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27" iMac 2017 iTunes Horrible Lag

Do you also experience lag/stutter in iTunes?

  • Total voters
    26
L

Luxtrau

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 16, 2017
76
25
Germany
Hi everyone,
I got a large iTunes library (around 3500 tracks) and when I scroll in album view the scrolling is very sluggish! When I click on an album it gets even worse.
For testing I reduced screen resolution to 1280x720 px and suddenly lag was gone. Therefore this issue should be caused by a lack of gpu optimization. I had this issue already on Sierra and now on High Sierra Beta it is still there.
Have a look at these videos, I recorded them to show this issue:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vfxok90581fxche/5k_2.mov?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2o9jeldainhgak9/1280x720.mov?dl=0

I think this issue could be widely known, but apparently still nobody has mentioned it relating to the latest iMac generation. I find this fact pretty shocking, because Apple isn't capable of offering a smooth performance in iTunes, although the latest iMac generation got a massive GPU Upgrade.
So I wanted to start a thread to discuss this issue or find a fix/workaround. It really upsets me and I have to talk about it. ;)

Btw, I have the Radeon 580 Pro.
 
Last edited:
Make sure to report what you feel may be a bug.

I have a new iMac (580 as well) and haven''t seen any lagging with my music albeit I only have about 2600 tunes right now. I keep my iMac at the highest resolution.
 
You mean reporting via Feedback-Assistant?
And you don‘t have this stuttering like shown in the video?
 
I had serious lag in several programs after messing with permissions. Apple had me reinstall sierra from app stor and several other steps. What fixed it was a command R erase and reinstall. I setup with a time machine backup and all was fine again.
 
I don't see this on my 2017 i7 with a 580 and my library is around 20,000 tracks.

I will watch for it though.
 
Yes it's just as laggy on my new machine as it was on my old one. Not just browsing music either, but also apps in the library and navigating iOS devices.
 
The point is: I had the same lag on my old Mac Mini and I thought it was because of this outdated computer. And I already tried deleting my library and reimporting it, I also did a clean reinstall of the whole OS a few weeks ago - still no difference.

Thank you for your reports. It seems that some people are affected, some not. Pretty arbitrary.
 
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8507 songs, stored on a synology NAS; no lag at all. Are all your tags ok?
 
josduc said:
8507 songs, stored on a synology NAS; no lag at all. Are all your tags ok?
Click to expand...

Ok, even on an external drive it works better than mine. Now I‘m absolutely lost. :(
Idk what do you mean - How can an ID3-Tag be not ok?
I already tried deleting all my smart playlists this mornig - no improvement. It seems that something is going on in the background which is consuming all the hardware power.

Now I have another question to all of you: Do you have every music track of your library tagged with an album art like I do? Maybe this could cause lags?
 
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I keep my music library tidy like a maniac. So yes, artwork everywhere, even lyrics on most. Never heard of corrupt id3 tags?

Edit: Hold on a sec. When I put iTunes fullscreen and on album view I also see a bit of stutter when unfolding an album. How is windowed mode doing for you?

Just sent feedback to Apple for this.
 
Last edited:
DeltaMac said:
Does your Activity Monitor show a lot of CPU, or RAM use when you see lagging in iTunes?
Click to expand...

josduc said:
I keep my music library tidy like a maniac. So yes, artwork everywhere, even lyrics on most. Never heard of corrupt id3 tags?

Edit: Hold on a sec. When I put iTunes fullscreen and on album view I also see a bit of stutter when unfolding an album. How is windowed mode doing for you?

Just sent feedback to Apple for this.
Click to expand...

So you are a tidy maniac like me. ;)

Activity Monitor shows confusing behavior: iTunes uses 1,55GB of my 32GB Ram, but 80-150% CPU Usage - only when I scroll album view, otherwise it stays below 1%.

Yes, it is the worst when iTunes is in Fullscreen, it feels a little bit smoother when downsizing to about 1/5 of the iMacs screen size, but still far away from being really smooth.

I also sent feedback to Apple regarding this "lag issue" today.
Could you please share your CPU Usage when you scroll in iTunes?
 
As a workaround:

Instead of dropping screen resolution, try:
System Preferences > Displays > Color > tick off Show profiles for this display only > sRGB IE61966-2.1

This is the closest Screen Profile to the default one that uses a 8 bit instead of a 10 bit color gamut. This should make the lag go away in iTunes.
 
DanielDD said:
As a workaround:

Instead of dropping screen resolution, try:
System Preferences > Displays > Color > tick off Show profiles for this display only > sRGB IE61966-2.1

This is the closest Screen Profile to the default one that uses a 8 bit instead of a 10 bit color gamut. This should make the lag go away in iTunes.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting idea. I tried and it indeed speed ups performance, but just a little bit. Let's say - if it were 5 fps before this workaround, it is 15fps now. Additionally I need the most optimized color profile, because of my work with Adobe CC.

But thanks anyway!
 
Luxtrau said:
So you are a tidy maniac like me. ;)

Activity Monitor shows confusing behavior: iTunes uses 1,55GB of my 32GB Ram, but 80-150% CPU Usage - only when I scroll album view, otherwise it stays below 1%.

Could you please share your CPU Usage when you scroll in iTunes?
Click to expand...

I see the same CPU usage as you do. Maybe we have to be patient and wait what Metal 2 in High Sierra brings for us.
 
Luxtrau said:
That's an interesting idea. I tried and it indeed speed ups performance, but just a little bit. Let's say - if it were 5 fps before this workaround, it is 15fps now. Additionally I need the most optimized color profile, because of my work with Adobe CC.

But thanks anyway!
Click to expand...

If you need the optimised color profile then I'm afraid there is no workaround possible at the moment. Here's hoping that this is fixed in High Sierra with the animations running on top of Metal 2.
 
josduc said:
I see the same CPU usage as you do. Maybe we have to be patient and wait what Metal 2 in High Sierra brings for us.
Click to expand...

DanielDD said:
If you need the optimised color profile then I'm afraid there is no workaround possible at the moment. Here's hoping that this is fixed in High Sierra with the animations running on top of Metal 2.
Click to expand...

Sad truth is that I'm on the latest High Sierra Beta, so I think Metal 2 is already included. Maybe it gets a further optimization later.

So please everyone with the same problem, report this bug via Feedback Assistant, so that Apple becomes aware of it.
 
Last edited:
Luxtrau said:
Hi everyone,
I got a large iTunes library (around 3500 tracks) and when I scroll in album view the scrolling is very sluggish! When I click on an album it gets even worse..
Click to expand...

I have a 5-year old Mac mini with a spinning hard drive and 23,000 songs in iTunes and the speed is fine.
 
Huginnmuninn said:
I have a 5-year old Mac mini with a spinning hard drive and 23,000 songs in iTunes and the speed is fine.
Click to expand...

But you have to keep in mind that the iMac is pushing a 5k resolution while the Mac mini "only" pushes 1440p at most. This behavior is weird, though!
 
Luxtrau said:
But you have to keep in mind that the iMac is pushing a 5k resolution while the Mac mini "only" pushes 1440p at most. This behavior is weird, though!
Click to expand...

Not for beta software. If you weren't running the beta my response would be that iTunes was not GPU-accelerated, but now all bets are off. It's fun being an OS guinea pig, isn't it?! o_O
 
Huginnmuninn said:
Not for beta software. If you weren't running the beta my response would be that iTunes was not GPU-accelerated, but now all bets are off. It's fun being an OS guinea pig, isn't it?! o_O
Click to expand...

As I mentioned before, I had this issue on Sierra too.
 
Luxtrau said:
As I mentioned before, I had this issue on Sierra too.
Click to expand...

Then you have a problem that's probably unrelated to the Retina screen, since iTunes was not GPU-accelerated and the GPU drives the monitor.

I'd check the Activity Monitor to see if there are any out of control processes. Even if you don't see anything I'd just rebuild the iTunes Library. Kirk McElhearn has some good tips here:

https://www.kirkville.com/how-to-rebuild-your-itunes-library/

And make sure XML creation is on, to help if there's future corruption.

https://www.macworld.com/article/29...library-dealing-with-duplicate-playlists.html
 
Huginnmuninn said:
Then you have a problem that's probably unrelated to the Retina screen, since iTunes was not GPU-accelerated and the GPU drives the monitor.

I'd check the Activity Monitor to see if there are any out of control processes. Even if you don't see anything I'd just rebuild the iTunes Library. Kirk McElhearn has some good tips here:

https://www.kirkville.com/how-to-rebuild-your-itunes-library/

And make sure XML creation is on, to help if there's future corruption.

https://www.macworld.com/article/29...library-dealing-with-duplicate-playlists.html
Click to expand...

FrancoisC said:
Does iTunes 12.7 fixes the issue?
Click to expand...

1. Thanks for your links, but rebuilding the library didn't fix the issue.

2. Unfortunately the "bug" is still present on iTunes 12.7.
 
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