Troubleshooting iTunes 3: Sound Cut-off

Several readers on Apple's discussion boards, and reader reports to MacFixIt, detail a problem where iTunes' sound routeinely cuts off in a variety of scenarios. In some cases, users are performing other processor intensive tasks when the sounds drops, in others iTunes is the only application running. Joel Shoemaker reports:

"In my case the problem most often occurs when I open and switch to another program such as IE, Mail, or Palm Desktop, for example. However, just a moment ago, as I was reading the messages posted in this thread, the sound in iTunes just cut out completely, for absolutely no reason. To temporarily fix the problem all I have to do is pause then unpause the MP3 file playing (which is always located on my HD; I never play any CD's within iTunes), but that sure is annoying, especially since it's now happening more and more often.

"Thus far I've tried booting into single user mode and running fsck -y to check HD integrity (everything appears OK), deleting iTunes' preferences files, as well as reinstalling iTunes 3.0.1. Problem still remains, though."

Another reader confirms that in most instances of this problem, only iTunes' sound is cut off - not the entire system's:

"When the sound cuts out while a song is playing within iTunes, the main OS X 'system' sound still works. I verified this by checking the 'Play feedback when volume keys are pressed' box within the Sound control panel (Sound Effects tab). Then, even though iTunes' sound has cut out (though the song, of course, is still playing according to the progress bar), if I use the volume keys on my keyboard I get the feedback "clicking" sound when I turn the volume up and down."

The problem does not seem to be specific to one iTunes function - it has been reported to affect playing MP3s, CDs, or streaming sources. Some users found resolution by reverting to iTunes 2.0.4.

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