Good question. By “break” I mean stall, lock up, “clock”, and fail to render any movie content.

When I click the light blue “movies iTunes” button, which usually works fine, an animated “spinner” is displayed over a light gray (?) background. This continues for 60 seconds or so, and then just quits, leaving only the gray screen. No content, no menus, nothing.

Once this happens, the only way to get to movie content is to restart the device. This almost always happens on Tuesday, which is the day of the week when new movie content is released. And it happens for me just about every week.

Perhaps it’s a data issue, but it’s Apple’s data. Perhaps it’s a code issue, but it’s Apple’s code.

As for content management, location, etc, I started my MP3 library 20+ years ago before iTunes existed, and I much prefer my organizational system to Apple’s, which has changed several times over the years along with their XML file structure, stranding many users with media library artifacts that can’t be fixed or edited and that are now encrypted to prevent editing. The iTunes XML file is now just a backup for the encrypted media library file.

Given Apple’s track record for trying to dictate how I organize and consume the media that I’ve purchased or created, I refuse to let them within 1,000 miles of my approx. 10K photos.

I’m glad it’s all working for you. I’ve been a software architect and developer for 25+ years, and what I see is Apple’s ecosystem becoming much more restrictive and much less stable, which is not a direction that bodes well.

I’ve looked at most of the major media servers (e.g. Plex, Kodi, Emby, etc) looking for a replacement, but they’re all even more annoying. Guess I’ll have to roll up my sleeves and write something myself.