iTunes 10.5 Released - Plagued with major bugs.
iTunes 10.5 was released a few days ago to be compatible with iOS 5. I finally updated my iTunes to 10.5 but wish I didn't. The installation went fine, however when trying to use iTunes, I noticed some features were not working properly such as the Crossfade feature , Sound Enhancer etc. So I went to the Official Apple Community forums to see if there was a solution and I was surprised to be one of the lucky ones who only had a minor problem. (A small problem compared to some of the other users)
It appears iTunes 10.5 is full of bugs and some major ones. There were reports of iTunes 10.5 not being able to be installed on a lot of user's systems, garbled, or distorted sound, unexpected crashes and freezes. And some more serious ones such as user's not being able to sync their iOS devices, users losing apps that they paid for, losing their music libraries and playlists, and locking up their iPhones and iPads. There are a lot more issues but too many to post here. If you'd like to read some of the issues user's are experiencing, you can visit the Apple Community Forums Here:
https://discussions.apple.com/commun...es_for_windows
Note the link and this post applies to iTunes on Windows Systems, however I was curious and looked at the iTunes for MAC Community Forums and they are having a lot of problems as well.
I downgraded back to iTunes 10.4.1 which can be a problem if you do not know how to do so. If you try to uninstall iTunes 10.5 then re-install 10.4.1 you'll get an error message saying “The file “iTunes Library.itl” cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of iTunes. Would you like to download iTunes now?” And that prevents you from downgrading. However there is a simple fix for this.
If you've upgraded to iTunes 10.5 but are having problems you can do the following to downgrade to 10.4.1.
1) Search the internet to find iTunes 10.4.1 and download it. (make sure it is a trustworthy site and do a virus/malware scan to be extra safe since Apple no longer caries the file on their site.
2) Go to your directory where iTunes stores it's Music files (most likely in your Music Folder in Windows) and you should see a folder named iTunes. Back that folder up to a different directory like your Desktop, or to wherever you would like to back it up. But keep the original in the directory where you located it. So basically copy and paste the iTunes folder to a different directory.
3) Go back to the original folder where iTunes stores it's music files. Look for a file called iTunesLibrary.itl
4) Rename iTunesLibrary.itl to iTunesLibrary.itl.old
5) Install iTunes 10.4.1 (or any older version of iTunes that you choose) and you will no longer receive the error message and your downgrade will be complete.
6) If there are any issues, you have your backup file that you have saved to a different directory.
Note: You can also follow the above method, but after renaming to iTunesLibrary.itl.old, navigate to the "Previous iTunes Libraries" folder in the iTunes folder and it should have iTunesLibrary.itl files with dates in the filename. For example:
iTunesLibrary2011-10-14.itl
Pick the .itl file with the most recent date and copy it to your primary iTunes folder. Rename the file with the date (in our example iTunesLibrary2011-10-14.itl). Remove the date to make it iTunesLibrary.itl then open iTunes.
Try the first method first as iTunes should automatically create a new iTunesLibrary.itl and your iTunes should work fine. If for some reason it does not, you can use the second method. Just make sure you use the .itl file with the most recent date.
Hope this helps those who have upgraded to iTunes 10.5 but had problems.
For now, I would recommend staying away from iTunes 10.5 until they come out with a newer, fixed version. And I would definitely not try to update/sync your iOS devices with iTunes 10.5 for risk of loss of data or worse.
