iTunes freezes OS X

[Tako R]

Hi,

I have a problem with iTunes, when trying to open iTunes my computer freezes, I get a never-ending beach ball.
The only way out is to hard reset and restart the computer.
OS X 10.6.8
iTunes 11.1.5
I have tried to re-install iTunes, but at the end of the installation the same happens.
Any thoughts?

 

[phrehdd]

Hi,

I have a problem with iTunes, when trying to open iTunes my computer freezes, I get a never-ending beach ball.
The only way out is to hard reset and restart the computer.
OS X 10.6.8
iTunes 11.1.5
I have tried to re-install iTunes, but at the end of the installation the same happens.
Any thoughts?

When you say you tried to re-install iTunes, did you start with emptying out the iTunes Folder in the Music directory? What you might want to try is to go into that folder and move the media files only to another location. Delete the iTunes folder then do a permanent delete from the trashbin. When you restart/or re-install iTunes, it will generate a new folder.

If your iTunes is working, you have various ways to get your media files back into the folder (if that is where you store them).

1) Go to Music, find the iTunes folder.
2) Search in the iTunes folder for a sub folder - iTunes Media
3) Copy the iTunes Media folder to a new location outside of the iTunes folder
4) Delete the iTunes folder. Empty the trashbin so it is permanently gone.
5) Try to start up iTunes or do a re-install and start up
6) if iTunes starts up properly, you can choose a couple of methods to get your media files back to the "iTunes Media" folder and have iTunes recognize your files. (PM me if you get this far and need help as it is an easy process.)

If for some reason you cannot fully delete/empty the files from the Trashbin, you may have some processes active with iTunes. You will need to find and kill the processes (this is not likely to happen but if it does...)

 

[Tako R]

Saving iTunes media to an external disc as we speak.....
I'm a little worried if I gat everything back in iTunes, like the artwork and such.....

 

[Tako R]

Moved iTunes media, and backed up to external drive, removed iTunes folder and re-installed iTunes from a fresh download. Itunes starts as it should now. Can I just move the iTunes media folder back into the iTunes folder? Or is there something else I have to do?
Thanks!

When you say you tried to re-install iTunes, did you start with emptying out the iTunes Folder in the Music directory? What you might want to try is to go into that folder and move the media files only to another location. Delete the iTunes folder then do a permanent delete from the trashbin. When you restart/or re-install iTunes, it will generate a new folder.

If your iTunes is working, you have various ways to get your media files back into the folder (if that is where you store them).

1) Go to Music, find the iTunes folder.
2) Search in the iTunes folder for a sub folder - iTunes Media
3) Copy the iTunes Media folder to a new location outside of the iTunes folder
4) Delete the iTunes folder. Empty the trashbin so it is permanently gone.
5) Try to start up iTunes or do a re-install and start up
6) if iTunes starts up properly, you can choose a couple of methods to get your media files back to the "iTunes Media" folder and have iTunes recognize your files. (PM me if you get this far and need help as it is an easy process.)

If for some reason you cannot fully delete/empty the files from the Trashbin, you may have some processes active with iTunes. You will need to find and kill the processes (this is not likely to happen but if it does...)

 

[phrehdd]

If you want to remain cautious (which is what I would do)... here are two ways you can do this -

Method One
1) Located in your Music directory is the new iTunes folder. What you can do is go to your iTunes preferences and move over to the "advanced" tab. Within the advanced tab is the checkbox option to copy files to the iTunes Library. Make sure it is checked off. If you have iTunes organize your files, then also check the other checkbox to keep iTunes organized. After checking the boxes you can do the "Okay" and close out the box.
2) With iTunes open, go to the top of the screen for iTunes and open up "Files." From there, you have the option to add to library. When you open up this option select your saved iTunes Media Folder and let it go to work. What this will do is copy all the files back to your standard location and of course, will add ideally all the appropriate art work. Depending on the amount of files you have will determine how long it will take. Once done, you can check to make sure all is as it should be and make minor adjustments for anything such as missed artwork etc. You can then recreate your playlists as well.

Alternative method - manually copy the contents of your backed up media folder to the iTunes media folder that should have been recreated with your fresh install. You can then do the same process as above with "add to library." One thing you might want to do before doing it this way is to uncheck the box to move the files (in preferences) as they should already be in the proper place. Remember, you are only copying the contents within that backed up media folder and not the back up "media" folder" itself. I am hoping I am being clear here. After this, you can do any minor fixes like above if artwork is missed and certainly recreate playlists if you have them.

The reason I prefer the first method is since you don't know what went wrong, you are pretty much doing the entire process from scratch to avoid where any hangups might have been. Having iTunes do the copy might be an over zealous method but it makes sure that iTunes is 'aware' of all files it is copying and that it properly builds its internal database/index file. The second way should work just as well but if there are some sort of issues within the folders you have re-introduced them possibly (I honestly doubt that is where the problem is but why not start of with a pristine set up since you are at this point...).

If any of the above is not clear, PM me and I'll be a bit more detailed if need be. It should be a pretty straight forward process. Btw, a couple of years ago, this happened to a friend of mine and used this approach to get his iTunes up and working again. He was not happy about creating playlists again but later felt it was worth feeling his iTunes set up was solid (he had a huge library that took nearly 2 hours back then to add to his iTunes library - I consider that a small price to pay for peace of mind).

 

[Tako R]

After I put back the media files, the original problem occurred again, When determining gapless playback information I again got the beachball of death.
It did show at which file it was working, an admittedly illegal download of an AC/DC compilation. After having removed that everything is fine. Missing some artwork, I guess I can survive that...
Thanks a lot!

 

[phrehdd]

After I put back the media files, the original problem occurred again, When determining gapless playback information I again got the beachball of death.
It did show at which file it was working, an admittedly illegal download of an AC/DC compilation. After having removed that everything is fine. Missing some artwork, I guess I can survive that...
Thanks a lot!

Well it was a long exercise to be sure but at least you found the culprit. As for missing some artwork, you can try get info or grab some off the internet manually or use a software tool to help. One easy way to manually do the artwork fix is to highlight from within iTunes all the songs that belong to one album, right click and say yes to opening up the info window panel and you'll see a box where artwork goes. You can find on the internet some art work that you can ideally drag and drop into that box that will then apply the artwork to all the songs highlighted. (There are many sights that carry CD artwork for this purpose and of course images from Amazon and similar.) - Just don't change any other info in that panel if you do this. FYI, if you add artwork and some of the songs have pre-existing artwork, the new image you put in will over ride the old image.