iTunes Library .xml and .itl files.

I hope this helps.

I've found a link to the iTunes 12.5.2 download on Apple's servers if you don't have a backup of the application.

You will need to rebuild your iTunes library by removing the .xml and .itl files mentioned above from Music > iTunes in your home folder, if you're not able to restoring from a Time Machine backup.

Dear RJTUK,

thank you for your tip.

I went back to iTunes 12.5.2 and I restored my iTunes Library files.

Now I launched iTunes 12.5.2 and after a few minutes it completed successfully the iCloud Music Library update.

Thanks

Awesome,

thanks for letting us know it worked for you 🙂

I don't have a recent backup.

If i dowload iTunes 12.5.2, what happen if I remove .xml and .itl? I fear to lose something in my music library.

Hi PiE81,

You won't lose any of your music or library content however you'll need to rebuild your Library. iTunes can do this for you when you open the older version by scanning for media on your Mac.

It may take a few minutes depending on the size of your current iTunes library but the .xml and .itl files you are removing are re-created automatically. The version of these files created by iTunes 12.5.3 is not compatible with 12.5.2 which is why you need to remove them.

Have you been able to successfully add new music to iCloud / iTunes Match?

Yes.

I've pulled together a better guide for anyone who needs to roll back to iTunes 12.5.2 following problems experienced with the iTunes 12.5.3 update released on 31st October.

If you have a recent Time Machine backup:

1. Stop the iTunes Helper process using Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities).
2. Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities) and enter the following command:
   sudo rm -r /Applications/iTunes.app
3. Restore iTunes from a backup that was done before your machine updated (this particular iTunes update was released on 31st October) or if you don't have a Time Machine backup you can download iTunes 12.5.2 from Apple.
4. Restore the following files from the Time Machine backup to your Home > Music > iTunes folder:
   • iTunes Library.itl
   • iTunes Library.xml

Note: not all of these files may appear in your iTunes folder, if any are missing don't worry, the files we need to replace are the iTunes Library .xml and .itl files.

If you don't have a Time Machine backup:

1. Stop the iTunes Helper process using Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities).
2. Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities) and enter the following command:
   sudo rm -r /Applications/iTunes.app
3. Download iTunes 12.5.2 from Apple and re-install iTunes on your machine.
4. Rebuild your iTunes Library

I hope this helps

When i entered sudo rm -r /Applications/iTunes.app it asked for a password. I tried to enter my password but I couldn't. Can you please help me? Thank you

There should be a new 12.5.3.17 build that doesn't crash updating iTunes Match.

tt2