iTunes 7 Error - iTunes Unable to Browse Album Covers On This Computer

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Possibility 1: QuickTime is out of date...

Possibility 2: Video Driver is out of date...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

[Brook B]

Ditto to Peter Miller, just setting it to 32-bit solved the problem!!

Thank You Much!

[April]

Thanks sooooooooo much. I had my accelerator off now it works perfect!!!!!!!!!

[Jahaba Winari]

I got mine to show by closing all other programs that required high graphics (for me, that was GoogleEarth)...then it worked!!! yey

[Chris]

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.

[Chris]

Fixed by clicking on another Library. All is good again under OS X.

[Sam]

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"

[Jodi]

Thanks soooooo much...this totally worked for me!

[Cale Jade]

I set it to 32-bit and it worked for me. Thanyou!!

[SAM.24.7]

Many thanks just googled the error and up popped this - now I can enjoy!!!

[Matthew Huck]

This also happens if you are accessing the computer via Remote Desktop.

[Daniel Schneller]

I have a setup with a Matrox G450 and a P650 (three screens, one on the G450 and two on the P650). For me coverflow worked and suddenly stopped. After some fiddling around I found it:
I had changed my primary screen to be the one on the G450 (for which dxdiag says AGP texture acceleration is not available). Because iTunes was running when I changed this, I did not notice until I rebooted.
Apparently iTunes only determines whether to use coverflow by checking the properties of the primary display. Make sure the primary one is configured to be on a card that supports texture acceleration.
Curiously enough once it is started, coverflow will work on any of the three screens....

[Sharon]

Thank you so much. This totally worked for me by increasing my color quality to 32 bit. Now I can browse album covers again. There was a step that was left out. Go to desktop, right click, click on properties, then click on settings. The color quality and advanced tab are there.

[Mike Parlett]

Hi I am running Parallels Desktop and Itunes on a macbook pro.
I have tried all the fixes above but to no avail.
Why not run itunes on the OSX partition I hear you say, because I have a lot of my music stuff running on Windows and need to run Itunes on that Partition.

Is anyone else in a similar position to me that can help where I can browse Album Covers in Itunes on my Windows XP running on Paralles desktop?

[RedDecimal]

If you have an integrated graphics card after buying a computer from Dell, HP, etc then I recommend going straight to the website of the manufacturer of the chipset (most probably Intel) and downloading the latest driver from there.

The reason I say this is because there have been cases where Dell's website do not have the latest driver available. You are much more likely to get the latest driver if you visit the manufacturers website.

[Gazza]

Excellent worked a treat! Had reinstalled all software on my computer and Windows had defaulted to 16 bit colour. Many thanks!

[Kai]

Google Earth was the culprit here too. Closed Google Earth, changed libraries in iTunes, all is well. Thanks!

[Nick]

Thanks for that - worked perfectly

[Arno]

I read a lot of info for the Windows platform.
But I am having this problem on a Mac Mini, with the LATEST iTunes 7.4.2 and QT 7.2.0
There no settings I can see on my Mac for this HW accel/ or video color depth...

Anyone can help? Or confirm it is a problem on Macs as well?

[ant]

Hi.
I have almost the same problem when i turn on itunes. the thing is that when cowerflow is turned on it looks like crap. Its lines of black and white colors instead of nice graphics..how do i fix that?? i finally got cowerflow running but still the graphics doesnt seem to work..

[Juan]

I don't have Direct 3D Functionality.
When I type in "dxdiag" it runs like a scan, then in the second tab(display)it says: "Direct3D functionality not available. You should verify that the driver is a final version from the hardware manufacturer."
Does this mean that I can't use cover float? pls help thnx