iTunes 7 turning out to have major glitches
By Cyrus Farivar 
posted Sep 14th 2006 10:31AM
posted Sep 14th 2006 10:31AM
When we were deep inside Maestro Jobs' reality distortion field on Tuesday, all these new additions to iTunes 7 seemed like significant improvements over its previous version. But not quite 48 hours later, all is not quiet on the iTunes front. Specifically, users on Apple's web forums and our own tipsters are reporting that some new nanos aren't being recognized in Windows iTunes 7, music being played through iTunes 7 sounds "scratchy" at times, CoverFlow doesn't always entirely download properly, and there are allegations that iTunes 7 has become, slow, bloated, and a resource hog. Some of us here at Engadget who have installed iTunes 7 haven't noticed any bad playback or other slowdowns, but have been dissappointed that very few of the albums on our machines have successfully downloaded album art. Furthermore, The Sydney Morning Herald called iTunes 7 a "lemon" yesterday and went on to report that: "Both Mac and PC users appear to be affected by the glitches being reported, and numerous different threads on the Apple discussion forum have described a range of technical issues." Oh, and did we mention that many professionally produced podcasts -- including CNET's Buzz Oud Loud, Popular Mechanics, and our own -- are reportedly not working. If Apple doesn't do something about this pretty soon, people might start calling it iCan't -- as in: "I can't play my music anymore."[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Read - The Sydney Morning Herald
Read - Apple iTunes Forums
Read - Possible solution for nano issue in Windows
Read - Podcasts are broken
Read - Roku SoundBridge iTunes support broken (workaround here)
Working great for me on three macs and one pc
I installed iTunes 7 on my Dell laptop and on my desktop, both running windows. On my laptop it worked fine, although slow. On my desptop it does not work well at all. All my music is scratchy, its beyond slow, and none of the album covers downloaded. The funny thing is that the music files are the same on both. I copied them from the desktop the the laptop after installing. Apple has really skrewed up this time.
What's weird about the artwork is that even when I go through the process of downloading it, it will stall out on artwork it has already downloaded.
I've downloaded about 576 pieces and it should fly through those since I already have them. That hasn't been the case.
First install crashed. Had to install again.
Getting the "clipping" or scratching sounds.
Video didn't work 'till I "downgraded" Quicktime to "safe mode".
Takes forever to load.
Changes my cover art. Adds incorrect cover art (same band, different album).
Will wait a week then downgrade to 6 if a new version doesn't come out.
I installed this latest version (for Windows) and was appalled to hear loads of crackle and pops when my tracks were playing, plus THE SAME WHEN I MOVE THE MOUSE POINTER OVER THE MENU OPTIONS ...What? Yes, exactly ... when I move the fricking curser! There has got to be a major, simple glitch in there and a pretty serious one too. It's really sad because it otherwise seems a great piece of software. Other issues are slow / unpredictable app start up times, freezing and sticking. Is it something to do with the gap-free conversion process?
For now I'm using Windows Media player 11 beta 2.
Running the Windows version and the scratchy sound issue is intermittent but highly annoying. Running Itunes 7 on 2 boxes so far and they both are having the issue
Quote: "...there are allegations that iTunes 7 has become, slow, bloated, and a resource hog."
I thought the previous version didn´t run too well either. I only use iTunes for podcasts. I never use it as a music player on my 2,4 GHz PC because it takes at least 5 seconds to start up. I prefer the Windows Media player which opens much quicker. I´m sure that Microsoft has somehow reserved recources in the OS for the WMP but that´s fine with me.
iTunes also feels slow to me in general. For example, if I click on one of the small triangles to expand the submenu on a podcast, it takes a second to open that. And also to close it again!
Resizing windowspaces in iTunes also stutters.
These performance-issues were already there before the update. My PC is clearly not fast enough but then why can´t you swith to a less demanding version?
A software music player should be one thing first and foremost: fast.
And that is the ONLY important feature iTunes DOESN´T deliver.
On the other hand, WMP 11 has been picking up all sort of album art. It has found some of the most obscure jazz tracks that I have. It even downloaded the album art for some cheap classical music cds I picked up in Taiwan. WMP 11 is quite impressive.
I uninstalled and completely re-installed iTunes and I have not had any of the issues described.
The Apple store doesn't have every album though, so for cover art I still use a little app that gets the artwork from CDNOW (Amazon).
If you are among the few that havent had any trouble. Try turning the volume down in iTunes. It seems anything less than 100% on that slider causes extreme distortion of the sound. I know most people control volume through windows, or a volume nob on thier speakers.
Putting the volume at 100% in iTunes fixes the problem for the messed up audio, however, the album art definitely needs a patch ASAP.
Is there anyone out there that isnt have a problem when running a non-apple computer??
I did notice the scratchy playback, as for the Coverflow issue, i have noticed nothing. Thing is that i hear lots of interferences and splutters as i either move the cursor or open new windows, i dont think its a "minor" glitch, i got WMP 11 which is on BETA testing and it has worked smoothly so far.
I have iTunes 7 on 3 Macs and 1 PC, I haven't experienced any of the problems mentioned and I have been pushing it hard on one of my Macs, downloading a lot of stuff at the same time as watching a movie while filling in cover art that isn't on iTunes.
Oh, and for those complaning that you have to add album art one track at a time, not true. You can Get Info by selecting all the tracks in an album, then drag your image into the Artwork box and click OK. Works flawlessly for me. Amazon is a pretty good resource for album art iTunes doesn't have.
I have it running on a G5 iMac, a G4 Powerbook, and a W2K laptop. The only issue I've had so far is with it getting the album art. I found that if I just keep retrying on the whole collection it eventually starts to fill in. I suspect their servers are getting killed with this new feature and for the first few weeks it'll be buggy.
I also noticed, as others have observed, that some of the album art is flat-out wrong. Worst offender: Bjork Homogenic. Gone is the beautiful blue cover only to be replaced by some ugly white "best of bjork" looking thing. This is especially strange since the store has the correct cover. Clearly they've detached the store from their album art library. Over time I imagine they'll start fixing this stuff.
Overall I really like the new browse by cover features though.
iTunes 7 keeps recognizing my iPod g5 as a g4 b&w, deletes 16+gb of videos and pictures. i disconnect, re attach, and it's ok. i've done a firmware restore and update, it's at 1.2.
some buggy album art issues, you have to batch-add album artwork manually in the tag editor if iTunes doesn't find it. dragging and dropping doesn't work for me in the usual pane.
it's not unlivable, but definately annoying. oh, and itunes stops playing music or videos when updating ANY tags, music or video, not even the one playing.
windows xp home...but all my previous iTunes installs worked fine...
I had the scratchy playback when I first installed iTunes 7. I traced it down to the QuickTime Audio tab where I had previously bumped the audio to 88.2 KHz @ 24-bit for a better noise floor on the Intel HD Audio renderer. Notching it back down to 16-bit seemed to clear up the scratches.
However, when doing the CoverFlip thingie if you really spin it fast the machine will spend too much time making pretties and not enough time filling the audio buffers resulting in some nasty chop. Time to talk to the threading gurus on the dev team I say!
I have a feeling that people are expecting the world from iTunes using crappy setups and old hardware. On a Dual opteron at work, and a G4 iBook and upgraded 1.8ghz Quicksilver at home iTunes 7 works well except for the artwork grabbing.
Don't like it don't use it. Whiners.
No problems here, and I'm listening to the 9.13.06 podcast right now.
I imported a new CD last night and the tracks played back with "scratches". I then re-imported in the MP# format with no problems.
A major problem I am having with 7 is that iTunes cannot locate and play CD tracks in MP3 format from my eMusic folder that were previously in iTunes and I am having to re-import them track by track.
Glad I haven't installed it yet. I always think it's prudent to not become an early adopter. But I have faith that apple will be able to fix these glitches and make itunes 7 something that I'll want to install.
I'm so glad you posted this! I thought I was the only one having these problems. I installed iTunes 7 right away, but I noticed that all of my music had a great deal of static while playing. After looking at all my computer's settings, I found that I could generally fix the problem by upping iTune's volume bar to the max. However, I still occasionally get the scratchiness for no reason, especially when my computer is doing a lot of other things (like opening new tabs in IE7 or getting toast from Windows Live Messenger). After extensive use, iTunes 7 does also seem a bit slower than it used to be. I've also been annoyed by the fact that if your albums don't have the same artist for each song in the album and the album doesn't have an album artist, iTunes groups the songs in the album by artist instead of in order by track number. All in all, while I love iTunes, this latest upgrade has been one big headache.
Craig, wow harsh comments. I want to use iTunes and absolutely love it. iTunes 7 added some great new features. But video does not work for me or a lot of other people. Don't blame me for a crappy setup when others are having the same issues.
i haven't had ANY problems yet on my g4 ibook OR my intel imac.
i've found that itunes 7 plays videos easier, too.
oh, and i'm on a gateway 7426gx laptop. no slouch specs wise, so don't blame the hardware.
the SCRIBBLE SCREEN ahhhh.
We'll no games for me until they solve this problem.
I can't get the stupid program to load because of registry problems on my computer. It won't reinstall quicktime no matter what i do. I have completely untistalled the software and it keeps saying "veriy that you have sufficient access to that key" quicktimeplayerlib.quicktimeplayer app. Then i bought a registry fix/repair program. It stilled didn't work.
I have never been so angry at a piece of software in my life. I am going to buy a creative zen and bash my ipod nano into pieces! Then i am going to mail it to steve jobs with my ipoo. burn in hell apple.
Im having problems too, the sound keeps freezing and its almost like i can hear the data transfer from the HDD ... and the OS seems to run a lot slower. And i havent even tried sync'in yet!
And no i dont have a cheap old PC, i got tons of RAM on a custom built machine!!
iTunes 7 is working perfectly for me on my G5 dual, G4 dual, and powerbook 12".
It was a bit slow and not as responsive as usual when I first updated, but it was spending a lot of time checking gapless playback and looking for album art.
The album art it found (not everything, but far better than any scripts or 3rd party tools I had tried) is quite high resolution compared to the normal outlets (amazon, etc..) Much better quality.
I love the coverflow option.
It also fixed a problem in v6 where my 'party shuffle' mode was not working properly.
There is probably a .1 update coming--doesnt' this happen with all software? Except maybe the M$ stuff, which never gets fixed.
SCRIBBLE SCREEN....
This is also causing my ipod to lock up. I had to revert back to the older version of the firmware
IN ORDER TO GET THE SCRATCHINESS TO STOP ON PC'S, GOTO START MENU>CONTROL PANEL>QUICKTIME.
IN THE AUDIO TAB GO DOWN TO THE OUTPUT SIZE AND CHANGE IT TO 16 BITS.
RESTART ITUNES AND THAT SHOULD FIX THE PROBLEM.
I'm on an XP box and I got the 'scratchy' issue. When it happens, randomly, you can't fix the problem unless you shutdown iTunes and all the helper apps then restart them all.
That, and I can't sync my SLVR at all.
If you want to download the cover art, you need to have the ID3 tags for the album match the album name found in the iTunes Music Store. So.... "Illinoise", not the more correct, "Come On Feel The Illinoise!" But there's nothing stopping you from changing the album name right back once you have the cover art. I recommend using the little arrow thingys next to the artist to discover what album name the iTMS used. It's basically only just slightly faster than downloading the cover art off Amazon.
iTunes 7 on windows does have playback glitches, it sounds scratchy like the volume to the speaker head is maxed even tho it is not, the tracks skip, not a full second just enought to annoy you, and thats all I've noticed, i was wondering if it was something with my dolby decoder, now i know its not.
i hate all of you not experiancing any bugs, i'm running itunes 7 on windows, and i can't play my music because the skipping is so bad, i'm furious!
I can't get it to stop recreating the blasted desktop icon and start menu folder. Way to alienate all the organization freaks out there!
Now... is it easier to wait and redelete each time or just launch WinAmp...? Wow, WinAmp is really quick.
Works Great on my PowerMac G5.
My son's PC is a different story, everything was great until he tried to play a video game while listening to iTunes at the same time. He music speeds up and breaks up like crazy. We Uninstalled 7 and went back to 6. We had to manually and his music library back.
Waiting Patiently for a update.........
Everything seemed fine, until I tried to listen to music and play Warcraft at the same time. :P
My machine is no slouch, I can seamlessly run two instances of WoW while having hogs like Photoshop in the background... yet iTunes can no longer play an MP3 with one instance of WoW???
playing video podcasts in the itunes player takes about 95% cpu on my xp pro. Crashes all the time too. Totally sucks
Also, this is why the open beta's that Microsoft's been doing is a good idea! :p
It's show... *skip* ...show... *skip* ...It's showtime!
Oh yes, I've noticed a glitch; especially the glitch where MY ENTIRE FUCKING MUSIC COLLECTION GOT DELETED. I HATE YOU ITUNES 7.
I have experienced the stuttering while listening to podcasts but I have no problems with downloads. iTunes 7 is not slower, it's faster. It loads faster and it handles allot of music and podcasts alot faster, better and smoother. That was actually the first thing I noticed. iTunes7's response is much better when it comes to big PodCasts collections, at least on Windows. I had no problems downloading "CNET's Buzz Oud Loud", no problem at all, everything works perfect. Just the stuttering sometimes.
Didn t notice anything bad beside the very low INITIAL cover art downloaded.
I re-ran the program today and there's significantly more cover art on my library now. (up about 50%)...
Stil about 75 percent is without art...
The album and artist must have the exact same name as on the iTunes store....
Is it just me or does it seem pretty apparent that the issues are coming from windows machines and not macs, no wonder the mac fanboys are denying apple could have done any wrong.
But after trying all the Apple "R" options, reinstalling iTunes several times, My 1st Gen Nano still won't detect in iTunes (shows in Windows Explorer), except for when my entire system is restarted with the ipod plugged in.
This is obviously a wider spread issues than any mac fanboy will admit to.
Im enjoying mine, the only problems I have are that It keeps automaticly deauthorizing my computer as soon as i authorize it. And then the album art thing is awesome but it cant find quit a few of em, like for example "jesse cook" the picture will show up in the mini-store at the bottom but then say they cant find the album art. They realy should have like a click-and-drag option for draging album art from the store to the song.
I have the same problems but have figured out how to remidy the situation. The scratchy thing is when the volume is not at max. if you turn it all the way up and use another means of volume control it will sound fine. The slowness is attributed to scanning and doing the gapless thing to the whole library. The cover art thing is the only thing that isnt working 100% but then again i cnat expect it to find missnamed files from Kazza.
km
http://digg.com/apple/Video_Proof_Itunes_7_Has_Glitches#c3050187
Here is my video of what the Upgrade, Itunes 7 & Firmware on Windows did to my Ipod.
Give me a Digg if you would, otherwise click through
My initial install was buggy. First it didn't recognize my ipod (3rd gen) at all. But after reading a few help articles, I downloaded itunes 7 again and everything installed fine and no issues. I downloaded the same at home and no problems. WINXP Professional on both counts.
Hey guys, some of the flaws you all reportet regarding covers and games are in fact ony misunderstandings. I figured out the following:
- iPod game message 'not authorized': Try the GET INFO or double click the game and iTunes will tell you that the file is not yet authorized for your machine and ask you if you want to authorize it. (same message as with iTS songs when a computer is not yet authorized). Just tell it to do so and after that it's fine and dandy.
- Cover art1: there is a new field in the ID3 tag info tab, called "Album artist". If all songs of a compilation contain the same info here, it should work fine.
- Cover art2: when in CoverFlow view mode, the display of album art responds to the column you selected in the list view below. A compilation will appear as often as there are artists on it, should you have selected the column ARTIST. You should select the ALBUM column down below to display every album only once. The small cover art box on the bottom left will always show you the exact art for the selected song (IF you put this box in SHOW SELECTED mode). If you still find errors, GET INFO on the song and check the COVERS tab. There may be more than one and iTunes will show only the first by default. You can rearrange them or delete covers for the track right in there.
- Download Cover art: Make sure you have completely filled out the ID3 tags ARTIST, ALBUM, YEAR, TRACK x OF y. It might not work if some of this information is only slightly different than what the album's info in the iTS is.
For me, the software works flawless on 5 machines (G4, G5, dual G5, Intel) and with 4 different iPods (5G, nano, photo, shuffle). I have a large library of 17,000 items and it just worked the same as before. Only faster I must say. Start-up of the program is slower, but the rest is much faster and smoother than before.
You gotta give it some time to change the library on the machine and the iPod. It will take its time to check songs regarding gapless playback and the cover art may appear only a very long time after you asked it for, but the bottom line for me is: this is the best iTunes ever. Thank you Apple!
I tried it and it was super slow on my FX60 / 2GB of RAM system. Also it found almost no album art at all. I listen to lots of electronic stuff that is not mainstream so I guess I was not that surprised that it did not find much of the art.
my SLVR will not play music purchased from version 7.