A movie no longer plays in iTunes

[Howard Brazee]

Several years ago, I downloaded this free movie: http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/watch.html . It worked on iTunes and on my iPad.

A couple of months ago, I got errors when synchronizing my iPad with iTunes on my Mac. I traced it down to this movie, and deleted it from iTunes and my iPad. I downloaded the movie and converted it so I have an .m4v, .mp4, and .mov version - but none of these load into iTunes.

I wonder if the problem was with one of the OS upgrades. My MacOS is current, my iTunes is current, & my IOS is current.

Has anybody else had this problem? Any suggestions on what's wrong or how I could fix it?

Thanks

 

[honestone]

Hmm, that could be a tough one. I am no "video files" expert, but have you tried playing the movie in another video player (software)? The best, most venerable, and proven program is VLC. It can play just about any format. You can get it form here:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

Try it first with the original format of the file.

 

[Howard Brazee]

Yep, I can play it in VLC and in Quick Time. That's how I was able to make different formats.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

I downloaded the movie and converted it so I have an .m4v, .mp4, and .mov version - but none of these load into iTunes.

If you right-click any movie file & click on "Get Info" then scan down to the "Open With" section, you can set iTunes as the default app for movie files.

Or try right-clicking the file & choosing "Open With" then navigating to iTunes.

 

[Howard Brazee]

That's how I open them too. When I select "Sita Sings the Blues.mov" that way, iTunes is listed, but when I try to open it, I get the beach ball and eventually need to force quit iTunes. When I try the .mv4, iTunes for Mac isn't on the drop down menu (but iTunes for Windows in Fusion is). When I select "other" and then iTunes, I get the beach ball and force quit. Same thing with .mv4.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Is it just that particular movie & it's other exported versions that you are having trouble with re: iTunes?

What format was your original download in?

How long once the iTunes import begins do you wait before aborting it?

So VLC & QuickTime have no issues playing each version?

Do you have another account on your Mac that you can log into then see if the same issue persists?

 

[Howard Brazee]

It is only that one movie. I will see if I can load it on my wife's Mac.

 

[Howard Brazee]

My wife's iTunes also locked up trying to read it. I had it on iTunes for years, but something changed.

 

[honestone]

Has it only started to happen with the version if iTunes that is part of Sierra, OS 10.12? Also, do you have the latest version of Sierra, OS 10.12.2?

 

[Howard Brazee]

It started a few months ago. Maybe with Sierra. Yes, we both have that current version of Sierra.

 

[honestone]

It started a few months ago. Maybe with Sierra. Yes, we both have that current version of Sierra.

So if it started happening with Sierra, but not with any prior OS/version of iTunes, then something is different in Sierra. I am using OS 10.12.2, and the version of iTunes is 12.5.4, which is the current version.

 

[Howard Brazee]

I can drag this movie to PlayerXtreme and Movie Player apps that I downloaded, and it plays there. More evidence that the problem is in iTunes.

 

[honestone]

There are newer versions of both Sierra, OS 10.12.3, and iTunes, V12,5.5. You can get them from here:

OS 10.12.3 Combo Updater: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1905?locale=en_US

iTunes 12.5.5: https://support.apple.com/en_GB/downloads/itunes

 

[Howard Brazee]

I always keep up-to-date, and those are my current versions. Just checked. iTunes is giving me the beach ball after I dragged the movie there.

 

[honestone]

Well, wonder if a clean, re-installation of Sierra, along with the iTunes 12.5.5. "update", is in order? Are you making any backups to an external device? And have you ever done any disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs?

 

[Howard Brazee]

I have a Time Machine drive. I just did First Aid. It found no problems for the physical or logical drive. I had to kill iTunes first as I left it all afternoon with the beach ball from trying to load that movie.

 

[honestone]

The drive might be "physically" OK, but there could be issues with software on it.

Also, by "Time Machine drive', do you mean an external drive that contains your Time Machine backups?

 

[Howard Brazee]

I ran First Aid to both the hard drive and the virtual drive. Yes.

 

[honestone]

Again, though, even if things check out OK with Disk Utility's First Aid, there could still be software issues. Thus, a clean, "virgin" installation of Sierra, OS 10.12.3, and then the newer version of iTunes, 12.5.5., might be the thing to do.

Only other concern is that when Migration Assistant is used to "migrate"/copy stuff from your Time Machine backup, there might be problematic files/folders on that backup.