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In July I noted that the iTunes 7.3.1 update (from 7.2) caused the application to refuse to start under OSX. My solution at the time was to downgrade back to 7.2 using the installer from OldApps.com.

I've been avoiding an upgrade since then, but finally broke down and installed the 7.4.2 update today. Guess what? iTunes refused to start.

Since the problem didn't seem to be widespread among iTunes users, I began to investigate possible causes one-by-one on my system. The culprit turned out to be ShapeShifter. Here's how to fix it:

1. Open your System Preferences.
2. Open the ShapeShifter preferences.
3. Under the Exclude tab, add iTunes. Leave the preferences window open.
4. Start iTunes; you'll notice that the iTunes window will default to the Aqua interface.
5. Accept the iTunes license agreement.
6. Shut down iTunes.
7. Go back to the ShapeShifter Exclude tab and remove the iTunes entry.
8. Start iTunes again; the window should be displayed using the proper ShapeShifter theme.

"Something" with the pre-run license agreement window seems to cause iTunes to abort loading without any useful error message. Regardless, the procedure above fixed the problem for me; hopefully it may help someone else out of a jam.