Comments on: iTunes: Lack of responsiveness while dealing with audio CDs http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/ Notes from an unfinished world… Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:29:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Pierre Igot http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/comment-page-1/#comment-7547 Pierre Igot Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:09:47 +0000 http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/#comment-7547 I guess we'll have to see what the behaviour is like with the final Leopard build. germ: It's true that I have been using mostly fairly fast machines in recent years, so I do have as much experience with "slower" Macs. My guess is that it also probably depends on the brand/model of optical drive. Still, thanks to Paul, we know that at least some Apple engineers are aware of the problem. I guess we’ll have to see what the behaviour is like with the final Leopard build.

germ: It’s true that I have been using mostly fairly fast machines in recent years, so I do have as much experience with “slower” Macs. My guess is that it also probably depends on the brand/model of optical drive. Still, thanks to Paul, we know that at least some Apple engineers are aware of the problem.

]]> By: Paul Ingraham http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/comment-page-1/#comment-7546 Paul Ingraham Thu, 25 Oct 2007 04:12:52 +0000 http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/#comment-7546 Pierre: Nope, it doesn’t explain that issue, but I feel fairly pleased to have gotten a fairly definitive explanation of any of what you reported. And it’s possible that the sluggishness while ripping is a closely related problem, or something else entirely. I’ll have to go for lunch again ... Pierre: Nope, it doesn’t explain that issue, but I feel fairly pleased to have gotten a fairly definitive explanation of any of what you reported. And it’s possible that the sluggishness while ripping is a closely related problem, or something else entirely. I’ll have to go for lunch again …

]]> By: germ http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/comment-page-1/#comment-7545 germ Thu, 25 Oct 2007 02:55:28 +0000 http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/#comment-7545 No, sorry. I can assure you that my G4 mac mini really does become TOTALLY unresponsive while mounting an optical drive. It is not just Finder and/or iTunes. It's the entire machine. And no, I cannot even switch to another application. Now, I do not know whether this is true of other Apple machines as well, but that's simply what happens EVERY TIME with the mac mini. No, sorry. I can assure you that my G4 mac mini really does become TOTALLY unresponsive while mounting an optical drive. It is not just Finder and/or iTunes. It’s the entire machine. And no, I cannot even switch to another application.

Now, I do not know whether this is true of other Apple machines as well, but that’s simply what happens EVERY TIME with the mac mini.

]]> By: Pierre Igot http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/comment-page-1/#comment-7542 Pierre Igot Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:08:37 +0000 http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/#comment-7542 Paul: That's interesting. But it doesn't answer, for example, the question of why iTunes was so slow to delete a single track while ripping an audio CD, as described above. It was not an issue with CD mounting. The audio CD was already mounted. Paul: That’s interesting. But it doesn’t answer, for example, the question of why iTunes was so slow to delete a single track while ripping an audio CD, as described above. It was not an issue with CD mounting. The audio CD was already mounted.

]]> By: Paul Ingraham http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/comment-page-1/#comment-7541 Paul Ingraham Wed, 24 Oct 2007 02:56:54 +0000 http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/#comment-7541 I got some interesting information about this. I sat down with a couple Apple engineers today for lunch, guys with some serious technical knowledge, both personally responsible for your iTMS experience. I threw this issue at them out. They aren’t on the iTunes app team, but they know programmers who are. And guess what? They (the iTunes team) are as frustrated by this problem as we are. Why? Because it has nothing to do with iTunes, but it gets in their faces: it is, in fact, an OS X limitation, as “germ” wrote. AlanY, you were sorta half right: it is a threading problem, but at the OS level, not at the app level. OS X has never had the ability to pay attention to a mounting device while doing anything else. Macs really do lock up while mounting CDs, and not just in iTunes: we just tend to notice it there. And, good news ... According to one them, it’s fixed in Leopard! ;-) Won’t that be nice? I got some interesting information about this.

I sat down with a couple Apple engineers today for lunch, guys with some serious technical knowledge, both personally responsible for your iTMS experience. I threw this issue at them out. They aren’t on the iTunes app team, but they know programmers who are. And guess what? They (the iTunes team) are as frustrated by this problem as we are. Why? Because it has nothing to do with iTunes, but it gets in their faces: it is, in fact, an OS X limitation, as “germ” wrote. AlanY, you were sorta half right: it is a threading problem, but at the OS level, not at the app level. OS X has never had the ability to pay attention to a mounting device while doing anything else. Macs really do lock up while mounting CDs, and not just in iTunes: we just tend to notice it there.

And, good news …

According to one them, it’s fixed in Leopard! ;-) Won’t that be nice?

]]> By: Pierre Igot http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/comment-page-1/#comment-7539 Pierre Igot Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:18:53 +0000 http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/#comment-7539 Lord, an iTunes Pro application… That would really make my day! Lord, an iTunes Pro application… That would really make my day!

]]> By: AlanY http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/comment-page-1/#comment-7538 AlanY Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:02:41 +0000 http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/#comment-7538 Er, I meant Aperture versus iPhoto. Er, I meant Aperture versus iPhoto.

]]> By: AlanY http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/comment-page-1/#comment-7537 AlanY Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:01:25 +0000 http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/#comment-7537 I agree Pierre, I don't buy music online either, and I do prefer to buy CDs. (Though I've been swayed lately by a couple of out-of-print CDs that the iTunes store had in iTunes Plus (DRM-free, 256kbps AAC) format.) It's just that after you buy them, at least for me, they spend a little time in the computer for ripping, then go into the closet. I'm sure Apple would prefer that iTunes was a Cocoa app, but now that it's several million lines of code, it would be a tough switch without enough of a payout to rebuild the app from scratch. I'm sure though that they're working on an iTunes successor somewhere in their skunkworks, perhaps something targeted at hardcore music lovers with huge libraries, akin to Aperture versus iTunes. I agree Pierre, I don’t buy music online either, and I do prefer to buy CDs. (Though I’ve been swayed lately by a couple of out-of-print CDs that the iTunes store had in iTunes Plus (DRM-free, 256kbps AAC) format.) It’s just that after you buy them, at least for me, they spend a little time in the computer for ripping, then go into the closet.

I’m sure Apple would prefer that iTunes was a Cocoa app, but now that it’s several million lines of code, it would be a tough switch without enough of a payout to rebuild the app from scratch. I’m sure though that they’re working on an iTunes successor somewhere in their skunkworks, perhaps something targeted at hardcore music lovers with huge libraries, akin to Aperture versus iTunes.

]]> By: Pierre Igot http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/comment-page-1/#comment-7535 Pierre Igot Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:16:56 +0000 http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/#comment-7535 AlanY: It's funny, I seem to remember that, in the very early days of Mac OS X, Carbon was presented just as a legacy thing, and Apple actually encouraged people to use another development environment (the so-called “<a href="http://mac-guild.org/rhapsody/yellow-windows.html" rel="nofollow">Yellow Box</a>”), especially for cross-platform development. It's kind of ironic that now Carbon is the preferred environment for cross-platform development :). As for having to deal with audio CDs on a regular basis, well, to me they are still a much better alternative to on-line music files. So I do plan to continue purchasing CDs and adding them to my iTunes library on a regular basis for the foreseeable future. Now, I know that these days, Apple is all about the iTunes Store, but I really do not like it when marketing strategies get in the way of my perfectly normal, established use of the software. germ: I don't agree that the entire OS X system becomes unresponsive when inserting CDs of any kind. Some parts of it (i.e. the Finder) can become unresponsive, but not the OS as a whole. Even with a complete lockup such as the one you describe, you can usually still continue to work in other applications, such as Mail, Safari, TextEdit, etc. You might need a hard reset because the Finder itself is unable to recover (even after a force-quit), but it's not the entire OS that is affected. Basically, it's about how well individual applications handle optical media. AlanY: It’s funny, I seem to remember that, in the very early days of Mac OS X, Carbon was presented just as a legacy thing, and Apple actually encouraged people to use another development environment (the so-called “Yellow Box”), especially for cross-platform development. It’s kind of ironic that now Carbon is the preferred environment for cross-platform development :). As for having to deal with audio CDs on a regular basis, well, to me they are still a much better alternative to on-line music files. So I do plan to continue purchasing CDs and adding them to my iTunes library on a regular basis for the foreseeable future. Now, I know that these days, Apple is all about the iTunes Store, but I really do not like it when marketing strategies get in the way of my perfectly normal, established use of the software.

germ: I don’t agree that the entire OS X system becomes unresponsive when inserting CDs of any kind. Some parts of it (i.e. the Finder) can become unresponsive, but not the OS as a whole. Even with a complete lockup such as the one you describe, you can usually still continue to work in other applications, such as Mail, Safari, TextEdit, etc. You might need a hard reset because the Finder itself is unable to recover (even after a force-quit), but it’s not the entire OS that is affected. Basically, it’s about how well individual applications handle optical media.

]]> By: germ http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/comment-page-1/#comment-7533 germ Tue, 23 Oct 2007 06:17:41 +0000 http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/#comment-7533 I think you have misdiagnosed the reason for this behavior, which I also noticed and, I agree with you, is extremely annoying. This has nothing to do with iTunes per se. Every time the mac is mounting an optical drive, it goes into a "coma" and becomes totally unresponsive (with SBOD) until the process is completed. The worst case, which happened to me, is when the optical drive cannot properly mount the disc (perhaps because it's defective): My mac mini went into an endless loop trying to read and mount the disc. Because it was in the mounting process, there was no way for me to stop it. I had to shut it down. This warrants a n entry on Apple Bugtraq. I am hoping Leopard will fix it, but I am not holding my breath. I think you have misdiagnosed the reason for this behavior, which I also noticed and, I agree with you, is extremely annoying. This has nothing to do with iTunes per se. Every time the mac is mounting an optical drive, it goes into a “coma” and becomes totally unresponsive (with SBOD) until the process is completed. The worst case, which happened to me, is when the optical drive cannot properly mount the disc (perhaps because it’s defective): My mac mini went into an endless loop trying to read and mount the disc. Because it was in the mounting process, there was no way for me to stop it. I had to shut it down. This warrants a n entry on Apple Bugtraq. I am hoping Leopard will fix it, but I am not holding my breath.

]]> By: AlanY http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/comment-page-1/#comment-7532 AlanY Tue, 23 Oct 2007 04:22:08 +0000 http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/#comment-7532 iTunes does this because it's still a single-threaded Carbon app. Not that it's any excuse at all, it's just the technical reason. I doubt they'll improve it that much, since most people don't deal with CDs much any more except to rip them and then put them back in the drawer, and Carbon is much easier for developing a cross-platform app (it's got to run on Windows) and most programmers won't go multithreaded unless there's a real need, because it complicates debugging greatly. At least the Finder is now multithreaded in Leopard and doesn't become unresponsive for an extended period when your network shares unmount. Much rejoicing there. One thing you may not have noticed... in recent versions of iTunes you apparently can have two copies of iTunes running on different machines accessing the same library. Previously, you'd get a message that the library was already locked if you opened your library from another machine. So sometimes they do slip in these un-publicized improvements. iTunes does this because it’s still a single-threaded Carbon app. Not that it’s any excuse at all, it’s just the technical reason. I doubt they’ll improve it that much, since most people don’t deal with CDs much any more except to rip them and then put them back in the drawer, and Carbon is much easier for developing a cross-platform app (it’s got to run on Windows) and most programmers won’t go multithreaded unless there’s a real need, because it complicates debugging greatly.

At least the Finder is now multithreaded in Leopard and doesn’t become unresponsive for an extended period when your network shares unmount. Much rejoicing there.

One thing you may not have noticed… in recent versions of iTunes you apparently can have two copies of iTunes running on different machines accessing the same library. Previously, you’d get a message that the library was already locked if you opened your library from another machine. So sometimes they do slip in these un-publicized improvements.

]]> By: Paul Ingraham http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/comment-page-1/#comment-7531 Paul Ingraham Mon, 22 Oct 2007 23:58:49 +0000 http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/#comment-7531 Didn’t you know, Pierre? You need EIGHT processor cores to run iTunes smoothly now. Every time I put a CD in, it’s like iTunes has to have a three-minute navel gaze. Bizarre. And it’s always been that way. And, in the same vein, why does Safari lock up while loading web pages onto a few tabs? I can’t change tabs while pages in other tabs are still loading? Ridiculous! Didn’t you know, Pierre? You need EIGHT processor cores to run iTunes smoothly now.

Every time I put a CD in, it’s like iTunes has to have a three-minute navel gaze. Bizarre. And it’s always been that way.

And, in the same vein, why does Safari lock up while loading web pages onto a few tabs? I can’t change tabs while pages in other tabs are still loading? Ridiculous!

]]> By: ssp http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/comment-page-1/#comment-7529 ssp Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:29:32 +0000 http://www.betalogue.com/2007/10/22/itunes-lack-of-responsiveness-while-dealing-with-audio-cds/#comment-7529 iTunes' behaviour in these situations is a definite mystery. Some parts of iTunes seem to handle multi-tasking really well while quite a few others plainly suck. I am particularly puzzled by that single track deleteion progress dialogue. I've seen it myself a number of times so far and applaud the iTunes engineers for properly recognising a task that may take a while to complete and for displaying a proper progress window in the situation. It just remains inexplicable why such a trivial action as removing a single song from the library should take more than a split-second. iTunes’ behaviour in these situations is a definite mystery. Some parts of iTunes seem to handle multi-tasking really well while quite a few others plainly suck.

I am particularly puzzled by that single track deleteion progress dialogue. I’ve seen it myself a number of times so far and applaud the iTunes engineers for properly recognising a task that may take a while to complete and for displaying a proper progress window in the situation. It just remains inexplicable why such a trivial action as removing a single song from the library should take more than a split-second.

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