I Need an iTunes Doctor!!! (and a malloc expert, too)

[b]

I spent 8 hours yesterday, trying to figure out why iTunes would 
crash before launching (not even running enough routines to make it 
into the Crashreporter, 9 times out of 10), whenever ANY prefernce 
was changed in the app.

At first I thought it was just the iTunes pref, itself. Trashing it 
results in iTunes launching, but at the initial start-up screen. 
(welcome to iTunes, with all of the "Agree/Disagree, and 
pre-1st-time-Launch questions).

But I would go through that procedure, and proceeed to set the 
columns, choose 'Not to show Store", etc, close the app, and it would 
crash again on startup.

I checked iTunes in another user account on the mac, and it was 
fine... for a few hours. Meaning, it launched. Later, I realized that 
if I changed the prefs on the other account's iTunes, it, too, would 
crash on its next launch.

Same goes for the rarely-used root-enabled account.

The mac has been dodgy, beyond belief, since using Apple's Software 
Update to move up to 10.2.8. I am all the way fed up. iTunes is a 
terrific app, and i suppose I can 'make do' with leaving the prefs 
where they are. But, does that seem reasonable, to anyone?

I can't even 'decide' to have the columns display, let's say, Track 
#, unless I want to be greeted by a crash-on-launch (the next time), 
followed by a return to the Prefs folder, and a subsequent resetup of 
the entire app. That is absurd.

I have no CDROM reader/writer, and won't, for another 7 or 8 weeks, 
so going back to 10.2 and reloading the updaters to 10.2.6 is not an 
option currently.

In the process of trying to eliminate the offending prefs, at one 
point yesterday, i trashed nearly every non-Apple app, and its prefs. 
And a lot of Apple apps, also, like Final Cut Pro, Compressor, 
keynote, etc.

iTunes runs like a champ in OS 9, i am shocked, and dismayed. below 
is a 'blurb' that appears constantly, in Console, also new since the 
10.2.8 update:

*** malloc[441]: Deallocation of a pointer not malloced: 0xffffffff; 
This could be a double free(), or free() called with the middle of an 
allocated block; Try setting environment variable MallocHelp to see 
tools to help debug

Process # 441, of course, is the damned WindowManager, easily the 
weakest link in Aqua.

~flipper