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iTunes with large library freezes - is it just me?

E

Errk!

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 6, 2006
321
6
I've been having a problem with iTunes that is driving me nuts. I'm not able to pinpoint exactly when it happened, but I think it was around the time v.8 came out.

iTunes freezes every time I start it up for around 7-8 minutes, then runs OK. This happens every time I start up, without fail.

It also freezes after (sometimes during) syncing with both my iPod Nano and iPhone 3G. It does this every time also, but it's inconsistent...sometimes it freezes during the sync, and sometimes it freezes afterward. Sometimes it takes me doing something like playing a song, but it always happens, regardless of whether I disconnect the device or leave it connected. It only does it after the initial sync; if I leave it connected and resync during the same connection it will not freeze again. The devices themselves are unaffected.

My iTunes library is 147gb. The actual library XML file is 69mb. I'd guess this has something to do with it, but if that is the case...what might be the cutoff size where this wouldn't happen any more? I used to have almost 350gb of stuff in iTunes...I've whittled it down this far and it still isn't helping!

I'm running the 1st gen MacBook Pro with 2gb RAM and a 320gb hard drive. I have approximately 30gb free on the drive, so I don't think hard drive space or RAM is the issue (although I have no way of knowing for sure).

Is there anyone else with libraries this size who are or aren't having the same problem? Can I do anything besides delete more music? And if so, how much do I need to delete? Can the XML file be optimized in any way?

ETA: I did the 8.2 update that came out today and it hasn't changed anything.
 
Library of around 1,300 GB (including movies), and an XML file of around 33 MB, but no freezes here...
I don't think you need to delete music, cause that is not the reason according to me.

Good luck,
 
Before the freezes started happening, I was keeping 350gb of content (I think the library file was around 150mb) on an external drive and no freezes at all. So I'm not convinced it's the size of the library (or library file) either.
 
I feel your pain. Running a collection of about 400GBs off a WD external wirelessly through Airport and I had similar issues. I would launch iTunes, start playing a tune and randomly it would stop playing, beachball and the sound would never come back but I could see that the song was playing.

Was completely random and it didn't matter what type of file or bit-rate or file size. When the last iTunes update came out this problem magically went away and it's now working flawlessly *fingers crossed*. Good luck. Thought about re-importing your files and creating a new .xml file?
 
Not mine.. I have over 150gigs just of music and almost 3 terebytes of movies now... and growing.... Not a single hick up. I have all my media running on a server that is hard wired with two computers accessing it along with an appleTV.

Couldn't tell you how big my .xml file is right now. Not at home. Will post it later if you need me to.
 
rhett7660 said:
Not mine.. I have over 150gigs just of music and almost 3 terebytes of movies now... and growing.... Not a single hick up. I have all my media running on a server that is hard wired with two computers accessing it along with an appleTV.

Couldn't tell you how big my .xml file is right now. Not at home. Will post it later if you need me to.
Click to expand...

If you wouldn't mind, I'd appreciate it. Although this seems to indicate that the problem does not lie in the size of the library.

I'm concerned with recreating the XML file because I don't want to lose my song ratings. This is extremely important to me - I don't even really care about play counts. Playlists are important too because I sync my iPhone and Nano to playlists that contain thousands of songs...rebuilding that would be an insane pain.

Is there a recommended way to rebuild/fix/repair my library XML file without losing playlists or ratings? I'm getting desperate here.
 
You could try downloading a fresh copy of iTunes and use your current .xml file to see if the same problem exists. That might help point the finger to the .xml file?
 
The more I look into it, the more it looks like I just need to have iTunes create a new library XML file. This is going to suck.

Here's what I'm thinking of doing. Let me know if it won't work:

1) Backup all existing library files
2) Generate text menus of all playlists so I can manually recreate them.
3) remove/delete the library files from the Music folder
4) restart iTunes (I'm assuming it will auto import my songs, movies, and iPhone apps)

And I'm also assuming in doing this that if I run into any problems I can just take the old library files and put them back.

Is this OK? I'm dreading this.
 
Looks like I fixed the problem, thanks to this article:

How to re-create your iTunes library and playlists

I didn't need to delete, edit, or recreate the XML library file, thankfully. I did just what it said and everything is working great. And as a bonus - my iPhone is scrobbling on last.fm! That hasn't worked in ages.

The only drawback is that after I imported the XML file again, I opened iTunes and my iPhone apps where gone. They weren't gone from my computer - I dragged them back into iTunes easily enough, but the problem is that the first time I connected my iPhone after restoring, it wanted to delete the music from my iPhone in order to sync with iTunes; music syncing options were greyed out until I did this. I'm getting the same thing with the apps now, so I'll need to let iTunes delete and re-add them. This is really crappy for apps such as games where I have information saved in them. I'm headed to the Apple Store later to have a Genius look at this and see if we can't avoid having to do that.
 
rhett7660 said:
That is great! Glad to see you got it to work!
Click to expand...

Thanks. :D

Another note - I went to the Apple Store to try and get Apps to transfer from my phone to my Mac so I could sync to my "new" library. Unfortunately he was no help...I know they can't know everything, but the guy I talked to a) didn't know where downloaded apps were kept and b) didn't know that saved info and data within an app was not transferred during a sync. Pretty scary.

Anyway I thought about it and just deleted the apps I wanted to keep on my phone and just deleted them from my Mac, and that seemed to do the trick.

So everything is up and running. I tried to document everything I did hear in hopes it might help someone else with the same problem down the line.
 
Hi

Just thought I would give this old thread a bump to see how iTunes performs on the latest macs.

I'm not near my mac at the moment but I wondered if a few of you would be so kind to give me some numbers of yours

1) processor, ram, hdd size and type
2) size of itunes library file / xml file
3) time it takes to delete a podcast or song

I have a large podcast library and deleting one podcast currently takes about 50 secs, and downloading takes ages because I assume it's and extra 50 secs to add each new entry

I know I will benefit from a newer mac as mine is an old late 2009 Mini but if spending £1300 is only going to get this down to 20 secs or so it's not worth it as I only really use it for this one task.

Thanks in advance
 
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