iTunes 8.1 problems start appearing

The new version of iTunes has a fair share of problems. Previously, MacFixIt reported on some people not being able to access the iTunes store, which for the most part was from initial glitches with the store server upgrades that resolved themselves after a few hours.

Now that the software has been out for a day or two, many other people are reporting various problems, with the primary one being the program crashing after it's launched. In some cases it will crash almost immediately, and other times, it will crash after being open for a minute or two. This may be related to the program automatically trying to access the store to download podcast updates, which coincides with other reports of the program crashing when downloading any content from the Apple store. These problems may be related to server upgrades, though the root cause for these problems is not yet apparent.

Some other people are having problems with the program crashing after other seemingly routine items. Several have had it crash after attaching iPods, and others have noticed crashing when accessing the iTunes help files. In all instances where iTunes is crashing, it may help to remove the iTunes preference file, or try the program in another account (create a new temporary one if necessary) to test user-specific settings. The preferences are located in the /username/Library/Preferences/ folder and are called "com.apple.iTunes.plist". Remove that file from the preferences folder and restart the program to refresh it. For iPods and iPhones specifically, crashing may be from some problem with how the iPod is set up, and unless you have the iPod customized in specific ways, you might try restoring it and allowing iTunes to set up the device and synchronize it again.

Beyond iTunes crashing, there are a variety of problems that have cropped up for people. One of these is the iTunes store not authenticating, and along with this behavior may or may not be an error that references a missing iTunes component. If any part of iTunes is corrupt, missing, or otherwise inaccessible, a reinstallation of the program should usually clear this issue. Download a fresh copy of the installer from http://www.iTunes.com/download/ and before installing remove the old iTunes program from your Applications directory. Then run the installer. You might also try running the installer when booted into Safe mode (hold the Shift key at bootup) and then run a disk check and permissions fix using Disk Utility before running the installer. This will ensure all critical system components are properly accessible before the update is applied.

Additional bugs found so far also include the visualizer and new genius features. It appears at least for some people that the iTunes visualizer does not seem to be working properly in iTunes 8.1. When you enable the Classic visualizer and start it up, it will stick in one mode and not change automatically. Usually this feature can be enabled or disabled by pressing the M key to toggle between automatic and frozen modes for the display. However, this doesn't seem to be working anymore. You can still switch the view and colors by pressing the Q, W, A, S, Z, and X keys to toggle between various settings for the visualizer, but it seems this bug will have to be addressed by Apple in another update. Deleting the iTunes preference files does not help this issue, and new user accounts are also affected.

With regard to the Genius enhancements, many people were expecting to have Genius functionality enabled for TV shows and movies, but this feature either is not working or has been pulled at the last minute since when you go to the Movies and TV Shows sections, the Genius buttons are not available. The mention of these features has also disappeared from the Apple Web site, so we hope they will be added in the next version of iTunes.

Lastly, there may be problems with iPod and iPhone synchronization. These problems are not widespread, but one or two people have noted that after installing iTunes, the calendars have stopped synchronizing. If this happens, you might try resetting the synchronized information on the iPod/iPhone, which can be done either in iTunes or in the iSync utility,. Alternatively, restoring the iPod and setting it back up from the factory defaults may also help.

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