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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Itunes Won't Open

mt501 - Nov 9, 2005 - 1:26 am

I'm a Mac OSX user. For some reason, all of a sudden, itunes won't open. the icon at the dock shakes but then stops and the program won't open at all. This happens even if I put in a CD or try to open an MP3 file. I made no changes to the program. I've re-downloaded the program but the same thing happened. Can you help me?

Thanks!

theDan - Nov 9, 2005 - 1:43 am

I'm sure we can. Can you please give me some more info about your system?

About This Mac under the apple menu; give me all the info there.

Also open console.app, located in applications/utilities/

Navigate on the top left side of the console to Logs, and click on that so a list of logs appears.

go to ~/Library/Logs/Crashreporter/itunes.crash.log,

and copy and paste that message to me..

Thanks!

mt501 - Nov 9, 2005 - 2:21 am

Thanks!

This is a Mac OS X 10.2.8 (6r73), Darwin Version 6.8.

The info from console is:

Nov 9 01:36:03 Moshik-Temkins-Computer crashdump: Crash report written to: /Users/moshiktemkin/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/iTunes.crash.log


Do you need anything else?

theDan - Nov 9, 2005 - 2:31 am

Lets see if this is an itunes problem or a quicktime problem.

do a get info (CMD-i) on an mp3, and click on the preview. if the song plays, itunes is the problem, if not, quicktime is shot.

Additional info that would help me: What version of itunes are you using. Do a get info on the application icon in the finder.

how much Ram you have.

and the console report *should* be more detailed. please try and poke around to get some more info on that.


Cheers!

mt501 - Nov 9, 2005 - 2:50 am

The preview plays, so it is itunes...

I do get info on the application icon.

I have 256 ram.

The itunes is 6.0.1, size: 39.7

From the console:
05-11-09 01:14:31.054 iTunes[651] CFLog (0):
CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): plist parse failed; the data is not proper UTF-8. The file name for this data could be:
com.apple.iTunes.plist -- /Users/moshiktemkin/Library/Preferences/
The parser will retry as in 10.1, but the problem should be corrected in the plist.
Nov 9 01:14:33 Moshik-Temkins-Computer last message repeated 2 times

2005-11-09 01:20:56.295 iTunes[653] CFLog (0):
CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): plist parse failed; the data is not proper UTF-8. The file name for this data could be:
com.apple.iTunes.plist -- /Users/moshiktemkin/Library/Preferences/
The parser will retry as in 10.1, but the problem should be corrected in the plist.
2005-11-09 01:21:08.812 iTunes[656] CFLog (0):
CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): plist parse failed; the data is not proper UTF-8. The file name for this data could be:
com.apple.iTunes.plist -- /Users/moshiktemkin/Library/Preferences/
The parser will retry as in 10.1, but the problem should be corrected in the plist.
2005-11-09 01:21:38.405 iTunes[658] CFLog (0):
CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): plist parse failed; the data is not proper UTF-8. The file name for this data could be:
com.apple.iTunes.plist -- /Users/moshiktemkin/Library/Preferences/
The parser will retry as in 10.1, but the problem should be corrected in the plist.
Nov 9 01:21:39 Moshik-Temkins-Computer last message repeated 3 times

2005-11-09 01:36:01.541 iTunes[660] CFLog (0):
CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): plist parse failed; the data is not proper UTF-8. The file name for this data could be:
com.apple.iTunes.plist -- /Users/moshiktemkin/Library/Preferences/
The parser will retry as in 10.1, but the problem should be corrected in the plist.
Nov 9 01:36:03 Moshik-Temkins-Computer crashdump: Crash report written to: /Users/moshiktemkin/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/iTunes.crash.log

Let me know if you need more!

theDan - Nov 9, 2005 - 12:48 pm

Ok then, here we go!

Let's try a few things:

Steps one and two are maintenance steps, and should be run every so often.
____________________________________________
1. Fire up Disk utility, and select your boot drive from the list on the left. Your oot drive is the topmost rightmost icon in the finder, the very top hard drive.
Make sure the first aid tab is selected, and click repair permissions at the bottom. If the log starts going crazy and you end up with a long list of stuff that was fixed, go ahead and try to launch itunes. If it doesn't, keep going.

2. Open up the Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and type the following commands EXACTLY! don't want to sound insulting or pessimistic, but we're entering the dark world of UNIX and one wrong command goes bad, FAST.

sudo periodic daily

which translates to : (SUperuser DO run Periodic scripts for Daily)
it will ask for your password. type it in even though the characters WILL NOT appear as you type them.

Wait for the command prompt to come up again, and then run

sudo periodic weekly
and
sudo periodic monthly

3. Will almost certainly fix: Open up Users/mtemkins/Library/Preferences/. Look for the file com.apple.iTunes.plist. Take that file and move it to the desktop. This will force iTunes to create a new set of preferences next time it launches, essentialy eliminating any corrupt preference problem. If iTunes launches, Go to Preferences under the iTunes menu, and go through there and reset any preferences you have, and trash the file on the desktop.

If it doesn't, Write back and i got more for you to try.

Cheers!

mt501 - Nov 9, 2005 - 1:41 pm

Thanks so much!

The program has opened now. But the itunes library is empty and although upon running, it seemed to be recuperating all the folders and MP3s on my hard drive, these files are still missing from itunes. When I try to open an MP3 seprately, itunes doesn't respond and won't play it or open it.

In other words, the program is now open but doesn't seem to work. Am I doing something wrong?

I am learning a lot, I hope!

theDan - Nov 9, 2005 - 1:48 pm

ok, glad it worked. after which step exactly did it start working?

Also, go up to the file menu, and select import... Navigate the dialog box to ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.xml

This should get all your songs back.

BEFORE DOING THIS! consider opening your itunes library and deleting all the songs in there, but DO NOT MOVE THEM TO THE TRASH !! this is vital...

Let me know!

mt501 - Nov 9, 2005 - 1:50 pm

Oh no...

I already deleted those songs, thinking that it was itunes marketing....

what now??

Thanks!

theDan - Nov 9, 2005 - 2:51 pm

haahahahahhahahhaahahaha...... YOU FAIL AND ARE FOREVER DOOMED TO LIVE WITHOUT MUSIC>>>



..... just kidding. open up the trash, sort by kind, and drag all the music files to a new folder on the desktop called "To be put in itunes"

open up iTunes and go to preferences. under advanced, select importing, and make sure "copy files to iTunes Library" and "Keep itunes Library Organized" are both selected. then select add to library under the file menu, and navigate to the desktop then to that "to put in iTunes" folder. then wait while iTunes does its thing, and then after making sure everything works, delete that folder.
Cheers!

mt501 - Nov 9, 2005 - 5:42 pm

I fear I've deleted those songs (there were 37 of them, non of which I recognized) and purged the trash.

I tried to do what you suggested with the MP3s I have but it didn't work. What now? Please tell me I haven't lost ALL my files because of this. The MP3s all appear to be intact in my hard drive, but when I try to open one, I tunes does not play it and it does not appear in the itunes library...

thanks again for the help!

theDan - Nov 10, 2005 - 12:57 am

ok, well here's what to do (i hope).

use the finder's Find command (CMD-F) to search for .mp3.
drag the results to the aforementioned to-put-in-iTunes folder. repeat with .m4a and .aiff and .wav and .m4p and .m4v and any other extentions you can think of...

open up iTunes and navigate to the folder in the Add to library dialog box.

Cheers!

mt501 - Nov 10, 2005 - 9:11 pm

Dan: thanks for your help again, really. I'm going to recommend you to all my friends.

It seems everything is happening to the computer at once. it's bad:

1. Now, I had serious problems with my mail program because the computer asked me if I want to renew, like a fool I said yes, and before I knew it I lost all my emails and addresses, evrything. I was able to recuperate my mail because I'm on a university server, but I still can't get to my addresses (the address book is empty). Any way to recuperate it?

2. With Itunes, most of the files are back but some seem to have disapperaed forever. I also seem to have duplicated ALL my MP3s, so that I've run out of space on my HD...I've been spending the whole day deleting multiple files, but I can't seem to go beyond the tip of the iceberg. Every time I move an MP3 the file is duplicated. And even if I delete from itunes and purge the trash, it seems there is still the same MP3 on the HD. is there any way I can solve this problem except to do it manually? Also: I've lost all my playlist folders...any way to get them back or are they gone forever?

3. This might not be a solvable problem, but the computer is playing multiple tricks on me. It will shut off for no reason. When I turn back on, sometimes it gives me the old classic run program and nothing else happens, so I have to turn off and on again. Just today it came back on and it had erased my dock and lined it up for me the way it was when I first bought it! What is going on here?

Then there's stuff like word closing by itself, files being mysteriously corrupted, etc. But I won't bore you with all of that.

Thanks so much for helping! Without you, I think I'd have to get a new machine...

Moshik

theDan - Nov 10, 2005 - 10:07 pm

well! o boy, this should be fun. First off, Go into System preferences, and create a new account, make sure it is allowed to administer the computer. Make the user name simple, like test or backup, and the password simple as well. Log out of your account (CMD-Shift-Q), and login as your newly created user. First off, launch disk utility, and run the repair permissions a few times. Run software update, restart, run repair permissions again. Then, the fun starts...

Here we go!

Download iTunes again, perform a fresh install, and repair permissions YET AGAIN. yes, it is tedious, but no, you will not regret it. Launch itunes, and if it asks you to search for mp3's, then you have one of two options.

Yes, and forsake all playlists etc.

No, and work with me to get all of it back.
Let me know.

Cheers !