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iTunes randomly goes silent? cuts out?

B

badboomer73

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 14, 2007
9
0
Toronto Canada
Am I the only one with this re-occurring problem? (for the sake of others searching this I'll say it several different ways)

My iTunes sound cuts out mid song but continues to play.
iTunes goes silent but still plays.
Sound stops but itunes keeps playing.

It doesn't matter whether I'm using air tunes or going straight off my lap top. In order to get the sound back I have to pause the song and play it again. I've restarted and had only iTunes running and still I get this problem. Some days it's fine other days it's temperamental. This is not a case of air Tunes speakers cutting out, when it goes silent everything goes silent, laptop music included.

When silent I can still: access the air disk, preview songs and hear them from that drive via quick view, my internet works, I can transfer files to and from the air disk, I can search within iTunes (it doesn't freeze).

Configuration: 300 gig library on an air disk, 2 airport express (n), MBP 2.33mhz, 4 gig Ram. iTunes library files and music is housed on the external air disk.

I've had this configuration for some time but this problem seems to have crept in prior to itunes 8 and still hasn't been fixed. I don't remember what version of itunes or what configuration I had when this first started happening.

Has anyone else seen this ghost?
 
Same issue

Yes, I've had the same thing. It doesn't seem to be restricted to larger, higher quality files either. But it's also very inconsistent. It won't happen for a couple of week/months, and then it'll happen often during a couple days.

Do you hear clicking sometimes when the sound isn't working? I thought that this meant the speakers were improperly connected, but it's not just sound, it's the program, since the song does not progress during the "mutings"...

Edit: actually, I just re-read your post and yours keeps on playing while the sound is off, while mine used to do that, it doesn't continue with the song when it happens now...
 
Ghost in the iTunes

Funny, what prompted me to write this post was just what you described. This morning, for what might be the first time, iTunes stopped sound and playing at the same time. It did this when going from one song to another. I couldn't get it to play any song from that point on. I could still search & choose new songs but they wouldn't progress even though the play button was in the play position.

I restarted iTunes and it was fine from then on. Given the choice I'd rather have my previous problem. At least then I wouldn't have to restart iTunes.

Thanks for the response. I rarely post because usually a thorough web search gives me the answer. With the exception of one post on another site I haven't found any discussions about this. I hope that there are enough key phrases in this post to bring others to it. Even if their isn't a solution.

RE- Clicking: I haven't noticed a clicking sound. I'll listen for it next time.
RE- "the mutings": I like that term. It sounds like a bad hollywood horror movie.
 
Anyone else have this problem, or have a solution? Today I was studying for exams and I got aggravated with the music cutting in and out, so I tried installing SongBird, which has the same problem. Could it be an issue with sound drivers?
 
Same problem here. Have had it on multiple machines for sometime now. MBP, MB, and MBAs. And have had both types of events: sound cutting out but song keeps playing and sound cutting out and song stops. Have never been able to determine the cause or the pattern.
 
Since I upgraded my iTunes the other day, I've been having a problem where certain times when I click to play a video, the video will play without sound. If I stop the video and start a new one, that new one usually will have sound... and then I can go back to the first one and play it with sound.
 
i have a similar problem where itunes will pause any song under its own accord. going to the itunes window it will show the song paused as if i had clicked the pause button. as some of you have indicated, this seems to happen at random and occurs more frequently in clusters. it also happens on my pc running windows xp.

i've never had a song play w/o the audio though. :confused:
 
Not Just iTunes

Tonight, I was trying to watch some video files with VLC, and the same thing happened. The file would keep playing, but audio was gone, and every so often there would be a click of some sort coming from the speakers. So now I can add SongBird and VLC to iTunes for a list of applications that it doesn't work. Could this be a hardware problem?

Also, I don't think this is isolated to iTunes 8, since I've experienced this before v8 came out.
 
same problem

when I start up itunes on my pc it will literally only play the first few bars then the audio cuts out, then later the audio will randomly start up again briefly, then it will stop. very annoying. i do hear the static too. it is virtually unlistenable. neither restarting itunes or restarting the computer helps. has anyone figured this out?? I have a huge itunes library and can't listen to any of it on my pc. its really frustrating that apple has no telephone support for itunes.
 
Still Happening

Is this problem still occurring for others. I have not seen any answers for fixes but this is still an issue for me. I have all of my music, about 400Gb, stored on an external hard drive going to my laptop and to my stereo via usb. This is my only home listening system but the continual dropping of sound and requirement to reboot itunes and re-establish where in the library I was is a major issue. Does anyone know of a fix?
 
yeah i have

Guys im having the same problem but just not exactly myn is just stopping then it will play but skips alot threw out the song and today i bought a new song to see if it was just myn it isn't it does the same thing... im about to reinstall it and see what happens ill tell you if it works...:apple:
 
Yes I still have this problem

I don't have any fix, but I just want to add my observations. Starting today, when I play from my itunes library, the sound will spontaneously cut out while the track continues to advance. If I hit pause then play, the sound resumes. I do notice a clicking that does not necessarily coincide with the sound cutting out.

I have tried several things: rebooting does not fix the problem, different speakers/headphones all exhibit the problem, ipod connected or ejected does not change the problem.

Does anyone know of a workaround or fix?

I'm running iTunes 8.0.0.20
 
Me Too....

I have exactly this problem.

My personal description: Every time a new track starts it plays for about 10 - 20 seconds then the audio cuts out. The track continues to play in iTunes and if I do nothing audio cuts back in about 10 - 20 seconds later. If I go back to the start of the track it frequently fixes the problem for that track, but then the next track has the same issue. If I run multiple speakers, the iMac speakers continue to play while the AirTunes ones cut.

I'm running iTunes 8.1 over AirTunes from my iMac. Initially I thought there was an issue with the wireless (the microwave will mess it up sometimes) but after checking and restarting all devices involved, nothing changed.

This problem only started for me about a week ago.

At this stage my 'solution' is to wait for an update and hope that fixes it. Definitely a strange one.

Jason
 
randomly starting and stopping

I've had this happen, more so lately.

At times in the past itunes would continue to play but sound wasn't there. Pause and restart and it worked ok.

This is not related to airport, I don't believe. The signal is still strong on my airport and the music starts for a second then restarts where it was on both the desktop and airtunes.

Have reset EVERYTHING essentially and nothing seems to help. I would really love to have an answer to this as I run airtunes constantly and this little problem is REALLY annoying!!!!

If anyone finds an answer, please post. I'll be searching and looking at my system to see if I can discern what the heck is happening.
:apple:
 
Itunes sound will stop playing...

Until I either fast forward to the next song or pause play. It is very annoying. I have almost 38,000 Apple lossless songs and it does this randomly. Is there a fix for this? I use 9.0.1 and it did this with previous versions too.
 
Similar issue but caused in Finder previewing music files

So, I think I have a very similar issue with a new MacBook Pro. I was previewing some songs through Finder, on an external HD connected to my Airport Extreme. Things were working ok, but then all of a sudden, after clicking on Preview on a random .mp3 file, my sound cuts out and I just get a clicking sound from my speakers when ever sound is supposed to occur.

It affects iTunes, and all other programs that produce sound. I happens after previewing sound files, and seems to be random. I've never had the problem occur just listening to music in iTunes.

The only thing that fixes the problem, is rebooting the MacBook. I just recently upgraded to iTunes 9.0.2. This is getting very annoying...
 
Itunes 9.0.1 cuts out sporadically

The track keeps playing - audio has stopped for a second or 2 then will cut back in again.
I don't get it, I dont like it!!
 
Are there still no solutions that anyone has found for this audio problem? the audio for My G5 dual 1.8 powerPC stops playing or a get this crazy static that I can fix if I pull the 1/8th in stereo jack out and put it back in. A very annoying problem. Solutions anyone?????
 
Still no answer?

I'm ready to throw my airport expresses out the window because airtunes just doesnt work consistently. How is it possible that Apple has not figured this out yet? I have four AE's and my music stored on a time capsule. When I had the music on my MBA the same cut outs happens.

PLEASE any new insights of guaranteed things that will work (other than selling the AE's and buying a Sonos).
 
Sound Cutting out....

Same issue here. Happens BOTH if I am playing locally through PC on Airport. Sound stops and time elapse... for a while then that will stop. A purse and play will get her going again but will reoccur next track. JUST started a week ago, before that all was PERFECT! :mad:
 
Happens in iTunes 7, too.

I came here looking for a solution, so unfortunately I can only commiserate. I have both of these intermittent problems on my B&W G3/1GHz. I’m using iTunes 7.7.1 under Mac OS X v.10.4.9, with all tracks on a 1.5TB internal SATA RAID (via Sonnet Tempo SATA card).

Wish someone out there had a fix….

ETA: I just found another thread discussing the stops-at-the-beginning-of-a-track issue, and two people were able to get it going again by updating the ID3 tag of the offending track. I’ve now got iTunes updating the ID3 tags to v.2.4, for every track in my kids’ bedtime playlist. I’ll report back with any results.
 
Last edited:
ID3 update helping so far

As mentioned in my last post, I decided to take a suggestion I found online and update the ID3 tags to v.2.4. (I actually wound up doing it for every track in my library.) Well, I piped the music into my kids’ room as per usual, last night, and had no reoccurrence of the problem described by badboomer73. However, the other problem—that of the sound cutting out—did reoccur.

Given the intermittent nature of each of these problems, it’s way too early to claim that the stops-when-switching-tracks issue has been resolved, but I can conclusively state that the sound-cutting-out problem has not been.

(And for those that claim this is an iTunes 8–specific issue, allow me to reemphasize that this particular computer is running iTunes 7.7.1.)
 
Kensington USB Mouse with failing batteries are to blame in my case

I've had my Powerbook for a few years and never experienced this issue until today. Luckily, the room was dark and the Kensington mouse's battery light was glaring. After I found this thread and noticed a remark about the apple remote, I considered that other devices might be sending erroneous messages. I unplugged the USB dongle for the Kensington mouse and the problem went away. I plugged it back in, and the problem came back. I then replaced the batteries and the problem went away.

As a troubleshooting step, try unplugging all devices from your machine to see if one of them is the culprit.
 
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