Repeated iTunes prompt to allow network connections

Question

I've recently upgraded to iTunes 10. All is fine except every time I start iTunes I get a prompt to allow iTunes to accept incoming network connections.
iTunes is set to accept incoming connections in my System Preferences>Security>Firewall settings
Any ideas on solutions much appreciated
Mark

Answer 1

Tried this and it doesn't work. When iTunes starts it automatically adds itself to the firewall set to allow incoming connections. The first time it starts it does this because the firewall preferences file does not have an entry for it. The second time it starts, the entry is there and iTunes then prompts and keeps prompting. Deleting the entry from the firewall will stop it, but only for the next start.
You can see this happening y looking at the firewall preferences file in /Library/preferences. It's called com.apple.alf.plist. If you have this problem you will see an entry in it for iTunes with a block of hex data. When you remove iTunes from the firewall setting, this disappears. When you start iTune, it is re-added. The next start then checks this and prompts.
The only solution that seems to be accepted to be working by a number of discussions on various forums (and it worked for me), is to do the following:
1. Delete the iTunes application from your applications.
2. Stop the iTuneHelper application in Activity Monitor.
3. Clear iTune firewall entries.
4. Download iTunes from apple.com and install it.
Going back and monitoring the com.apple.alf.plist file ou will now see that when iTunes starts, it does not add any entries to this file. My understanding is that this whole issue is to do with self signing applications. It would appear that the firewall is now seeing iTunes as a self signing application and no longer needs to add an entry to it's preferences or prompt for access.