iTunes high CPU usage

Question

I upgraded to iTunes 10.4.1 and use Windows 7 and my itunes library is not that large at all (say about 20gb)

When I start iTunes the CPU goes between 60-80% and stays there for a long time. I see that the itunes.exe takes about 70% of CPU in Process Explorer and it spawns a SearchProtocolHost.exe every 2 mins or so which takes < 0.1% CPU. Other than that iTunes.exe is always at 70-90% and never lets me do anything else.

Does someone have a suggestion?

EDIT:

I have tried reinstalling 10.4.1 completely deleting my library and starting with a plain installation and that does not work

I have tried downgrading to 10.3.x and that does not work either :(

Answer 1

If you have your iDevice connected to your PC and then you try to start your iTunes - in 1 out 3 times it would also start taking up a huge amount of CPU resources and it would hang for a minute or two before you can do anything at all with the program.

Try disconnecting your device before you have your iTunes started and only plug it in once iTunes is already running.

If the problem occurs without you having connected a device, try fixing the problem by uninstalling and reinstalling.

Answer 2

Sounds like a bug in iTunes. Can you go back to the previous version?

My only other thought is that it is doing some sort of conversion, and it will stop after a while.