Nada Collar

I have been getting a strange message from iTunes for a few weeks now and haven’t had the time to look into it. The message was “iTunes has stopped working”, and the signature was listed as APPCRASH in the module “QuickTime.qts_unloaded”.

Looking around on the net it seems that its hurting a lot of people. Some were claiming that a QuickTime re-install would work, others were stating that it didn’t (and that was my experience too).

After playing around for some time I finally have a solution based on something that a “Carey Frisch” wrote in a forum. Note that some of these steps might not be needed, but I can’t back out and retry.

1. Re-install latest iTunes
2. Install MS update 938194 for vista reliability
3. Install MS update 938979 for vista reliability
4. Run QuickTime install, but choose repair.
5. if that didn’t work try a full QuickTime install rather than a repair.

That order worked for me. You might want to ignore step 1 and just try 2,3 & 4 (due to the large iTunes download size), although that might not work if you have a slightly older version of iTunes.

Update: I suspect this problem might be related to Vista Codec Package… or K-lite. Please post a comment if you are using either of these or not. Thanks

Update2: It seems that this solution doesn’t work for everyone. But unfortunately that means I can’t check for a better solution, since mine is working now. However I am curious to know if people that still have this problem can open Windows Movie Maker? I came across this MS Knowledge base article about “Window Movie Maker has stopped working“. It sounds like a similar problem and a similar solution probably exists for iTunes, however it looks like the iTunes related codecs are not accessible through Movie Maker.

But if you are having this problem with Windows Movie Maker or Windows DVD Maker, or Windows Photo Galler, then take a look at the knowledge base article.

Question1: If the first solution doesn’t work, does Windows Movie Maker start? or does it give this same “has stopped working” message?
Question 2: Does any one know how to see what codecs are installed on Windows Vista? It was available in Control Panel > Multimedia in XP, but I just can’t find it anywhere in Vista. (Apart from some codec information in the Windows Media Player > Help > About windows media player - but that only appears to be related to Windows Media Player).

My Guess: Try uninstalling any codec packages you have and then repairing QuickTime. It sounds like this “has stopped working” message relates to incompatible codecs.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch has a deadpool of companies that have backed up and gone home. Are tradional music label’s about to fall out of the sky all around us and into the deadpool?

I just read at Mashable about Snocap and Pump Audio getting together. Snocap (from Napster dude Sean Fanning) sell mp3’s and provide revenue sharing for MySpace users and imeem users for their help in selling songs. Pump Audio provide licensing etc for independant artists.

I’m not sure that this venture in itself is going to destroy any big music labels, but I can see the mix of independant artitsts and revenue sharing totally destroying the music industry as we know it.

MP3 provided the means, but revenue could provide the power. Think about it, what do music labels provide right now? Advertising and networks. They can pull the strings to get the music played. They can spend the $$$ and get people to know about it.

With music marketing going down the affiliate route, companies like Pump Audio providing the help on the legal side, and Snocap and others providing the distribution, whats left? Nada.

Bye Bye Mr Music Label. Let the Google bidding war begin (well no more so that it already is).