iLife '04: The Missing Manual

Chapter 30. Troubleshooting iTunes

When you get right down to it, iTunes is a glorified database. It’s a list—a searchable, sortable list—but a very high-profile one with some stiff competition (at least in the Windows world, where iTunes is also popular). For these reasons, Apple has put a lot of effort into making iTunes rock-solid. Not a lot goes wrong in iTunes.

But when the planets don’t align your way, may this chapter be your guide to iTunes wholeness.

Rule 1: Get the Latest

Upgrading to iTunes 4.6 or later is the most important step you can take. It cures a long list of glitches that were possible in 4.5 and earlier versions. For example:

• You can’t listen to someone else’s shared music over the network if they have a big music library. (The “Loading” message appears, but the shared library never does appear.)

• iTunes suddenly crashes when you try to listen to certain radio stations (those whose Web addresses don’t begin with http://).

• You try to share music with a version of iTunes before 4.5 (and get a “not compatible with this version of iTunes” message).

In these cases and many others, just downloading the free update to iTunes 4.6 or later solves the problem.