Itunes Windows 8.1
Karri Weston
I have spent all day trying to solve the iTunes showing my iPhone 12 as a device and allowing me to sync, move music around, etc. My PC is running Windows 11 Version 10.0.22621 Build 22621 and was updated this morning. The last time I was able to complete a sync was October of 2022. I have followed all of the advice on line: I have uninstalled/ reinstalled iTunes (12.12.10.1) several times from the Microsoft Store; I have connected my iPhone directly to my PC with a brand new Apple certified cable; I have checked to see if Apple Mobile Device Services is running (it isn't even there in Services no matter how many times i reinstall); etc. I run iTunes diagnostics and continue to get red dots for "iPod support services is not installed" no mater what I do.
The Microsoft Store version of iTunes is supposed to include all the necessary drivers for iTunes to communicate with a connected device. Sometimes, for some people, that doesn't seem to work. You may be better off removing the version of iTunes that you got from the Microsoft Store, and then install using the alternative standalone installer:
For reasons that are unclear the iTunes installer may fail to install or update specific components such as Apple Application Support or Apple Mobile Device Support, even when undertaking a "clean" install such as that described above in Removing and reinstalling iTunes and other software components. In such cases it may help to extract the individual components from the downloaded iTunesSetup.exe, itunes6464setup.exe oriTunes64Setup.exe file using a utility such as 7-Zip, then install the appropriate .msi file for the missing/outdated component.
Downloading from Apple did get Apple Mobile Devices Services add to Services & Bonjour is now present. However my phone is still not recognized by iTunes and, I can no longer see my iPhone as a drive in File Explorer. When I run the diagnostics in iTunes I now get a red mark beside "iTunes Helper is not running". I went into Services and made sure Apple Mobile Devices Services is running, made sure it was set to Automatic, and stopped and restarted it. I reran diagnostics and got the same result.
Driver is not called MTP USB Device. There are 6 drivers files listed under Portable Devices/Apple iPhone. In addition, under Universal Serial Bus Devices there are multiple file listings for Apple Mobile Device USB Composite Device and Apple Mobile Device USB Device.
It sounds as if you have installed the Apple Music for Windows beta. This hobbles any installed copy of iTunes such that it only manages podcast and audiobook content, which while an improvement over earlier versions that broke iTunes completely, doesn't really let one try and compare one app with the other. Uninstall Apple Music and iTunes should work correctly for you once more.
Yes. If you install either the Apple Music for Windows or Apple TV for Windows preview apps they will cause an existing iTunes installation to either not work at all, or be limited to audiobooks and podcasts. Uninstall the Apple TV app to restore iTunes functionality.
Check the dropdown list as shown near the top left of the image in Wolfy55's post above. If that list shows only Audiobooks and Podcasts then check in Programs and Features and remove any of the following items:
then you've definitely got the Apple Music app installed. You can start typing "Apple Music" in the search window in the task bar, then select the Apple Music icon when you see it and click Uninstall from the options in the right-hand pane.
I have my iphone synced to this laptop, not the cloud. Everything worked perfectly all this time, then a couple weeks ago when I clicked iTunes on so I could sync my phone iTunes popped up in this podcast audiobooks page, I cannot find any tab to switch out.
Even with the itunes program on and I connect my phone, all that happens is the windows pictures program comes on, like always, when I minimize or close it, the itunes screen I have if the podcast audiobook page.
So now iTunes is for podcasts only on my PC? What happened to all the music that was in my library? Why is it called iTunes if you can't get your tunes? These guys at Apple need to find something else to do with their time. Does anyone know how I can retrieve the music I had there? ps I have not downloaded applemusic or any of their other aps, so that's not the problem.
I recently bought a new computer and installed everything from scratch, then imported my music files into iTunes. At first everything seemed normal, then some software update came along, which I installed. Ever since then, iTunes keeps randomly freezing in place (music that plays keeps playing) and requires me to force-quit it via task manager if I want to regain control.
The computer did come with some sort of Antivirus Software by Norton but I can't seem to find how to exclude iTunes folders from its scanning. I am running itunes as an administrator. It also appears as if the freezing happens particularly when I am trying to browse/search/play stuff from my personal library and less when browsing/using Apple Music content.
I had the same problem. There's a temporary quick fix, if you right click and "run as admin", iTunes runs as it should. I kind of got tired of this so I downgraded to 12.13, waiting for a permanent fix from Apple. If we ever get it, seems like its a major issue happening without an official answer from Apple.
This started happening to me after a Microsoft update in summer 2023. I can make iTunes freeze by deleting an item from my Apple Music library, but it also happens randomly. I am not using a third-party antivirus tool with Windows 11.
It's very annoying and I'm annoyed at Apple's inertia. The problem has been discussed in all forums for many months and Apple does what? Apple does nothing! This morning iTunes has already hung up more than 10 times and had to be shut down with the task manager.
It seems to have gotten worse; just going to any Apple Music (For You or Browse) or Store tabs in iTunes, and then returning to the Library tab, it usually freezes soon after, even if I haven't added or removed anything from my library. On the other hand, if I stay on the Library tab, I can sometimes delete quite a few tracks from my library before it freezes.
I had the same problem and noticed that when I do a list of all songs, everything is checked. I pressed CTRl and clicked the first checkbox to uncheck everything and that seems to have fixed the issue.
Agreed unfortunately, although I believe it is freezing less, it does still happen, especially after adding or deleting songs from my Apple Music library. The fact that the CPU usage is zero makes me think it is NOT related to the size of my library being almost the maximum, but is anyone else here almost at the 100,000 item limit?
I'm afraid this doesn't work for me - I have always used the Microsoft store since it appeared there. The problems started in the middle of last year for me and got worse with the latest version 12.13.1.3.
That is very unfortunate. Let's hope Apple fixes the issue soon! I'm really fed up with the constant freezes and have been using Spotify more as a result. I really love my music collection and would greatly prefer to be using iTunes instead.
I've basically resorted back to using Spotify until this bug gets patched up. iTunes is unusable in this state. I spend more time force shutting down and restarting iTunes than I do enjoying my music.
Lately I have kept iTunes on Windows from freezing in a simple but annoying way: never go to the Apple Music tabs (For You, Browse). This means never running an Apple Music search, never right-clicking a track or album or artist to "Show in Apple Music", never clicking "Show more by" at the bottom of an artist display, etc.
I can use Apple Music on Android to search, and I can add to my library from there, as long as I do not have iTunes open at the same time (otherwise there is no error, but the tracks are not actually added).
Annoying but effective. The only freezes in the past several weeks have happened if I accidentally went to an Apple Music tab, and did not immediately exit iTunes. If I am desperate to add something to my library (and the Android app will refuse to add while it is syncing my library, which takes awhile as it is large), I can do that and then immediately exit iTunes to avoid the freeze. (I wait until iTunes disappears from the Windows volume mixer before re-opening.)
Guys this is just more something I wanted to share. I was searching forums back late last year when I noticed an issue where iTunes would just not play sound anymore. It was working fine after my Windows 10 upgrade and then just out of nowhere I could not get sound to play in iTunes. Checked and made sure all volume sliders were up and ran through my playback devices in sound to make sure it was not playing on the wrong device. Sound was working fine on everything else except iTunes. I uninstalled and re-installed iTunes 1 or 2 times as new versions came out in case it was some kind of Windows 10 issue with iTunes but it never fixed it. Finally today while I was going through a forum I noticed someone post about disabling the Sound Enhancer but it was already disabled. But I noticed another setting on the same page. The Play Audio Using: Section was set to Windows Audio Session. I changed it to Direct Sound and tada I can hear sound in iTunes again. This may work on older operating system versions to. Windows 10 was just what I was using.
93ddb68554