Problems importing into iTunes...

[Lunja]

Basically, I leave for the airport in 2hrs and I want to put about 10 CD's on my 7 day old iBook to save me carrying them. However, whenever I try to import tracks, iTunes freezes, and I have to take the battery out, replace it and reboot. This has happened 6 times now, back to back, each time only 2 or 3 tracks get imported. I've run a permissions check, but that hasn't helped...

Can anyone help? I've done a couple searches but havn't found anything quite like this...

 

[mad jew]

Ditched the iTunes preferences yet?

 

[Lunja]

What prefs should I ditch? I've changed the pref from AAC encoding to MP3 to see if that made a difference, but nope... It stalled for the EIGHTH time

My network connection's also gone really slow if that's an indication of anything...

 

[mad jew]

All the preferences in the User name/Library/Preferences folder with iTunes in their name. I think they'll be called something like com.apple.itunes... Throw these out and try again. They may be corrupt for some reason.

Also, what is Activity Monitor saying (in the Utilities folder in Applications)? Is there a certain process that is using up all of your CPU cycles?

 

[Lunja]

Hey- thanks for the help so far...

Managed to sneak on the net (albeit on a Dell...). I've run the activity monitor while importing, and iTunes is using between 92 and 98% of the CPU to import songs! This MUST be wrong... I made a slideshow in iPhoto with 24 photos and that only peaked at 60%...

What is going on?!?!?! I'll be at the Apple store in Millenia, Orlando FL in a couple days, so hopefully a genius can fix it, but it does mean I'm travelling with a load of CD's...

I'll admit I havn't tried deleting those files yet, simply because I don't really understand what I'm taking away... I'll give it a shot soon though - I'm getting desperate!

EDIT: I'm only running 256mb at the mo'- an extra 512mb is due to be added in FL...

 

[Gee]

Is it the same CD you're trying every time? Sometimes if they're old/scratched/grimy/etc they won't import - I had the same hanging problem trying to rip a ten-year-old CD.

Also, if itunes hangs have you tried (a) waiting for a few more minutes - sometimes when it hangs on import, it's just thinking about it, and eventually it'll do something (like say 'i can't import this track'), or (b) using force quit instead of being drastic and taking the battery out?

 

[Lunja]

Nope, I've tried it with each of my 10 CD's, some of which are new...

And it doesn't even beachball- it just stops altogether and freezes. The pointer is still an arrow, and it won't move, any sound stays in a continous loop (5 minutes while I 'learnt' how to take the battery out ) and the activity monitor freezes too. The power button won't respond, and because the pointer is frozen, I can't force quit. I have NO idea why it does this when my 2.5 yr old, 700mhz eMac has no problem with iTunes! It's iTunes 4.9 btw...

I'm just kinda amazed that my new iBook isn't handling music like it should... It handles FCP fine, and Photoshop isn't a problem, so I doubt it's the RAM... What percentage does your iTunes use when importing from a CD? I would think that mine's a tad abnormal...

 

[Linkjeniero]

I'm just kinda amazed that my new iBook isn't handling music like it should... It handles FCP fine, and Photoshop isn't a problem, so I doubt it's the RAM... What percentage does your iTunes use when importing from a CD? I would think that mine's a tad abnormal...

Music encoding is supposed to take 100% of the CPU (or almost), because it's just a lot of calculations that ough to be finished as soon as possible (as opposed to Photoshop, wich is just a heavy app). But still, this shouldn't stall your iBook... Maybe it is the ram, but I doubt it. Sorry I don't have a better answer, I just thought I'd let you know it's ok for music encoding to hog the CPU.

 

[Lunja]

Hey Linkjeniero, thanks for the help. I've heard that things can sometimes get sketchy if the hard drive is on its way out, but this is a new machine, and I've put apps on there no problem...

I can't understand it... Is there anyway of regulating the CPU to only use about 80%? I'd rather it took slower and actualy did what it's supposed to...

 

[Linkjeniero]

It can be done, but it shouldn't be necessary... Even if an app is hogging the CPU, if another one with the same priority needs it, the first app has to "let it go" for a moment... that's what multitasking is all about.

See if lowering the process priority helps, though (but this is NOT a good solution): to do that:

Get the number or process of iTunes while it's running (you can use the Activity Monitor for that). This number is called the PID.
Write this in the terminal:
renice +20 PID
Then try ripping a CD and see if it works. Tell me how it goes.

 

[Lunja]

Hey- thanks for the tip!

I'm flying again today, so I'll give it a go when I land the other side. I'll post how it goes...

btw, what does 'renice' mean?

 

[Lunja]

Hi all- this isn't a bump, just an update...

I'm in the Apple store at the Mall at Millenia at the moment, and I've been told that it has to be serviced since they can't identify what is wrong... Apparently it's definately a hardware issue, but they don't know what. Thanks for all the help guys- I appreciate it.

Cheers,

Lunja.

 

[suki]

A little Prozac can help

This was bugging the heck out of me. All I could do is force power off the computer.

I was able to narrow it down to smudges and scratches on the CD. Although I have not attempted to "Disk Dr." the CD's yet to confirm this theory.

I renice'd iTunes and it at least saved the forced power off.

renice is a UNIX command that changes the priority that an application has privilege to. It is used to allow important programs to run and to give less leeway for the other not so important programs. A value is associated -20 for most important and +20 for least important.

Since all application ran in "Mac OS X" default to priority 0 iTunes then competes with every application running.

In the Terminal.app I found the PID (process identification number) of iTunes (You can easily use "Activity Monitor" for this) then I typed "renice +10 123" where 123 was the PID. Then I began my import.

Once again iTunes had a schizophrenic episode. But this time the renice acted like some prozac and allowed Finder, Terminal, and more to function without completely freezing only iTunes wigged out. This allowed me to "kill -9 123" or "Force Quit" iTunes. I had to wait a few minutes after killing iTunes for the CD-ROM to figure out that it no longer has to have it's temper tantrum and Finder took a bit to calm down after the CD-ROM wigged out. But it saved me from having to turn the computer off again.

As for a fix. I suggest Disk Dr. or some form of CD cleaning. As I'm under the impression that Apples CD drives are a bit sensitive with difficult to read CD's.

Of course only some CD have this problem others imported fine. And YMMV. Hope this helps.

 

[alex_ant]

I am having this problem with iTunes 5. I have a Ti 550 w/combo drive. When I put an audio CD in while iTunes is running, iTunes will see it, show which tracks it has, and hang if I try to play any of them. I know it's not a drive problem because I can play the CD audio files through the Finder. This is with 5.0 and 5.0.1. 4.x never did this. Now before I import I have to drag the files off the CD and import them from the hard drive... bummer.

 

[eva01]

Yes there is something with older drives (especially in older PBs) that music cannot be played or imported in iTunes 5.0 because of a flaw in the program.