iTunes starts playing music without explanation

For no apparent reason, iTunes starts playing music on my iMac running OS X 10.9.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2119211?start=15&tstart=0

I have to close itunes 10 times an hour. How do I fix this?

Solution 1:

First step would be to turn off the IR receiver and BlueTooth.

The infra-red receiver can be disabled in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General > Advanced. BlueTooth in System Preferences > BlueTooth.

You might also try cleaning out the headphone port (gently) with a toothpick and some rubbing alcohol and plugging in a set of headphones.

All of this is to make sure that some extraneous hardware input isn't causing the problem.

If that doesn't fix it then run Activity Monitor and kill the process iTunes Helper and see what happens. If it's something in the System then iTunes Helper will rerun when the problem occurs. If it's a problem with iTunes Helper then killing it should stop the problem. Of course iTunes Helper will rerun when you reboot or run iTunes manually but you will at least get more information.

Solution 2:

I experienced this same problem and frustrated to no end.

Specifically for me, I have a jambox that I use for conference calling on my iphone as well as listening to music, news, etc. While the device is paired to both my iphone and my macbook, the jambox for whatever reason is telling my macbook to keep starting itunes and plying a song. I don't tell the jambox to do this by pushing any buttons, it just does it by itself. As a result, the jambox is unpaired from my macbook. something is flaky and I don't have the time to chase it down but the fix is to manually unpairing of the jabot from both devices does it for me.

Hope it helps somebody else and save you a bunch of time and frustration trying to keep the device paired with two music sources.

Solution 3:

I have my Mac connected to my Bose Bluetooth speaker. After a while of non-use, the Bose automatically shuts down. For some reason, this signals iTunes to start playing through the Mac speakers. I don't know how to prevent that, but that's what I figured out was happening.