EXACT same issue. Last week, I spent 2+ hours on with iTunes senior tech advisors with this crash issue and a few days ago another 4+ hours with a devastating playlist issue. I have a huge music and movie collection on a separate 8TB HDD. Crashes [almost] every time I try to access the store in iTunes. Super frustrating beyond beyond. Apparently, there were some major changes with 12.8. I was told that to prevent piracy, some major changes happened with 12.8 for those who use separate HDDs. Hasn't been confirmed though.
With the crashing, iTunes became ridiculously unstable--- I had to manually rebuild ALL of my playlists- every time I opened up iTunes, the playlists would show up and then in a matter of minutes, the songs would delete leaving behind the playlists, but empty. Then iTunes would just freeze and crash.
I have never ever, in about 10 years, had such a serious continually crashing issues with this 12.8 build.
My files are stable, the program just keeps crashing and I get the exact same errors. I run a Dell XPS8500 i7, Windows 7, 16GB RAM.
I am going to be calling back soon to try to resolve the continued crashing situation.
ALSO- when I am able to get into the store, I've noticed that a ton of music files keep hiding themselves. I go in, unhide some- then they re-hide themselves. Doesn't happen to any other media.
I'm pretty tired of this. I have over 500 movies and 18,000 music files. Apple better get on this.
Just wanted you to know you and your issue are not alone. If I get any info, I'll pass it along here.
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