"iTunes has stopped working" - that's funny, when did it ever start working (ha ha ha). iTunes, which has now caused more man-hours of computer suffering than all of Windows combined, is currently crashing immediately upon open. Show details: APPCRASH, 11.2.2.3, etc., Close, Close, its gone. Let's go to the Googles.
Of course, many people have tried uninstalling and reinstalling, even going so far as to uninstall and reinstall all Apple software, but that doesn't seem to usually fix the problem, so I'm not even going there.
First action I can try is to copy QTMovieWin.dll from one dir to another, nope.
Next, try remove iTunes Preference files from:
c:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Apple Computer\iTunes\iTunesPrefs.xml
c:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes\iTunesPrefs.xml
one at time. I copy them to d:\tmp first.
Trying C:\Users\zbekesi\AppData\Local\Apple Computer\iTunes first. Start iTunes, get message Bonjour disabled, iTunes is open, and stays open, and notifies of update. I wonder if my podcasts are OK, but not in list view, I notice its downloading podcasts, to I go to the download viewer, and crash. Restart, turn on sidebar, ok. Starts downloading again, check download screen again it crashes. Restart iTunes, its gone back to crashing immediately again.
Let's try the other prefs file in C:\Users\zbekesi\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes\iTunesPrefs.xml. Let's just remove both, copying the other one to /tmp also.
Now on startup I'm show the license agreement to agree to, Bonjour disabled, share library? no, default view, offer to update iTunes to 12.1.2. What the heck, let's just do that. If I have to reformat my iPod Shuffle, I don't care. My iPad is far gone beyond syncing it doesn't matter anymore.
Apple Software Update, yes to iTunes 12.3.1 (huh, iTunes said 12.1.2), no to iCloud for Windows (as if).
I wouldn't even contemplate this if my years of podcast downloads weren't backed up, so risk is minimal.
Nobody expects to suddenly be taxed with an hour spent trying to fix iTunes.
This just keeps getting worse. Apple Software Update craps out with: "iTunes" has an invalid signature. It will not be installed.
Let's go to manual dl. Run it, it protests that iTunes is running! Start up taskmgr, and yep, iTunes still running. Kill that, and helper, run iTunes6464Setup.exe again, no error message this time. Uncheck every option.
Why is this taking so long, I recently installed mySQL faster than this.
Finally. Let's delete those iTunes prefs again, just in case.
Similar startup, update VoiceOver. Podcast library looks intact, but a quick check reveals some podcast settings have changed. Plug in shuffle, seems to sync ok. Let's fix settings.
For each podcast, click on Settings, should be:
Limit Episodes Off
Download Episodes On
Delete Played Episodes Off
All together found two that had Limit Episodes set to Most Recent. Not a lot, but why did it change any?
Oh for fucks sake where is the sync button - off all the things to change, why remove that?! A quick look online, there are whole articles dedicated to the latest iTunes screwups.
I've already lost an hour I didn't budget for on this, I'm going to just reload my iPod for the day and revisit this later. Maybe I just need abandon this and go back to iTunes on my Mac, and maintain separate archives again.
Fucking iTunes.
You've got to be fucking kidding me. Another half hour, and I've barely got a few podcasts synced, and now a new problem, when you click on the little checkbox next to a podcast so it will sync, it isn't checked but the one above it is. And you can't unselect it now. Is this the mouse or iTunes?
At least when I search for this, other people have had this problem too, and in iTunes 12. Unfortunately, not many people have had this problem, so there is no ready solution.
Upgrading iTunes equals regret every time, what was I thinking.
It's worse than I can't even check the boxes I want, the sync button does nothing, it even unchecks what I checked.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6745117
Nobody suggest this, but I'll try resetting the iPod; at least its something easy I can try. Nope, won't synch. You check off a podcast, hit sync, it seems to start going through the motions but nothing transfers, it unchecks what you checked.
Another easy experiment: let's try it on a Mac with iTunes 11. It works. At least I can use my iPod again.
I'm just going to leave it like this until I can reinstall, and if so, reinstall 11. Checking the software archive to see if I even have a copy of 11... yes. Can I get older versions directly from Apple? Yes: https://support.apple.com/downloads/itunes. Thank you for not hiding those, Apple.
2016.03.06
Its been long enough that I've mostly forgotten the suffering that is iTunes, and I'm willing to try and move it all back to the PC again.
Update PC iTunes to current (12.3.2) - really, iTunes, you need to restart Windows? Really.
After restart insert shuffle - long pause, finally detected. You can't click on the device in the side pane. You can click on sub-items, but not on it. Its formatted to the Mac iTunes, but it can read what's on there.
OK, click on ipod icon up top, now you can see the summary page. Let's do Restore iPod. So close, so close... then fail. You can't check or uncheck boxes even slightly consistently. If it was just askew that would be fine, but it just doesn't work at all.
google 'itunes can't uncheck podcast'
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6745117?start=0&tstart=0
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6838130?start=0&tstart=0
https://discussions.apple.com/message/27590799#27590799
This problem has been going on for over a year.
There seem to be some incidents going much further back, if its the same problem.
It doesn't seem to be a very common problem, only affecting hundreds of people (willing to complain online), so maybe just keeps going unnoticed.
One proposed workaround is to go to view podcasts, then drag individual podcasts over to the the device on the left. Seems to work, let's test.
It kind of works, but its actually less hassle to maintain two different iTunes, one for listening, one for backup.
2016.09.19
MacBook failing, so going back to main PC to use iTunes. I still have some of the above problems, particularly you can select a specific episode of a podcast to listen to, or rather you can but when you sync it becomes unchecked and no transfer takes place. What you can do is Sync Podcasts, Automatically include all unplayed episodes of selected podcasts. That at least will transfer.
2016.12.15
Going to try and go 1 machine 1 library multiple devices (again).
Update iTunes to latest: 12.5.4.42
Using my old nearly dead green Shuffle, Restore iPod.
Try and sync some specific podcasts, the hitboxes are still messed up. With some trial and error, get some podcasts synced.
Let's check the googles once more. Finally, some interesting ideas: make sure font scaling is 100. I've been using 125, and I've had nothing but weirdness from Chrome, but I've been dealing with it.
Wow - that was it.
Something so simple is usually the cause of such stupidity. Mine, iTunes, or Windows, I don't care anymore, it just works now.
