In what is becoming a commonplace event, an upgrade borked my copy of iTunes. Specifically, the v7.3.1 upgrade rendered iTunes completely unusable. Coincidentally, that version adds activation support for the iPhone (which I don't have, need, or want). Go figure.
Attempting to load iTunes after the upgrade results in... Nothing. No error, no log messages, just a short blast of disk activity followed by nothing.
Apple Support forums have provided the typical number of helpful suggestions (that would be zero), including everything from reinstalling from DVD to renaming the iTunes folder, starting from scratch, and reimporting the entire library. For your convenience, don't bother trying to reinstall from DVD -- it doesn't fix the problem. Neither does reinstalling from the downloadable installer.
If you're having this problem on OSX (and a lot of people seem to be), this workaround solved my problem without affecting my library:
- Download the iTunes v7.2 disk image from OldApps.com
- Drag the existing iTunes binary from your Applications folder to the Trash (do not delete until the replacement version is working properly)
- Mount the disk image and use the package installer to install v7.2
- Run iTunes, accept the license agreement, and ponder why Apple didn't spend a bit more time testing
If you're still having problems, feel free to add a comment describing your situation. I'll help if I can.
2 comments for this entry ↓
1 dennis.ca » Howto: Fix iTunes 7.3.1 (and Newer) Startup Problem // Oct 7, 2007 at 6:18 pm
[...] July I noted that the iTunes 7.3.1 update (from 7.2) caused the application to refuse to start. My solution at the time was to downgrade back to 7.2 using the installer from [...]
2 linen // Feb 27, 2008 at 9:27 am
That's a horrible problem. I wonder what it is that's setting certain people aside from the rest in terms of getting this to work? Some people seem to have absolutely seamless problems. Others, the problem you encountered. Yet they're running the same OS and everything. It's very strange that this should occur with some and not all. I wonder to myself if it has something to do with other software you've got loaded? I mean, even the processors and those kind of things are exactly the same, yet it works differently on one machine to another. Wierd!
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