Fed up with iTunes freezing

[Neuro]

I find iTunes freezes every few days when playing audio. I can't replicate this because it's random. More predictable is iTunes freezing during song downloads from the store. This happens every 2-5 albums that I buy, requiring me to contact Apple. Really annoying. The freeze then hangs the rest of Mac OS X requiring a power off.

Apple have said to me to uncheck 'allow simultaneous downloads' as a solution. If it's a known issue, why haven't they just fixed it in the 2+ years myself and others have had this problem?

I'm sure many people will say it's my machine. However, it happens on both my Intel iMac 3.06 and also my old G5. The Intel machine froze during song playback within 30 mins of a fresh install of Leopard. It can't be a highly isolated problem.

iTunes is a flagship Apple application and service, but I've never encountered such a serious and persistent bug that can completely crash a machine in general light use (on any platform).

Half the reason I upgraded my machine was to escape this problem, but it was there immediately!

(waiting for 5000 comments saying mine is fine, therefore it's not a real problem!)

 

[Consultant]

Sounds like user habit screwed up the machine.

Have you open disk utility

repaired permissions
verified disk (and repair if needed)

iTunes is fine for most people. That's why it's the most popular music player available.

 

[Neuro]

I'm not sure what 'user habit' could screw up a brand new machine within 30 mins of a fresh install of Leopard? No additional apps installed.

Apple have obviously encountered the same problem on numerous occasions by the nature of their support response.

I have tried all the usual maintenance fixes (disk, hardware, firmware, drivers, Applejack etc), but it still freezes during iTunes playback/downloads after a fresh re-install with all external hardware unplugged - in *exactly* the same way as my old G5 did.

Maybe my taste in music is causing a problem?

 

[barkmonster]

I get the pinwheel and random pauses sometimes with VBR encoded audio, I think it's being a long-standing problem that just comes and goes with different releases. It's really annoying when it just sticks and you get no audio just for scrubbing through a track or even simply clicking on a different one.