iTunes not responding
 

Hello all,

I've been using iTunes without problems until yesterday, the only thing I've installed recently was the latest security update.

When I try to open iTunes it bounces once and fails to progress, the beachball spins and it shows "application not responding" in the dock. I tried to trash the prefs and reinstall it but when I run the installer it won't let me install anything, I guess it knows it already exists? Now that I've trashed the prefs, it starts up, I get the "if you want to share music open firewall port 3689" message, the "Click here if you agree with software license terms" message, and nothing beyond that...just keeps spinning.

I'm running OS 10.3.9, iTunes 4.7.1. I've looked in the iTunes crash report and there's nothing there, just old stuff...but then it's not crashing I suppose, just not responding.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Many thanks,

Biiiiink

have you tried running disk utility from your install disk to repair the permissions? Could be worth a go

Many thanks photek, is this the one that runs in Classic?

Sorry, bit clueless, ignore my 2nd msg - I was looking on the OS X installation CDs... I've now found what you mean on my hard disk. Am repairing now, will post again if it doesn't work.

Thanks!

Biiiiink

You should try the standard troubleshooting suggestions:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...04011205473937
http://forums.osxfaq.com/viewtopic.php?t=7269
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/faqs.html

In particular, be sure to try logging in as a different user to see if the problem exists there.

Thanks. I already tried a different user account and it's fine, just the main one that doesn't work.

I read in those FAQs I should clear my system and user cache but I have no idea how. Am downloading "Cacheout" and will see what happens.

Many thanks again,

Biiiiink

This means that the problem almost certainly is due to something under your home folder.
And it likely is something under ~/Library
( ~ = your home folder)
The most likely thing is a bad preference file under ~/Library/Preferences
You could start by removing the preference files for the apps you are having trouble with.

If the problem persists, you need to narrow the problem down - you could start by moving (via drag & drop) the whole "Preferences" folder that is under ~/Library to the Desktop, then log out and log in again. A default copy of the Preferences folder will have been recreated. Does that improve things? If so, you could use a divide & conquer approach to figure out which of the preference files is causing the problem - move half of the preference files back into the Preferences folder, log out & in again, etc.

Alas no. I tried iTunes again before I even started replacing any prefs and it was the same as before, not responding but getting far enough to give me the "Software license, Agree/disagree" thing and the "You cannot share unless port such-and-such is open" messages.

Confused as ever, thanks for your patience with me thus far!

The Preferences folder is just one of the folders in your Library folder. It is the one that most often causes problems, but other folders may also have problematic files.

Try temporarily removing (e.g. to the Desktop) the other sub-folders of ~/Library - one at a time, logging out & in after each.
Try the Library/Caches next
Then try the Library/Application Support

I tried all the subfolders of library and nothing made a difference. It's still working okay in the other user account.

Any ideas anyone?

Then maybe it is something in the iTunes songs/database that you have under your account. You could try temporarily moving your Music/iTunes folder to the Desktop to see if this is the problem.

Yes, that's it! Many thanks for your help and patience with a novice :)

So does that mean I should add the tracks back into the iTunes folder bit by bit - does it mean one or some would cause a problem again?

I would try a divide and conquer approach.
Select about half of the songs from your old iTunes folder and add them into iTunes. If all works well, add another half of the remaining songs.
Continue like this until all songs have been added to iTunes.
If at any point you encounter a problem, quit iTunes, then use Finder to remove the songs most recently added (You might need to keep notes - e.g. of what alphabetic range was added in each step), then add back in one half of those songs, etc.
This way you can zero in on the few troublesome songs.

Hayne may be correct in that some of the music files are corrupt - but I don't think these files are read when the application is starting. So I think there's a good chance that what's actually corrupt are the index files, '~/Music/iTunes/iTunes 4 Music Library' and '~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml' which would be read at startup.

Before moving the music files around I would try dragging the above files to your desktop, and then retrying iTunes. I seem to remember that this will force iTunes to reindex your music, produce new index files, and allow iTunes to restart.

If this works you can trash the original index files - otherwise put them back. You will of course lose things like track counts, eq settings and so on. Good idea to backup those files so if this should happen again it's not a major headache.

This happened to me too!
 

This happened to me too! After applying the 10.2.9 update, iTunes just sat and ate CPU cycles. Removing the Library and Library.xml files below did *not* reindex, it left me with an empty iTunes.

The solution - remove the files (listed below). Then open iTunes, and IMPORT (from FILE menu) the iTunes Music Library.xml file.

And a repeat performance after plugging in iPod!
 

Nice. Everything was fine, then I plugged in my iPod. Boom. iTunes locked up. Reboot (couldn't even properly force-quit) and iTunes still good. Plug in iPod again, same.

Sigh.

I'm gonna reboot, make sure iTunes is still working, then blow away my iPod (hard reset).

I had to RESTORE the iPod to factory (wipe it, essentially). Now all is good again.

I need to correct my post: As evildrbob points out iTunes doesn't reindex on startup, but apparently (according to iTunes help) you can force a reindex as follows:-

1. Remove the files I mentioned in my previous post.

2. Then start iTunes, and from a Finder window drag the folder '~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music' to the Library in the sources window.

Many thanks all for helping a clueless lass. Will try moving music back as per instructions.

Yesterday the same happened with Safari, managed to sort it myself.

And today same has happened with iPhoto. Haven't sorted that yet but will get there no doubt.

Beginning to wish I'd steered clear of 10.3.9 :rolleyes:

Biiiiink

It isn't normal to have all these problems.
Look again at the troubleshooting suggestions listed above and go through them one by one.

Is your system possibly low on disk space?

itunes hanging up
 

I'm getting similar symptoms to others since I installed the latest update from Apple. iTunes does not start - I get the beachball (usually) for a few seconds, but I never get iTunes' menu bar nor any interface. I have to force quit the application. I've tried moving the pref files, the XML and Music Libraries and the same result applies. I get the same result with a brand new test account I created. I downloaded iTunes from Apple's website in the hope that a reinstall would fix it - nada. Any suggestions? This is amazingly frustrating!

I would repair file permissions on the root drive, and see if that gets it. These sometimes get munged up during an update.

Have you tried Hayne's list of standard troubleshooting suggestions? See links in Post 5 of this thread.

In particular disable any 3rd party applications that you may have while trying to troubleshoot - one of them they may be responsible, but if not it is hard for others here to help unless your system matches their's as much as possible.

Also looking at (or if you like, attaching, to a post here, parts of) your system log may give you a clue as to what's going on.

iTunes Not Responding - possible fix?
 

I found this out on the Apple discussion boards. Looks like there is some incompatibility between iTunes, Apple update 10.3.9, Quicktime 7 and ProTools. For me, I simply unplugged my MBox converter and iTunes started just fine - no need to delete prefs, recreate library or anything. Something to do with core audio files from Digidesign? I'm a novice but I thought you might find this useful. My symptoms were very similar to all those noted here - "all of a sudden" iTunes fails to start, spins the beach ball, and requires a Force Quit. I've no idea how to fix this permanently but at least I reassured myself that my Mac itself hasn't gone haywire.

Hope this helps:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/we...DY.0@.68addf52

Sounds like a third party problem that will have to be resolved by the developer. Best thing you can do is give the developer some feedback. The more feedback the sooner they are likely to find the problem with their software.

the Mbox unplugging thing works, and (I don't use it for sound output) iTunes runs fine if I plug it in after launch. Thanks for the link - am studying it at the moment....

Problem resolved elsewhere
 

Someone more recently posted that if you go into the Digidesign core audio set up and remove iTunes from the list of supported applications everything is hunky dorey again. Seems to be the case...

Resolved my problem
 

I was receiving the the "Connection Failed" error message in iTunes followed by a can not find a.gif and b.gif message. I did the move "iTunes 4 Music Library" and .xml files but the same error occured on the import.

I found that a.gif and b.gif is referrenced in a few .mov files in my "Unknown Artist/Unknown Album" directory using the strings Unix command. I moved these files out and the problem went away.

I received the same "Connection Failed" error when I attempt to load the .mov files in QuickTime. I guess the new QuickTime does not properly handle unknown references too well.

The references in the .mov files have the form:
#Macintosh HD:API Docs:Effects:b.gif

FWIW, I do not know where the bad files came from. It looks like they may have come from a directory scan for music or movie files.

I hope this helps.