Freezing and Force Quitting

Question

I am currently having a massive problem with iTunes: at certain arbitrary times (entirely arbitrary, it has happened while opening and it has happened several hours later) iTunes will freeze (i.e. the spinning beachball of death). This would normally be nothing but a minor annoyance, however it is entirely impossible to force quit. If I click the force quit button angrily enough times it will close the iTunes window but iTunes itself will not close.
The kicker is that sometimes this will spread to other applications. I'll open up System Preferences with iTunes open and it will aquire the same problem.
Just to warn you: I have an MBox (and thus ProTools 7) on my computer (which I've heard can be an issue) but I've not had any problems with it (other than this, if the two are actually related). Finally, I do think it might related partly because this will also happen when I use Rosetta Stone (almost the only other program I use that uses audio).
Thanks for your time and any help you can give.

Answer 1

I'm having (almost) the same problem. Right out of the blue yesterday, the problem began. I start iTunes, it comes up ok, then about 5 seconds later, the "downloads" folder appears on the left hand side of the application, in the "STORE" subsection, and the spinning beachball appears. At that point, I can do nothing except force-quit. This happens regardless of whether or not my iPod is connected (I posted this question yesterday, but with no response, as of yet).
I downloaded 7.0.2 , and reinstalled it. again, and reinstalling. It appears that the reinstall went ok, but there's no change.
However, I do seem to see a pattern here, with more people having trouble with the latest version of iTunes; 7.0.2 Frankly, I don't know where to turn...Perhaps I can go to the Apple Store...