Update – If you are having this issue, please read the rest of this post plus the comments at the bottom of the post.
I just upgraded to itunes 7. I’m on Windows XP by the way. I was really excited to try out the new feature, Cover Flow which according to Apple "With Cover Flow, you can flip through your digital music and video collection just as you would CDs."
The update seemed to go fine. I then selected "Music" in my Library and hit the
Cover Flow button. Much to my surprise, I got the error listed below "iTunes is unable to browse album covers on this computer."
I googled, searched blogs, searched Apples support and found nothing. Then I remembered I had set my video card to disable hardware acceleration. Sure enough, when I cranked up my hardware acceleration, iTunes worked fine. I’m blogging this here because I know tons of you musicians out there use iTunes and this post could save you hours of chasing your tail – especially since the error is not very clear that the issue is related to your video settings.
Possible remedies:
- Enable hardware acceleration
- Use 32-bit True Color
These settings can be accessed by , Right clicking on your desktop, select the "Settings Tab". Select 32-bit. To turn on hardware acceleration, click advanced.
Then click the "Troubleshoot" tab and slide the Hardware acceleration slider to the right.
Update to my original post:
According to http://completelygeeked.com/, two other issues might cause this:
Possibility 1: QuickTime is out of date…
Possibility 2: Video Driver is out of date…
CompletelyGeek also sites this forum on Apple.
See comments link below for even more discussion about this issue.
Mark Mosher
www.modulatethis.com
www.markmoshermusic.com
Copyright 2006, Newecho Productions, LLC
Comments
95 responses to “iTunes 7 Error – iTunes Unable to Browse Album Covers On This Computer”
This also happens if you are accessing the computer via Remote Desktop.
Many thanks just googled the error and up popped this – now I can enjoy!!!
I set it to 32-bit and it worked for me. Thanyou!!
Thanks soooooo much…this totally worked for me!
Please note for you Microsoft Office users experiencing this problem – If you max out your acceleration, you may and most likely will experience image and graphic viewing problems in Word 2003. Google the following if you would like to understand the issue “pictures in Word 2003 disapper”
Fixed by clicking on another Library. All is good again under OS X.
Just an FYI, I am suddenly receiving this error on my MacBook Pro under OS X. Everything was just fine until 2 days ago. Hoped this link would help me find the answer, but no avail. Onward with my search.
I got mine to show by closing all other programs that required high graphics (for me, that was GoogleEarth)…then it worked!!! yey
Thanks sooooooooo much. I had my accelerator off now it works perfect!!!!!!!!!
Ditto to Peter Miller, just setting it to 32-bit solved the problem!!
Thank You Much!
Yes indeed. I resolved the problem by increasing colour depth from 16 bit to 32bit.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
That’s all I can say.
i have this problem too…and my color doesnt go past 24…how do i fix that?
If you have read this much you probably had the same problem I had.
dxdiag was telling me I only had directx 9b installed, and any attempt to upgrade to 9c failed.
Here is how I fixed it.
I uninstalled XP SP2.
Installed Directx 9c (from download).
Had to reinstall my latest graphics card driver as I believe SP2 removal x’d it.
Reinstalled SP2.
Voila.
Hope this helps
I have a Matrox G550 DualHead too, have done all the steps and…. nothing happens!
Tried all of the above. Latest iTunes, latest Quicktime, Latest Video drivers (Matrox G550 Duel Head), 32 Bit Colour, full hardware acceleration. dxdiag shows DirectDraw Acceleration enabled on both screen, Direct3 Acceleration enabled on both screens, AGP Texture acceleration enabled on screen 1 but not available on screen 2. (Running iTunes on Screen 1 BTW).
This still doesn’t work for me. Anyone got any further suggestions?
Changing to 32-bit worked for me.
I had google earth open. closed it and displaying art work again. :-)
I just worked it out. I had Google earth open.
i am having the same problem and i followed the steps to solve it when i noticed that my highest color quality was 24 bit, not 32. does this mean i cannot get album covers? is there a way to fix this?? help me please!!
I am having this problem, but when i went to follow the steps to solve it, i noticed that my computer only has 24 bit as high color quality and i don’t have the option of 32. does this mean that i cannot get the album covers? is there a way to fix this? help me please!
What do you do when your manufacturer’s website doesn’t have an update for your video driver?
What do you do when your manufacturer’s website does not have an update for your video driver?
Making the “Hardware Acceleration” to “full” fixed my problem!
I have gone through just about every method to fix this problem that i’ve seen, but none are working, and i have run into a roadblock. In one post it said to run the “dxdiag” and make sure my direct3d drivers are enabled. I tried this but it says the directdraw, direct3d, and agp texture acceleration are unavailable. Does this mean i need a new video card?
Any other ideas anyone? My directX, vid drivers, itunes, quicktime, and everything else mentioned are up to date. Cover Flow worked perfectly for me when I first installed iTunes, now about 3 weeks later it just suddenly stopped working. Doesn’t coincide with any change in my system that I can recall.
Dan Tepper: Thank you very much. I tried and it works. I thought I might had to buy a new video card. I just save a lot of money.
It might also just take closing some other programs. I get this error in Itunes with Google Earth open but it works after I close it.
THANK YOU!!!
I’m running at a higher resolution than that. I wonder if there is an update to your video driver that might allow you to go higher.
None of the remedies I could find on the Internet worked except turning down the screen resolution down to 1024 x 768. Then cover flow worked fine
It seems there is another place where 3D can be disabled. here’s what fixed it for me (Win 2003 srvr – all latest stuff):
1. Need all latest Drivers, DirectX and 3D Accel enabled (see posts above)
2. From Start Menu, click RUN then type “dxdiag” (no quotes)
3. click the “Display” tab.
4. Make sure “DirectDraw Acceleration”, “Direct3D Acceleration” and “AGP Texture Acceleration” are ENABLED
I did this and Cover Flow works beautifully.
As a developer, would be nice if Apple caught this more gracefully and provided some kind of user feedback.
-Dan Tepper
Thanks so much for this blog. I just reinstalled WinXP on my wife’s computer and put iTunes 7 on it and got the same error message. For me hardware acceleration is set to Full after a new install. But Color depth is 16-bit by default and sure enough, just setting it to 32-bit solved the problem!!
simply changing to 32 bit did it for me! thanks guys!
the easiest and most pain free way is to uninstall itunes, then reinstall it. sounds simple but it worked for me after i tried all the mensa candidate techniques i have seen posted.
THANK YOU SO MUCH, YOU JUST SAVED ME $100, I LOVE YOU!!
I had the same problem on windows 2000. Changed to 32 bit true color and issue went away
ok, i had this problem, drivers were updated, quicktime updated, yada yada, still same problem – when i’d click “tv shows” i got the same crash splash as everyone. i checked my graphics accelerator and it was on high, but i noticed my “color quality” was for some reason set only to 16 bit. i changed this to 32 bit and voila! works great, and honestly looks very cool. i hope this might help someone!
Thank. I’m fixed this problem. My case is Possibility 2: Video Driver is out of date… I have ThinkPad T40 with ATI Mobility Radeon 7500.
In the last post, someone asked how they update their video driver? Typically, you’d visit the web site of the vendor in question, find you model and grabethe new driver.
Many lower cost systems implement drivers on their motherboards. If that’s the case, then visit your pc manufacturer’s site (like HP.com, or dell.com…), find the support page, find your model. They should have a downloads sections for driver updates.
For those who have add-on video cards in PCI slots, visit your video card manufacters web site (like http://www.ati.com/, http://www.nvidia.com/).
Once you download the driver, follow the instructions from the manufacturer on installing.
I have tried all recommended fixes with no success. I am running XP and video is limited to 24 bits. How do I update video driver? Tks
Anyone else got an ideas for M Kennedy or Jaggo?
Doesn’t work for me either. I had the album covers working when I first downloaded 7 but now nothing works and all the settings are as suggested above.
any more news on this? I’ve tried all of this, but to no avail.
Maybe to fine tune this, add an extra step to change to 32 bit.
exit iTunes then:
1. Start – Settings – Control Panels – Display
2. Click Settings tab
3. Select 32 Bit
4. Click Advanced button. A dialog pops up.
5. Click Troubleshoot tab
6. There should be a slider for hardware acceleration. Select Full
Click OK buttons to close and save your changes.
Good luck. This worked for me.
I just updated the post to reflect some new info from Reid. New info is in red.
This does not work for me. I still get this error message even though my hardware acceleration has always been on full. I am running the latest version of Windows and so I do not know what to do. I need this feature. Can you please help?
Brilliant !
Thx mate =]
Users might also need to upgrade their display driver. That’s what worked for me.
brill! been searching for something to correct this all day. pity my PC is a little to slow to make the best of this feature, it looks great on my mac.