iTunes and the 'spinning beach ball' of death

[Haydn]

you can roll back itunes, though, if you can get your hand on the older installer package. (just remove the new one from the applications folder before you run the installer.)

I eventually found an installer for iTunes 4.7, only to find that my iTunes library disappeared and was replaced by a blank one - making iTunes virtually unusable with my music. So I'm going to tread carefully here

[dogpossum]

I had these same problems when I upgraded to itunes... 7.1? I think it was... I tried going back to the previous itunes, but it didn't work (I did the whole copy everything, reinstall, etc but... can't remember why it didn't work, but it didn't). I hung in there til the next round of itunes came out with the fixes.

Backupbackupbackupbackup.

As an interim measure I'd make sure I'd restarted my laptop before I DJed (I tend to just close the lid and then open it again when I want to use the computer - I rarely close the whole thing down completely). I also found it really important to keep a certain amount of space clear (ie I didn't keep the laptop full as a goog), and to not use any app other than itunes when DJing.
All of this was way uncool, but it got me through - and I was DJing once a week for the month or so. Talk about freaking out while DJing. That beach ball is a bitch.

I'm sure there are fancier ways of coping with this, but I'm just a User, not a Support dood (that's what partners are for, right?).


....on a side note, I'm a big static person - giving a conference paper the other day I touched the track pad on my macbook to change a slide and delivered it such a massive static shock it froze the trackpad and the whole laptop shuddered and wouldn't move for a minute or so. There's nothing worse than standing in front of an international audience looking at a totally frozen computer and thinking "Did I just zap that thing with the electricity stored in my own body? I need to explore other career options".

[lipi]

As an interim measure I'd make sure I'd restarted my laptop before I DJed (I tend to just close the lid and then open it again when I want to use the computer - I rarely close the whole thing down completely). I also found it really important to keep a certain amount of space clear (ie I didn't keep the laptop full as a goog), and to not use any app other than itunes when DJing.

can't resist:

dork mode on.

sounds like something (itunes? if you had nothing else open and it still hung, then itunes. otherwise, it's far more likely to be firefox or a shareware app.) was leaking memory.

dork mode off.

[Haydn]

I saw a support guy at the Apple Store today about this problem.

He said it was not a known bug. He suggested I try creating a different 'user' on the Mac, and trying iTunes under the new user - if it's OK on the new user, it would suggest a problem with the system set-up (system preferences). He said I could install an earlier version of iTunes, but the iTunes library is not backwards-compatible (meaning I would lose all my playlists). So he suggested if the problem is still there under the new 'user', that I re-install my original OS X 10.4 from CDs, using the 'Archive and Install' option. I would then have an earlier OS X 10.4, and could upgrade it to the latest 10.4 one version at a time.

So I'll try the above and let you know the outcome ...

[Haydn]

I think I may have fixed my problem. I've listened to 3 or 4 CDs now with no problems.

I have managed to re-install iTunes 7.4, and that seems to have fixed it. Contrary to what Apple told me, my iTunes 7.5 library seems to work with 7.4. And it looks as though there is a bug in iTunes 7.5 which made my Mac hang intermittently when playing tracks from CD.

From memory, this is what I did to downgrade from iTunes 7.5. to iTunes 7.4:

1. Downloaded iTunes 7.4 from this web site (the only source I could find) -

http://oldapps.com/download_iTunes_mac.php

I'm pretty sure it's 7.4 I downloaded, not 7.4.2

2. Made a copy of my iTunes library

3. Deleted iTunes 7.5

When doing this, I had to find a way of deleting a hidden system file called the 'iTunes Helper'. By searching online, I eventually found a way of doing this.

4. Installed iTunes 7.4

5. Copied my original iTunes library back into the iTunes folder and opened it.

Obviously, if you're doing this yourself, it's at your own risk, and don't forget to back up first!

[CafeSavoy]

I use iTunes on an iMac G5. Recently, I've updated OS X and iTunes.

Since doing this, I have frequent problems when ripping tracks from CDs - I regularly get the 'spinning beach ball' of death. When this happens, the machine just hangs and I have to re-start. It was fine until I updated the OS X and iTunes. Any suggestions, please ?

Incidentally, how much ram do you have and how much free space on your hard drive?

[Haydn]

I use iTunes on an iMac G5. Recently, I've updated OS X and iTunes.

Since doing this, I have frequent problems when ripping tracks from CDs - I regularly get the 'spinning beach ball' of death. When this happens, the machine just hangs and I have to re-start. It was fine until I updated the OS X and iTunes. Any suggestions, please ?

Incidentally, how much ram do you have and how much free space on your hard drive?

1.25Gb ram and 3Gb free HD space out of 74Gb (will increase to 4-5Gb free). But I have solved the problem by downgrading to iTunes 7.4

[trev]

Updating to the recently released iTunes 7.6 has fixed my spinning beach ball of death problems. Version 7.5 must have been a bit buggy.

[CafeSavoy]

Updating to the recently released iTunes 7.6 has fixed my spinning beach ball of death problems. Version 7.5 must have been a bit buggy.

Nice tip. I will have to try the update then. I had updated to 7.5 to work with the new nano, but it has been slow.