DJs: It’s Now Safe To Update To iTunes 12.3

Joey Santos
Read time: < 1 min
Last updated 11 April, 2018

iTunes 12.3
Updating to iTunes 12.3 won’t mess up your music library – just make sure you’ve got the latest version of your DJ software too.

If you’ve been holding back on updating to the latest iTunes version (12.3.0.44 at press time) or indeed since the 12.2 debacle, our test show that you can now safely install the update without fear of it messing up your iTunes playlists within Serato DJ (1.7.8), Traktor Pro 2 (2.10), and Virtual DJ 8 (8.0.0). We’ve also tested iTunes 12.3 with Pioneer DJ’s rekordbox (4.0.1) and Algorddim’s djay Pro (1.2.1), and both properly displayed songs in iTunes as well as playlists.

What was the issue?

iTunes 12.2 caused a stir when it wreaked havoc on many DJs’ iTunes libraries, causing DJ software to improperly display playlists and display non-music items, along with songs missing within libraries. iTunes 12.2 was a major update to Apple’s music library management software that included the company’s Apple Music streaming service, and a big issue was that signing up for it and syncing your songs to iCloud caused some songs to be DRM-protected even though they initially weren’t.

While we’re big proponents of using iTunes to manage your music library, we warned at the time to hold off the update – but as all DJ software manufacturers have now updated their apps, and the latest version of iTunes has squashed a few Apple bugs, it all looks good again.

• iTunes 12.3 is available as a free download from the App Store.

Have you been able to solve your iTunes 12.2/3 woes? Do you still use iTunes to manage your music library, or are you using a new app / method after the 12.2 debacle? Let us know your thoughts below.

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