September 30, 2005 4:06 PM PDT

iTunes 5.0.1 Special Report: Some CD drives unable to import/play tracks; slow importing

by CNET staff

We've received several reports indicating that owners of systems with optical drive mechanisms before a certain, unspecified date are having trouble importing tracks from CDs under iTunes 5.0.1.

MacFixIt reader Jay Nierenberg writes:

"A major bug (albeit for only some) has not been fixed. I have a PowerBook G4 667 that works perfectly. Since installing iTunes 5.0, CDs won't play or import in iTunes. The CDs are fine and my drive is fine (songs from CD will play in Quicktime and other apps). I have posted the bug on the Discussions message board at Apple.com and have received several replies from others experiencing the same problem. My suspicion is that iTunes 5 is not compatible with some of the older CD drives used primarily in older PowerBooks."

Meanwhile, some users are reporting slower import speeds using the same hardware under iTunes 5.0.1. One reader writes:

"I use an iMac g4 1ghz with 768 of ram - when using os 10.2.8 with iTunes 4.9 import speed was between 7 and 10x - since upgrading to os 10.4.2 with iTunes 5.0.1 (4) import speed has slowed to between 1 and 3x - I called apple today and a first line tech ran me thru the various parts of the activity monitor and said in the end that this speed slowdown between the two systems was normal."

MacFixIt reader Ian Fraser describes his experience with the issue in which -- like some other readers -- attempts to play CDs resolve in freezes in iTunes.

He writes:

"I have an issue with iTunes 5.0 and now again with 5.0.1. When I insert a commercial or self-burned CD in the internal drive in my Powerbook G4 running OSX 10.4.2, iTunes loads the tracks from the CD with titles, but will not play any of the tracks. When you hit play, iTunes doesn't respond and freezes. When I Force Quit, the message reads iTunes not responding. All other aspects of iTunes appear to be working as normal...downloading from the store, and playing tracks already in my library. Exactly the same problems occur in the new version of Quick Time Player 7.0.2. I spent an hour on the phone with Apple support yesterday, and they were unable to locate or solve the problem. However when I opened the latest version of Toast Titanium and loaded tracks from the same CD, they played normally with no problems."

Another reader corroborates:

"I can't get any CD to play. When I insert a CD, it appears in iTunes and then crashes iTunes. You also have to force quit the application about 3 times or just let it sit until iTunes dies. I can get CDs to play on my external LaCie drive so it has to be the internal drive. Well I guess it is back to iTunes 4.9 until Apple gets it fixed."

Tim is one reader who had the issue on a newer system. He writes:

"CDs neither import nor play on my fairly recent (1.33Ghz) PowerBook. iTunes crashes after each song finishes. It will import 1 song at a time this way. Once imported, everything plays fine. The same version (5.0.1) on my old 400Mhz G4 tower plays and imports with no problem."

Possible fix -- changing bitrate settings It appears that in some cases, changing the bitrate settings for importing data from CDs can allow the process to occur where it otherwise wouldn't.

One MacFixIt reader writes:

'My other computer has iTunes 4.x -- no problem. I usually use a custom setting of 16 or 32 kbps, then join the tracks. In 5.0.1 this combination caused unknown error (-51) on about every third track. Then same CD would be OK on my other computer with earlier version. However, I discovered that, in 5.0.1 by using the new setting for Podcast" in the importing prefs everything imports just fine. I don't think the version 5 likes 'custom' settings for bit rate."

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