This post is for anyone who might run into an issue with installing iTunes 10.7 CoverFlow with a current updated version of Catalina and possibly newer OS versions.
In the past, I’ve used the Retroactive app 1.8 or 1.9 to install iTunes on Catalina with no problems. I have another 2012 Mac Mini i5 which is similar to my i7 on which I wanted to install the older 10.7 iTunes version as I had before. But when coming to the iTunes menu using Retroactive which has a slider to move the choices over, that was missing on the i5 Mac. I had just installed the latest Catalina OS from Apple on the i5 so I started thinking that maybe one of the later security updates changed something about how Retroactive interacts with Catalina but I’m not sure. These screen shots indicate how it should look:
So I thought I would try an older version like 1.8 but same issue. I noticed that the other older versions are still on GitHub so I went back one at a time until I found one that allowed me to select the iTunes 10.7 version which is Retroactive 1.5:
On the i5, there was no slider (pic is from i7) but you can still select any of the choices since they are all visible. Installation went fine. Here is the link for older versions in case someone runs into a similar situation:
As I mentioned, I still don’t know why it didn’t work on the i5 with the current Retroactive version but since there have been a few security updates that caused issues with file sharing and NTFS writing on Catalina, that is my first guess but I could be wrong.
After thinking about the problem, I noted that I was using a different mouse for the i5 system, a Magic Mouse vs the Logitech one I always use. So I tried a wired mouse first and the slider came up on Retroactive. Then, I tried the Magic Mouse again which did not show the slider but if I used a left/right gesture in the correct spot, the slider appeared. So, the mouse was the issue all along. I hardly ever use the Magic Mouse as I always liked the feel of the Logitech one along with the more substantive click. I had tried different movements/gestures with the Magic Mouse when trying to figure out the issue but I guess I had those wrong.
This is a macOS configuration. There’s an option to hide scroll bars. You can configure them to be always visible, visible only when actively scrolling, or automatically select one of those two options based on what kind of pointing device you’re using:
I configure my system so they are always visible. It sounds like you may also prefer this setting instead of the default, which is based on your pointing device.
Thanks for that tip which I forgot about. But on my main computer which uses the Logitech Mouse, I have it set for automatically and the slider still comes up using Retroactive by itself. The Logitech has its own control panel which may or may not override some settings as I have found in the past. I had tried the Apple mouse on the other computer in various locations to make it slide but it didn’t happen but now that I know where the “magic” spot is, all is well. I now feel stupid about the whole issue but maybe someone else will run into the same problem and will now know what to do. Thanks again.
Running a quick test on my Mac (Big Sur) with my mouse (a wired Microsoft Basic Optical mouse), “Automatic” behaves like “always”.
On my MacBook Air (running Sierra), Automatic behaves like “when scrolling” when I’m using the trackpad. But when I plug in a generic mouse (an HP-branded optical mouse with a scroll-wheel), it switches to behave like “always”.
I also tried my laptop with an Apple Mighty Mouse (scroll-ball) that I keep in my parts closet. It also causes scroll bars to be always visible.
But, as you observed, a Mighty Mouse does not. It causes scroll bars to only appear while scrolling.
I suspect that the algorithm for automatic is to behave like “when scrolling” when you have a touch-surface for scrolling, like a trackpad, but like “always” when you don’t. Since a Magic Mouse has (effectively) a trackpad built-in to its surface, that’s probably why it doesn’t cause scroll bars to appear.
FWIW, I have never liked Apple’s hiding of scroll bars. And I don’t like the fact that this practice has become popular on Windows and Linux platforms as well. Which is why I configure my devices to always show scroll bars wherever I have the choice to do so.
It is (sort of) justifiable on a touch device like an iPhone or iPad, since you are scrolling by swiping across the content anyway. But it makes no sense to me on a platform that has a well-defined on-screen pointer, like any desktop OS (or, for that matter, an iPad that is using an external pointing device).
For those who still want to use some of the older iTunes apps and others, Retroactive was updated a few weeks ago to Version 2.0 with Monterey and Ventura support:
Retroactive was updated on Feb. 18th to version 2.1 to fix some errors. This was also mentioned from the author:
“Retroactive only receives limited support. You should transition from Retroactive to a wide range of supported apps, many of which are built into macOS or free to download.”
I wanted to install iTunes 10.7 CoverFlow running Sonoma on an M1 Air and it did work for the most part except for one issue: when selecting the Settings/Preferences, some changes would be made and others were ignored. Also, iTunes would crash after selecting “OK.” The crashing also happens if I select the Settings under Sonoma running on my old 2012 Mac Mini using OCLP but in that case, the settings are saved and you just reopen iTunes. Since I don’t tend to change anything once it’s all set up, that is not an issue for me but on the M1, the settings would not save properly.
The solution was to create another iTunes library for the M1 on my 2012 Mini and simply copy that over to the M1. After that, it worked fine and I could change the settings although the program will still crash but when you reopen, the changes were saved. Just copying over the preference file is not enough. There is some interaction with the iTunes library that affects the situation. I’m amazed that such an old iTunes version even works on the M1 and the CoverFlow feature works fine which is important to me.
One other issue: I found that even though I disable the Music Store on the 2012 Mini under iTunes running Sonoma, it would reappear every so often as something (maybe the Music app) causes the preference file to update. The solution is to set up iTunes the way you want it and then save a copy of the preference file (under User/Library/Preferences/com.Apple.iTunes.plist) to another location such as Documents. The create an Automator app to replace that preference file with the original one if it changes. I set that up to change it on startup under Login items.
I tried one of the newer iTunes versions which I think was the 12.6 one and it did not have any issues with saving Settings/Preferences under Sonoma but the version 11 one did like version 10.
After updating to Sequoia on my M1 Air, I was wondering if the old iTunes 10.7 CoverFlow app would work and it does. The author of Retroactive has stated that his app is discontinued so you would assume there are issues:
Since I did not need to install iTunes using the app, I can’t say if it would work that way as I already had it installed in Sonoma but it’s still working and even better in one respect: selecting Settings to change preferences does not result in iTunes crashing as was the case previously although the preferences were saved anyway.
After updating to Sequoia 15.1, iTunes 10.7 continues to work fine on my M1 Air.
However, about a week ago the Radio Tuner component stopped connecting to get the list. This is unrelated to the update as it doesn’t work on any of my older computers either including a 10.6.3 version on PowerPC. Of course, this is an older database and many of those stations no longer broadcast and many links don’t work but some still do as I found a few good ones recently. The iTunes versions 12.8.2 and 12.9.5 still can access the Radio Tuner list so it appears that Apple cut off some of the older versions. Those lists are smaller than the one I’m linking below. While researching this issue, I found a site where the lists from 2019 are available and you can copy the url’s to use in iTunes or the Music app using the Open Stream function:
While iTunes 10.7 installed with Retroactive has been working fine with Sequoia 15.2 and previous versions, the latest 15.3 update causes the app to crash on startup and the error report mentions an invalid code signature. So it appears for now that the last Sequoia version to work with iTunes is 15.2 unless something changes later.
After my previous post, I decided to look into the code signature issue but didn’t have the time right away but first I found this article which mentioned the general issue:
The two commands mentioned did not work in my case with iTunes 10.7 CoverFlow. I had tried to reinstall using Retroactive and then running the commands but the first command gave me an error so I decided to copy the iTunes app from a 15.0.1 backup and the commands did work but when trying to open the iTunes 10.7 app, the code signature errors were still there.
I later found a thread on MacRumors where a user had installed some newer iTunes versions on Apple Silicon and posted a script of the process. In that script was the following command: “codesign --force --deep --sign - /Applications/iTunes.app” but this was being used for newer versions as part of a larger script. I thought I would try it anyway since it was different than the other ones in the article and it worked!!! Keep in mind that I had to apply the command to my backup 10.7 copy of iTunes previously installed with Retroactive, not the one that Retroactive installed later (not sure why this is the case).
So, for those who still want to use older iTunes versions with Sequoia 15.3 (and 15.3.1), you will want to check out this thread:
I first tried the script to install iTunes 12.8.3 as I had a copy of that downloaded already and it worked but I really wanted 10.7 to work and the codesign command mentioned in that thread took care of the problem. The poster boddanw deserves credit for posting that solution and allowing these older versions to be used a bit longer.
