iTunes freezes/crashes every time

[Snookerman]

For the past week, iTunes has been crashing (beachball) every time I turn it on. It seems to do it as soon as my podcasts start downloading. It works fine for a few second until the downloads link appears in the left menu bar. I have installed the latest update but it still behaves in the same way. I'm running the latest Lion on a mid 2010 MBP. Thanks for your help!

 

[Nikh]

Have you tried to check your disk for errors, is everything good there?
Also, what is written in Console output? it should have some messages.

 

[Snookerman]

Have you tried to check your disk for errors, is everything good there?
Also, what is written in Console output? it should have some messages.

The disk is fine. The console gave me three _spotlight: audit warnings when this happened: closefile, soft and allsoft. I have no idea what that means.