iTunes is a great piece of software in my opinion but it does have some disadvantages and some problems on occasion. One of the worst problems I’ve had with iTunes is after an upgrade it started skipping songs… what I mean is a song plays fine for a while and then gets all messed up and sounds like a scratched CD that’s skipping. I would play the song in Windows Media Player and it sounded fine. I play the song in iTunes again and it sounds fine.
If you are running into the same problem with iTunes sucking balls then here are a few solutions that might work for you.
iTunes Skipping on Windows XP Solution 1:
- Exit iTunes
- Upgrade your sound card drivers (just to eliminate that as an issue)
- Upgrade to latest Microsoft direct X version:
- Click the Start Button, then click the Run button
- Type: dxdiag and then hit enter
- Click “sound 1″ or similarly named tab
- Slide the bar to “basic acceleration”
- Exit
- Restart iTunes
iTunes Skipping on Windows XP Solution 2:
- Close iTunes and Quicktime
- Click the start button
- Go to the control panel
- Click on Quick Time
- Select the Audio tab
- Click on “˜Safe mode (waveOut only)’
- Click okay. Relaunch iTunes.
If this doesn’t work you can either hit up the Apple Support Forums, or you can wait for the next official iTunes update from Apple and while you’re waiting you could try an alternative player such as Windows Media Player or Winamp. I know it’s frustrating and sucks.
Winamp for Windows
http://winamp.com/
Winamp for Mac
http://www.tucows.com/preview/206623
Good news for iPod owners – Since version 5.2 Winamp has had iPod support built in and it supports almost all other portable media players too.
too much trouble, i’ll stick with bootlegging
I upgraded my soundcard from a 16 bit to a 24 bit and it solved the problem.
Ah… get a mac. That solves everything.
#Keith: Thanks for the tip!
#Ed: I’m not against Mac but it’s tough to just change on the fly. I don’t know anybody with a Mac so I can’t even test it out (or that 1 click button mouse).
Solution #2 worked perfectly for me. Thanks!
I don’t know if other versions have the same problem but I recently got a iPod Nano and sometimes the screen would freeze and you wouldn’t be able to click on anything, plug it in to your computer, or even turn it off.
So I looked it up and well for those who had this problem before and don’t know how to fix it, here’s how:
1. Click hold on and off
2. Press Menu and Play button at the same time till screen shuts off to blank and then an Apple logo would pop up on the screen (restarting iPod sort of)
3. Click on the middle button
Then it would unfreeze everything and it’s kind of like restarting your iPod, you wouldn’t loose the songs, video, games, pictures, or whatever you have on your iPod, just gets annoying that’s all after you have to do it for the 100th time.
wooohoooo. solution 1 fixed my computer! THANKS A BUNCH!
Solution 1 worked!!!!!
You are a stud! or studette!
Either these worked for me…any other suggestions?
Thanks, I have been struggling with this for the last 2 months, to many posts with suggestions that have not worked and I am finally back on track thanks to your dxdiag fix. This is ridiculous on Apples part, I have 38K of songs on a external hard drive which has worked flawlesly for 10 years with upgrades using Itunes. Itunes most recent software upgrade Nov 2012, screwed my system, every song skipped at the 9 second mark until 11 second mark, upgraded RAM, Sound cards, software upgardes, fixes and searching for solutions for the last 2 months, it drove me crazy
Until I discovered your post. Thanks from a Windows XP user..