iPod Could Apple possibly make Genius even slower?

[Black Belt]

Yeesh. Actually they probably could. I would love to disable the Genius as it is such a resource hog it dramatically slows down everything and iTunes becomes unfunctional for the 30plus minutes it scans my enormous library. And for what. I still don't see what is so important that it couldn't update itself in miniscule increments when the processor is inactive ...like in the middle of the night...and leave me alone otherwise.

 

[petermcphee]

Yeesh. Actually they probably could. I would love to disable the Genius as it is such a resource hog it dramatically slows down everything and iTunes becomes unfunctional for the 30plus minutes it scans my enormous library. And for what. I still don't see what is so important that it couldn't update itself in miniscule increments when the processor is inactive ...like in the middle of the night...and leave me alone otherwise.

What sort of system are you experiencing these slowdowns on?

 

[Black Belt]

Quad Core PC. Runs everything else fine - Photoshop, Indesign, Lightroom, Office, etc.

iTunes, though not a speed demon by any means on a PC, seems to run adequately if I kill the Genius nonsense. Tonight "Genius" ran for over an hour and only got halfway through my library. That is ridiculous. This is not the first time I've run it either. My library gets some additions, no deletions. Why does it insist on going through the entire library and not doing an incremental look? I mean....it just boggles the mind.

 

[instaxgirl]

I would love to disable the Genius

iTunes, though not a speed demon by any means on a PC, seems to run adequately if I kill the Genius nonsense

Then just turn it off and try again with each new iTunes update? I just disabled it because I also think it's a pain in the arse

 

[Cynicalone]

I'm on a Mac and I've seen it take forever to update the info. Seems to hang on the "Waiting for Apple to deliver your Genius results". Eventually it will time out and fail.

Now I'm on a really good internet connection, and I have a really good computer where everything else runs smoothly but iTunes seems to be getting clunkier by the update.

 

[kolax]

What do you mean slow? When it updates? It is a bit of a hog when it updates and slow - depends on CPU and internet connection I guess, but you can cancel the update and update manually when it suits you.

The actual Genius feature itself isn't slow - listen to a song, click the Genius icon and you have a playlist instantly.

 

[Saladinos]

Could Apple possibly make Genius even slower?

Is that a dare or something?

 

[mkrishnan]

What do you mean slow? When it updates? It is a bit of a hog when it updates and slow - depends on CPU and internet connection I guess, but you can cancel the update and update manually when it suits you.

I think everyone is talking about updating the Genius database, here. It seems to be fairly slow irrespective of speed of connection, having primarily to do with library size. And whether it's objectively slow, I think it's at least reasonable to say that it's among the most time consuming things iTunes does -- it takes longer than anything else I do with iTunes -- importing music, getting artwork, syncing iPods or iPhones, etc.

For a test, I enabled it with a very small library of about 20 songs, on my work computer, and it was quite rapid. In contrast, when I add one or two songs to my home library of around 4000 songs, it takes a long time to gather results and send them back.

Also, one way or another, one must update whenever one gets new songs, because otherwise Genius will not put them into genius playlists. It gets even more annoying with the iPhone -- if I buy new music on the iPhone, in order to get it into Genius, I have to sync the iPhone to get the song in iTunes, then update the Genius database, and then sync again to get the Genius info for the song onto the iPhone. This really extends the amount of time syncing my iPhone takes.

And I love Genius playlist, and I use it extensively, which makes this all the harder....

 

[Cynicalone]

What do you mean slow? When it updates? It is a bit of a hog when it updates and slow - depends on CPU and internet connection I guess, but you can cancel the update and update manually when it suits you.

No I think it is more dependent on library size. I have an 08 model iMac with 3.06Ghz Dual Core and 4GB of RAM. My internet connections stays between 20 an 25Mbps. I come to the conclusion that a large library is the problem not the computer. After cleaning up some duplicates I'm still at 4500 song's in the library. Also now that TV shows and Movies have been added to the Genius it has to go threw those files also. Not good, very slow going.

 

[queserasera1102]

I don't think that Apple could make Genius become slower. They often run very fast. But I suppose that you should use their speed. It's very convenient for everyone. If you make it slow , it maybe occurs some errors and it won't run properly

 

[mkrishnan]

I don't think that Apple could make Genius become slower. They often run very fast. But I suppose that you should use their speed. It's very convenient for everyone. If you make it slow , it maybe occurs some errors and it won't run properly

There's only one thing I don't understand... every single word you just said.

 

[kolax]

No I think it is more dependent on library size. I have an 08 model iMac with 3.06Ghz Dual Core and 4GB of RAM. My internet connections stays between 20 an 25Mbps. I come to the conclusion that a large library is the problem not the computer. After cleaning up some duplicates I'm still at 4500 song's in the library. Also now that TV shows and Movies have been added to the Genius it has to go threw those files also. Not good, very slow going.

I have 8788 songs in my library, I just updated Genius and it took 9 minutes and 23 seconds to update. Literally all of the time was spent "Waiting for Apple to deliver your Genius results...". Note I had added 4 new songs to my library since I last updated Genius.

I've never timed it, nor realised how long it took, and that was only for an update of 4 songs! I've noticed it updating in the past, then carried on with some work, and never noticed its long duration.

 

[Black Belt]

Is that a dare or something?

Oh heck no, Apple doesn't have to try very hard to write terrible code, especially for the PC side. It seemed to start right after the Mac SE. And BTW, pretty and neat features do not good code make.

 

[OutThere]

I don't think that Apple could make Genius become slower. They often run very fast. But I suppose that you should use their speed. It's very convenient for everyone. If you make it slow , it maybe occurs some errors and it won't run properly

There's only one thing I don't understand... every single word you just said.

This made me laugh.

 

[pbkiller]

Happens to me too... I have a Mac Pro and 60GB+ library. It takes FOREVER to "Deliver my Genius Results".

 

[spiketrain]

Genius falls over during initial scan

Some research to add to this.

First of all I am talking about Genius failing during "delivering your Genius results" step 3 of the initial send to Apple part of this. I have a new iMac (8 core thing 2009) with all the add ons - fast internet - 35,000 song library etc.

Now, for starters, I think that library size does rather obviously extend the time it takes to "algorythmically" work out the suggestions of the facility. But if your Genius set up process repeatedly returns an error and can't make it through the initial build at all then this is where I was at this morning.

I used to have this same large library on a firewire drive pointed to my macbook pro. Every time I tried to build the library for Genius at home it fell over using my wireless LAN connection. When I was guesting on someone else's connection it worked straight away. This got my IT man thinking that the problem, for those who can't get it working at all, is probably to do more with firewalls and open ports etc.

From then on, I went around the country with my laptop and I only ever refreshed my Genius library when I was away. It never seemed to work at home. I then rebuilt my home network when I bought Airport Extreme and the new previously mentioned new mac pro.

Genius was invoked once the library was imported and it STILL fell over at stage 3. Just as I was Googling various techno sites looking at how to configure my ports I thought I'd try one more time (I had tried a total of about 3 or 4 goes I guess).

It worked. No changes to the last few times. It just worked one time out of 4. It is therefore true to say that there must be various issues at Apple's end that prevent us large library people from getting a smooth service currently.

I think, to report back to those of you who have not succeeded, there is probably some truth to IT connections and set ups - but it's also, at present a case of just using a little tenacity.

Anyhow. I have now got it working - and it is worth having - though, if you don't like the time it takes to set up or update, may I suggest you do it overnight?

To briefly review the facility on leaving - The Genius part of iTunes is well worth having and I have been using it for nearly a year on my laptop before getting it on the home machines.

it is especially worth using if you have a large library. I find that I typically build a Genius playlist of 100 songs. Delete 60% of it, enjoy 38% of the rest and totally find a 2% of really fantastic life changing music that I didn't even know I had.

Something like that.