Is it normal for Itunes to freeze the machine?

[luffytubby]

I don't know if this is normal, but if I am adding many songs, or transfering songs to my Ipod or watching movies or doing some kind of thing where Itunes struggles, it can sometimes freeze my system until I crash it.

I almost never have to crash the computer. But it happens daily and weekly with Itunes. Like the program is squishy or not well optimized. But okay.. I have over 25 GB of music. I can understand that its many songs to scroll through for the program.


I just wanted to know if Itunes also makes your system hang sometimes too if your using Itunes and perhaps doing some other stuff at the same time...!?

 

[HBOC]

sometime, when adding songs, my iTunes will slow up a tad. Usually when i am bringing in songs from a CD. Doesn't happen all the time. My iTunes library is around 41GB, all music.

 

[tjrainey]

Not in my experience

Haven't had any problems to speak of with iTunes. Of course, every new version seems slower than the previous, with features I don't use.

My music collection is 70 GB. Currently using a 17" MBP 2.93 GHz/4GB 10.5.7 and iTunes 8.2.1. I should mention that I also haven't had problems with an old G4/1.67 1GB which i keep connected to the stereo.

If you have an older Mac, upgrading the memory is always an economical first step to remedy this type of problem. I think the code is pretty solid (on the Mac at least) if not particularly efficient.

Trevor

 

[Plan K]

iTunes freezing recurring

I had lots of problems with iTunes freezes—about 11 per month—before upgrading to iTunes 8.1 in mid-March. After about three weeks of having no freezes, they started back up again in April, though less frequently. In mid-June, I upgraded to iTunes 8.2 (upgraded at the same time I upgraded to Mac OS 10.5.7). After the upgrade, the pace of freezes slowed down a bit, but picked back up in mid July. I upgraded to iTunes 8.2.1 on July 21. I have since had nine freezes and they are occurring more frequently—two today, which brings me here.

The freezes happen when items are being added to iTunes. They can happen when podcasts are being downloaded, they can happen when the Amazon MP3 Downloader app is automatically adding purchased songs to iTunes, it can happen when Audio Hijack Pro is automatically adding an audio file to iTunes, it can happen when adding a file manually to iTunes (either by dragging it over the iTunes dock icon, double clicking it, or using the Add to Library menu item in iTunes).

It doesn't happen each time an item is added to iTunes, but sporadically and unpredictably. However, it is predictable enough that I have turned off almost every means of applications adding files automatically to iTunes—including turning off automatic podcast downloading within iTunes.

Also, after these freezes happen, the file that was being added at the time of the hang often does not get added to the iTunes library completely. Often, it will appear as a file within the iTunes Music folder in the Finder, but does not appear anywhere in the iTunes application. When this happens, I delete it from the Finder and add it to iTunes again. When it finally appears in the iTunes application, it also appears in the Finder in the iTunes Music folder.

My library has in excess of 13,000 items (audio and video) and is about 400 GB. My iTunes Music folder lives on the computer's local hard drive. I'm working with a year-old iMac that's maxed out at 4GB of RAM.

I view my playlists, play counts, date added and last played data as sacred. And I do not want to lose them.

I'm wondering if I can solve my freeze problem by uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes. I seemed to have a few good freeze-free weeks in March when I got a fresh update of iTunes, so I'm thinking that may help do the trick?

If anyone has any other insights, I'm all ears.