itunes suddenly won't start in windows 10

If iTunes is apparently installed correctly try the following in turn until iTunes opens/reopens normally:

• Remove any SD card that might be in a card reader.
• Exit the BTTray.exe Bluetooth utility if installed.
• Locate the shortcut for iTunes, right-click on it, and select Run as administrator. Doing this once may fix certain launch issues. Some users were finding that with the 12.6.1.25 build they had to use this method every time and modified the shortcut accordingly.
• Try holding ctrl+shift as you launch iTunes so it opens in safe-mode. Again doing this once may sometimes help.
• Try disconnecting your computer from the Internet before running iTunes.
• Delete the iTunes shortcuts from the start menu, desktop, task bar, or similar, then repair iTunes from the programs and features control panel.
• Try Fix unexpected quits or launch issues in iTunes for Windows - Apple Support and test the behaviour in a different user profile or with a different library. If the problem only exists in your profile it may be possible delete some of the iTunes preference files which it would seem that iTunes may be choking on. We can go into details later if the issue is limited to your own profile.
• Temporarily disable any non-Microsoft anti-virus and see if that has any impact on the behaviour.
• See the second box in Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates for detailed tear down and rebuild advice. Disable any non-Microsoft anti-virus software when reinstalling and run the installer as the administrator.
• Or see the iTunes installers section of the troubleshooting tip and reinstall the last version that worked correctly for you.

tt2

I had this issue for a long time (months), but finally fixed it. iTunes would only open if I ran is "as Administrator". Also, my Wi-Fi sync refused to work.

I tried many things, including reinstalling iTunes. However nothing worked.

Finally I figured out that Hyper-V was causing problems. I had Hyper-V installed so I could run a Windows 7 VM to run some old software. However, I hadn't used it in a long time and forgot it was even installed. I know Hyper-V modifies networking drivers and a host of other stuff. So, I uninstalled Hyper-V, and after rebooting, iTunes starts fine (without Administrator rights) and Wi-Fi sync works fine.

So, if you have iTunes and Hyper-V installed and you have this issue, try removing Hyper-V. Perhaps you can use an alternate like VirtualBox...

That worked for me!

Originally I had tried *changing* to Run As Administrator when it wasn't letting me log in (the login window was just flickering), but that didn't work. I couldn't close it; I had to kill it with Task Manager. After reading your comment, I started it by right-clicking the shortcut and selecting Run As Administrator, and it opened right away.

Thanks!

I had this same problem. I opened up task manager, clicked more details and closed every instance of iTunes running on my computer. When I clicked on it again, it worked fine for me, but it took a little bit for it to open.

I went to task manager, and found a bunch of itunes processes running, apparently hung in the background. They showed up in the "background tasks" section of the process listing.

If iTunes is apparently installed correctly try the following in turn until iTunes opens/closes/reopens/connects to the store normally:

• Remove any SD card that might be in a card reader.
• Exit the BTTray.exe Bluetooth utility if installed.
• Locate the shortcut for iTunes, right-click on it, and select Run as administrator. Doing this once may fix certain launch issues. Some users were finding that with the 12.6.1.25 build, for example, they had to use this method every time and modified the shortcut accordingly.
• Try holding ctrl+shift as you launch iTunes so it opens in safe-mode. Again doing this once may sometimes help.
• Try disconnecting your computer from the Internet before running iTunes.
• Delete the iTunes shortcuts from the start menu, desktop, task bar, or similar, then repair iTunes from the programs and features control panel.
• Try Fix unexpected quits or launch issues in iTunes for Windows - Apple Support and test the behaviour in a different user profile or with a different library. If the problem only exists in your profile it may be possible to delete some of the iTunes preference files which it would seem that iTunes may be choking on. We can go into details later if the issue is limited to your own profile.
• Temporarily disable any non-Microsoft anti-virus and see if that has any impact on the behaviour.
• See the second box in Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates for detailed tear down and rebuild advice. Disable any non-Microsoft anti-virus software when reinstalling and run the installer as the administrator.
• Or see the iTunes installers section of the troubleshooting tip and reinstall the last version that worked correctly for you. Note that iTunes 12.6.3.6 is the minimum version required for devices running iOS 11.

See also Create and manage ringtones in iTunes.

tt2

YOU are a legend

Thank you.

I too have been uninstalling all related apple programs as per apple website.

And uninstalled many many times.

Not been able to get itunes working for over a month.

Then click run as administrator and boom, so massive thank you for posting this fix!!

Thank you so much! Run as admin worked, after uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes twice. So glad I found this forum!!

Thank U, The Bluetooth Tray Application (BTTRAY.exe) is the problem ,when I kill this program in the taskmgr , iTunes works.

I recently had this problem and I managed to fix it somehow. I went into the control panel and went to programs and started to repair all of the apple related programs, and about halfway through iTunes suddenly opened and it has worked great ever since. I'm not sure what exactly fixed it but I'd tried everything I could find on the internet and none of it worked except for this.

If your IT dept. is sympathetic you might enlist their help in getting iTunes reinstalled. Running the installer as administrator often helps. Some anti-virus programs have, from time to time, blocked iTunes from installing properly.

tt2

we have McAfee. When I click on iTunes icon simply nothing happens. (Start, Star as admin, start in safe mode every time the same, nothing happens at all.)

I started reviewing the post. Without network it also not starts. Also tried to repair in programs.

I also have the feeling, that it has somring to do with the antivirus software, but it managed centrally, so I cannot really do anything about it.

Try the following in turn until iTunes opens normally:

• Locate the shortcut for iTunes, right-click on it, and select Run as administrator. Doing this once may fix certain launch issues.
• Try holding ctrl+shift as you launch iTunes so it opens in safe-mode. Again doing this once may sometimes help.
• Delete the iTunes shortcuts from the start menu, desktop, task bar, or similar, then repair iTunes from the programs and features control panel.
• Try Fix unexpected quits or launch issues in iTunes for Windows - Apple Support and test the behaviour in a different user profile or with a different library. If the problem only exists in your profile it may be possible delete some of the iTunes preference files which it would seem that iTunes may be choking on.
• See the second box in Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates for detailed tear down and rebuild advice.
• Or see the iTunes installers section and reinstall the last version that worked correctly for you.

tt2

I can't offer much help. My iTunes on Win 10 machine started doing this two days ago. I've played with it and uninstalled/reinstalled it. The only thing that has worked was to reboot the machine and it would start up.

On a somewhat related matter, I ended up contact support/chat and then Support/phone yesterday to deal with sync issues with my three iDevices. Ultimately, the techs told me to do everything through iCloud even daily backups. I got the very clear impression that they knew that iTunes is probably going to be phased out of Apple Land as it really has no purpose anymore now that they have removed Apps. I'm not happy about backing up to the cloud cause who knows where that is going, who has access to it and what they are keeping. All part of the Apocalypse coming to America. Time to build the ark...

Same thing for me. This happened a month ago, then completely reinstalled iTunes (with all Apple sw, and cleaned up all the folders), but it didn't help. Run as administrator not solved it either. We had to reinstall Windows. Then now it does the same thing. Now I suppose we should reinstall Windows again... Quite annoying...