iTunes 10 Stuttering on new Mac Mini

hyperpower

So recently I purchased one of the new Mac Minis - so far I haven't done much with it and only installed Steam, VLC, Transmission and iTunes 10. Following this I have done the standard Mac updates (from the apple menu)

Now, whenever playing songs in iTunes any song I play periodically stutters and freezes - even when iTunes is the only program open etc. The majority of my music library is 320kbps .mp3 with variable bit rate (imported in iTunes). This wasn't happening before and has only just started to occur (everything is a fresh install, less than a week old).

Any suggestions as to why this is occurring? I have since installed songbird and have no issues. I haven't had a PC freeze when trying to play an .mp3 since 1999 so it's pretty frustrating :P

Apologies in advance if there is detail missing - I have broken my wrist and typing is a chore to say the least lol

Big Red Tie

reinstall itunes?

hyperpower

Tried that and have updated to iTunes 10.1 to no luck

maximumzero

Make sure you run "repair permissions" on your Hard Drive from Disk Ulity. Don't think that's causing the problem but couldn't hurt.

Also install Onyx and run the whole suite of cleanups.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11582/onyx

Finally check activity monitor to see what's up with CPU/RAM usage out of curiosity.

hyperpower

Thanks for the suggestion maximumzero
Tried doing that but to no avail, last night I formatted the drive and reinstalled os X.
All was going well - I reinstalled iTunes, played a song. No stuttering.

I then tried to sync my iPhone, did the backup etc. From that point on the system has been slow, stuttering mp3s, slow VLC, slow typing (start typing a word, long pause and the word appears). This occurs even after a restart and with the iPhone unlugged. I had my iPhone synced with windows previously.

Theory I am working on is that the mac is struggling to index (Spotlight I believe?) whatever files are part of the iPhone backup - thus bringing my system to a halt.

Restoring the machine now, not gonna plug the phone in and will see what happens.

ben0207

hyperpower wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestion maximumzero
Tried doing that but to no avail, last night I formatted the drive and reinstalled os X.
All was going well - I reinstalled iTunes, played a song. No stuttering.

I then tried to sync my iPhone, did the backup etc. From that point on the system has been slow, stuttering mp3s, slow VLC, slow typing (start typing a word, long pause and the word appears). This occurs even after a restart and with the iPhone unlugged. I had my iPhone synced with windows previously.

Theory I am working on is that the mac is struggling to index (Spotlight I believe?) whatever files are part of the iPhone backup - thus bringing my system to a halt.

Restoring the machine now, not gonna plug the phone in and will see what happens.

Just give it time to index Spotlight. It always takes ages first time, and is always a bit lurchy.

maximumzero

hyperpower wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestion maximumzero
Tried doing that but to no avail, last night I formatted the drive and reinstalled os X.
All was going well - I reinstalled iTunes, played a song. No stuttering.

I then tried to sync my iPhone, did the backup etc. From that point on the system has been slow, stuttering mp3s, slow VLC, slow typing (start typing a word, long pause and the word appears). This occurs even after a restart and with the iPhone unlugged. I had my iPhone synced with windows previously.

Theory I am working on is that the mac is struggling to index (Spotlight I believe?) whatever files are part of the iPhone backup - thus bringing my system to a halt.

Restoring the machine now, not gonna plug the phone in and will see what happens.

Indexing Spotlight will definitely slow your computer down. Leave it on overnight and let it do it's thing.

Also while I'm here, make sure you grab an external hard drive and set up a Time Machine backup. It'll save your life one day. (It saved mine)