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I recently loaded a few hundred files into iTunes, and it's going through the paces of matching and/or uploading those files. But I've run into a problem, the process becomes stuck on Step 3 and never advances after hours of execution.

3 hours later... no progress!

After opening Activity Monitor, iTunes is taking anywhere from 300% - 400% CPU time, and an absurd amount of memory / active threads. Note that iTunes functions perfectly fine during this time, except for the iTunes Match process.

When I ran into this problem previously, certain songs were having trouble uploading. I had resolved the problem by creating an AAC version via the right-click options and deleting the original version. In these cases, I think the files were ALWAYS mp3.

However, the problem has resurfaced, but with a much more obnoxious issue. When iTunes Match appears stalled and exhibiting the same high-CPU issue, I open Activity Monitor, select iTunes and click 'Inspect'. Over on the Open Files and Ports tab, I see a number of sockets, network connections, and 3 open files. These files are not only m4a / AAC files, but have already been matched / uploaded.

These files will continue to show up each time I Force Quit and re-open iTunes, restarting the iTunes Match process. It isn't until I use the aforementioned workaround on the affected files that a new batch of files is shown, or I actually make some progress on the iTunes Match view. (At least until it hangs on another song...)

Why is iTunes opening, and more importantly hanging, on files it's already processed?

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  • Have you tried profiling it under Activity Monitor? – Shane Hsu May 31 '13 at 4:07
  • Imma close this because it was ultimately resolved in a future release of iTunes. – Jason Salaz Dec 12 '13 at 0:12
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    Annnnd I don't have a diamond anymore so I can't close it. Whoops. Also, none of the answers fit. – Jason Salaz Dec 12 '13 at 0:12
  • I can close it, but why not document that it got fixed by time or an update and select that answer? – bmike♦ Dec 12 '13 at 4:20
  • Because in addition to losing my diamond, I've obviously forgotten the best way to do that. (e.g. do exactly what you just said). Thanks Mike, you can clear the flag. – Jason Salaz Dec 12 '13 at 21:42
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Have you tried deleting the iTunes preferences files? You can find them on ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist and com.apple.iTunes.plist.lockfile Erasing them will force iTunes to "start fresh" and hopefully fix the problems you have. It won't delete your data (songs, playlists, etc), so it's quite safe to try it.

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  • There are no iTunes preferences related to iTunes Match, besides possibly the fact of whether or not it's enabled. But good god I hate reconfiguring iTunes on new computers. This problem was actually resolved as of the previous release of iTunes (e.g. before 11). It behaves oddly, restarting the match process every 3 songs uploaded, but it works. Can't complain about something being more reliable at the expensive of taking longer. – Jason Salaz Dec 6 '12 at 4:39
  • sorry, but where do I find this file ? : ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist and com.apple.iTunes.plist.lockfile – user50359 May 30 '13 at 23:01
  • ~ is shorthand for your home directory (ex. /Users/Laurent ). You can also open Finder, click the 'Go' menu, and choose 'Go to folder', and paste in ~/Library/Preferences. – Jason Salaz Jun 1 '13 at 18:55

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