itunes 9.1 Crashing? If your tunes will not open I have a fix!

Many mac users are reporting problems with itunes after recent updates. The problem appears once itunes is closed after a recent update is installed. Once closed, itunes will not reopen or will crash constantly.  Sometimes the itunes icon just bounces in the dock and must be forcibly quit.

Thankfully, there is a simple solution. First, note the problem appears only to affect itunes 9.1 or greater. If you have a different version of itunes you may have a different problem!  The crashing is caused because a plugin called “Flip4Mac” that allows Windows media content to play was modified by a program called monolingual.  Monolingual strips out unnecessary language files, printer drivers, and computer architecture information that you don’t normally need.  Unfortunately, in this case it also damages the plugin so that it causes itunes to fail when it is opened.

To correct the issue click on Finder and select Go > Go to Folder.  Past in:

/Applications/Flip4Mac

and click on:

“Flip4Mac WMV Uninstaller.pkg”

Then follow the removal instructions.

itunes should now work properly.  Reinstalling Flip4Mac should not prevent itunes from working unless you run monolingual again.  If you decide to use monolingual in the future, you should add Flip4Mac to the blacklist by going to:

Monolongual > Preferences > Add

Then select:

(Local Hard Drive Name) > Library > Frameworks > TSLicense.framework > OK

Uncheckmark  “Languages” and “Architecture” next to this new entry and close the preferences.

This bug has been reported to the software vendor (tracker ID 2872799) and also affects other products that use video or audio decoding plugins such as Adobe After Effects and Final Cut Pro.