Tip: If iTunes won’t quit
Occasionally, when using iTunes (if iTunes has previously crashed), I come across a fault: iTunes won’t quit, it just reloads itself each time I try to close it. This issue also prevents my Mac from restarting/rebooting unless I do a quick and dirty cold restart (either using the 10s power button method or dropping to a terminal window and issuing a ‘sudo shutdown -r now‘ terminal command).
Further investigations have discovered that the SRS Labs iWow plug-in (see my previous post) is to blame:
Here is some background
… The latest version of iWow (2.0.2.255) has a process called “genredetection.” If iTunes 7.5 (in Leopard) quits unexpectedly, the genredetection process doesn’t quit and forces iTunes to automatically relaunch and spawns a second genredetection process. Here is where the problem starts. Now, whenever you try and quit iTunes normally, either via command key or file menu, the genredetection process continue to force iTunes to relaunch and continues to respawn new processes of itself. At this point, iTunes becomes practically un-quitable.
You now have to go into the Activity Monitor application and force quit all the “genredetection” processes that have spawned and only then can you actually quit iTunes…
The easiest thing to do as, mentioned above, is to open activity monitor and quit the ‘genredetection’ process(es) – iTunes will then exit normally. This is my favoured method. If you prefer, you can temporarily disable the iWow plug-in from within iTunes and then quit iTunes (Note: this then requires you to re-activate the plug-in next time you load iTunes).
Either way it pretty easy to resolve and, for me anyway, is certainly not a reason to avoid using iWow plug-in. The enhanced audio is so good that I’m prepared to put up with the occasional hiccup.
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: rt: If iTunes won't quit http://tinyurl.com/9c7mly from: @swimboy1 01/06/10 12:47pm
awesome tip
the only site that has helped me with this annoying issue
agree with you about the audio – its worth it isnt it?
Hi Gary,
Thanks for your kind comment – really pleased that it sorted out the
problem for you. Yes, the plugin is awesome, the audio just sounds
dead and flat without it.
My blog has been a little neglected recently but I’m hoping to release
a few further posts shortly.
Kind regards, Richard
thanks really helped me out…
Glad it helped
Brilliant help — worked perfectly. This problem would have had me stuck for ages, but this page is fortunately the top google for “itunes 8 won’t quit”.
Thanks a lot!
you can try this Applescript:
tell application “Terminal”
do script with command “killall genredetection”
quit
end tell
save on application, and launch this script. after, you can close Itunes.
(sorry for my poor english!)
Thank for the script – a useful addition to have. Your English is fine btw
great tip. i have never seen that one in the Apple iTunes Forums.
Mike
Glad it helped Mike
Many, many thanks. I’ve just had this problem and this was the only assistance I could find which worked. As you say, an inconvenience worth the application. Cheers.
Really pleased this tip helped you out
Keep on checking my blog – I’ll try to post other useful tips as and when I come across them.
Richard
I think I am the only one your info is not helping. I have iTunes7, do not have iWow installed (can’t find it or never heard of it anyway) and there is nothing in the activity monitor that says ‘genredetection’. Just iTunes and iTunes Helper. Please help! Thanks!
Misty: In activity monitor do you have All Processes selected from the drop-down list?
I’m having this problem too. Upgraded to V3 of iWow and then downgraded again. Ever since iTunes refuses to quit and there is no trace of ‘genredetection’ I’ve run the applescript above as well to quit it from terminal but still no luck. Would get in touch with SRS but stillwaiting to hear from them on a different issue!
Any advice?
This has been plagueing me for months! Thank you so much!
Glad to be of help Michael
Make sure that you don’t have an application in your widgets that uses iTunes music. I was having the same problem. I had to turn off an alarm clock widget that played music as an alarm. I then was able to turn off iTunes without a hitch. Hope this helps.
Thanks for the info Matt
Saved me hours of frustration tracking this down. Thanks for the tip!
If you have the alarm clock widget – turn it off.
Thank you so much! i would have never thought this would be the cause of the problem– now there is no problem at all!!
Spot on Matt, I don’t have the iWow plug in either and am using iTunes 9. I turned off the alarm clock widget and the problem went away.
Thank you J! Alarm Clock was the culprit. So relieved to solve this longstanding, annoying problem.
Never in a million years would I have figured this out–all I can say is THANK YOU for explaining this. Talk about annoying–and I could never figure out what was causing it!
Travis – a pleasure to help