iTunes not loading with Task Scheduler

[Mikooster]

I'd like to wake up in the morning to iTunes. I have an annoying wake-up schedule so I'd like to set an alarm on my computer so I don't have to change the time on my alarm clock every night.

To fix this, I just picked an iTunes m4p song from my library and set a scheduled task in Windows to open this file at a certain time. I tested it out (right click > run) and it worked fine. I never had any iTunes problems before.

However, for some reason, when I actually need the alarm to go off, it doesn't work. It has something to do with the screen saver (which is just the default windows XP screen saver). Once my screen saver comes up, iTunes will not open via the task scheduler and I wake up in the morning to an error message:

iTunes has encountered a problem and needs to close

(the error involves iTunes.exe and quicktime.qts)

I don't understand what could be causing this error as both iTunes and Quicktime work 100% fine normally, and only won't open when my screen saver comes up.

I should also note that if I leave iTunes open when I go to sleep, the m4p song will play fine in the morning even with the screen saver on and it works perfectly. However, I'll forget to do this sometimes and I'd much rather iTunes just open itself up, but if I do that then it doesn't work.

I tried setting a seperate task to just open iTunes.exe at a certain time, but that gave me the same error.

I don't have my computer set to go to sleep when idle (although I do have the "wake up computer to perform this task" option checked), and I have the newest version of iTunes and am running windows XP Pro.

Any suggestions? I'm at a loss! I spent all day on these forums and the iTunes support forums looking for any answers and found nothing.

Thanks.

[kinetix63 Veteran]

Sounds like it's just iTunes not playing properly. I would GUESS that it's something to do with the way in which it skins itself - it's probably trying to draw things on the screen, and having the screensaver present is locking it from doing so.

Can't you just turn the screensaver off, and have it put the monitor in to power saving mode instead?!

[CrisCr0ss]

if u do have a screensave have u turned it off?