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MacNNblueberry · Jul 12, 2005, 07:49 AM

In iTunes 4.9, I get this weird static thing happening when I'm playing an MP3. It most consistantly happens when I'm playing a song and I highlight and/or play another song (although it will also happen by itself in the midst of a song).

This loud garbley static then overpowers the song (honestly, you can't even hear the <em>song</em> anymore). It's horrible if you're listening to music while you're in the shower or something where you can't quickly mute the system and quit iTunes.

Once the static thing starts I have to quit iTunes as the problem seems to get "stuck" on or has a much higher likelyhood of happening again.

At first I thought it was some kind of file corruption in the MP3 file itself, but playing the same MP3 with QuickTime Player 7.0.1 works perfectly fine.

Usually I'm running iTunes by itself--it's not like it's having to fight for the processor or something.

Any ideas?

iTunes 4.9
iBook G3/600Mhz ("Late 2001" model), 640 MB of RAM
Tiger 10.4.1

MacNNblueberry · Jul 13, 2005, 05:34 AM

And now I'm getting the problem of iTunes quitting when I am trying to create a new playlist. I've tried trashing the prefs but it still happens.

MacNNblueberry · Jul 14, 2005, 09:33 AM

Well, I've tossed an old copy of the "OSS 3D" plug-in and replaced it with the latest version. Let's see if this solves the problems...

Randman · Jul 14, 2005, 09:34 AM

It is probably the plug in. It could be playing with the iTunes EQ and revving it up too high.

MacNNblueberry · Jul 15, 2005, 06:30 AM

Thanks for your comment. Yeah, I hope so. I've been playing some songs the last couple of hours but so far am a little hesitant to start poking iTunes with a stick to try and get it to do the static thing again. Maybe tomorrow.

I also notice that the iTunes prefs panel looks weird if I select Preferences while I have the Podcasts playlist-thing selected. The graphic part at the top of the pref panel with the nine icon-like graphics (General, iPod, Podcasts, et cetera) is blank. Anyone else getting that?

If I go to preferences after first selecting Library (all songs) then the prefs panel looks fine.

MacNNblueberry · Jul 17, 2005, 06:15 AM

Okay, despite the latest version of OSS 3D, I ran into that problem again.

Also, I'm getting this kind of stutter gap every once in a while as if during the song, my iBook has to take a quick quarter-second breath before "singing" rest of the song.

Finally, I notice that many of the songs I had album covers attached to, don't have them attached anymore. And if I highlight the song it says "Album Artwork Not Modifiable". If I look at the Summary of the file in iTunes it says it's an MP3 (in the Where path), but for Kind it says QuickTime Movie file... hmm....

Randman · Jul 17, 2005, 08:08 AM

Get rid of the plug-in or live with the problem.

MacNNblueberry · 11:15 AM

Yeah, I'll try un-installing OSS 3D (although I'll sure miss the enhanced sound) and see if that fixes it. I foolishly thought that version 1.2 would work with the latest iTunes since it was their "Tiger version". I've got an email in to OSS 3D's Subband Technologies just in case they know what's going on and can fix it.

MacNNblueberry · Jul 20, 2005, 11:44 AM

Okay, I got an email back from Subband and they said that they are aware of the issue and working on fixing it. In the mean-time they have what I assume is a beta version they can email you if you email them about the problem.