Communication with iTunes fails

On Windows, beaTunes communicates with iTunes in two ways:

  • the iTunes Music Library.xml or iTunes Library.xml file (for reading)
  • the iTunes COM automation server (see also here) (for writing)

When updating iTunes, sometimes the automation server isn't registered correctly and beaTunes shows an error message that says:

beaTunes failed to communicate with the iTunes automation server. You might be able to fix this problem, by first shutting down iTunes and then running "C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /regserver from the command shell.

The instructions are only correct for English Windows users. The key is to find your iTunes executable (iTunes.exe). If you are working with a German system, it's probably in C:\Programme\iTunes\iTunes.exe, on a Danish system it's C:\Programmer\iTunes\iTunes.exe and so on. Note, that you have to quote paths with ", if the path contains a space character - as it is the case on English systems.

To execute the suggested command you have to open a command shell.
You can usually find the shell in the utilities section or simply run cmd from the start/run menu.

In the command shell window enter
"c:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /regserver (change the path to match the location of your iTunes.exe) and hit enter.

Now start beaTunes (it should start iTunes).

(these instructions were written for beaTunes 2 for Windows)