Wednesday, May 30, 2012

iTunes Starts At Will

Most of my (non CD ripping) work is done on a Mac Mini. One of the great things about the Apple platform is that it just works. Having faith in Apple I tend to just accept the messages to say there are new versions of the operating system or key applications and install them soon after they become available. Which is what I did yesterday, to a whole batch of updates - including to iTunes.

No fuss, no drama. I had to restart the computer (not always required) but carried on just as normal. Then a horrible screeching sound, starting quietly and getting louder. For some reason iTunes had fired up and started playing the first track in the library, which happened to be an audio book for kids about a scary spider - and the weird sound was a special effect that opens the tale. Mystery explained, shut down iTunes and carried on.

That same thing happened every few minutes yesterday afternoon. And evening. Finally I took the hint and left iTunes running. Spent most of the evening thinking "It's never done that before". And it's done it again this morning.

I don't know if this stems from something in iTunes, the operating system, Safari or OS X. The library to which iTunes presently points is stored on an external USB hard drive. What happens is that apparently spontaneously iTunes loads, opens and starts to play the first track in the library.

From yesterday's experience the phantom iTunes start doesn't seem directly coincidental to any other action such as accessing the external drive, opening a particular program or any hardware related action. I went out to the Post Office, leaving a silent office, and came back to find iTunes was open and telling a story.

If this is happening to you I regret I can't explain what's going on, or how to stop it.

1 comment:

import dvd to itunes said...

This is really helpful. It's just great that you i can find this kind of information online. Thanks, Jeff.