Peter Bloch

Q: Burn purchased music to CD suddenly doesn't work?

I have often used iTunes to burn music that I purchased thru the iTunes store to a CD. I know this used to work. but I just bought an album specifically so I could make a CD for my wife's car, and the "burn" selection in the menu is gray. Other playlists can be burned, just this one that is a problem.

 

It is NOT the issue of too many burns, I just bought this today, it would be my first disk. This IS the first time I have tried to burn a CD since upgrading to Sierra.

 

What is going on??? Frustrating!

iMac with Retina 5K display, OS X Yosemite (10.10), 24 gb RAM, 1T SSD internal, i7

Posted on Sep 29, 2016 3:20 PM

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Q: Burn purchased music to CD suddenly doesn't work?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by jeremy_v,

    jeremy_v jeremy_v Sep 30, 2016 5:03 PM in response to Peter Bloch
    Community Specialists
    Sep 30, 2016 5:03 PM in response to Peter Bloch
    Hey Peter,

    It's my understanding from your post that after updating to macOS Sierra your Mac is not able to burn CD's from iTunes.  To get started I'd like you to please follow through the steps in this link:

    iTunes for Mac: If you have trouble burning a disc

    Take care.
  • by Peter Bloch,

    Peter Bloch Peter Bloch Sep 30, 2016 5:56 PM in response to jeremy_v
    Level 1 (69 points)
    Video
    Sep 30, 2016 5:56 PM in response to jeremy_v

    Thanks, Jeremy. I had already seen that list of troubleshooting ideas, and it didn't help. The particular situation is that this one purchased CD has all the songs in it's own playlist, I have confirmed that I paid for the purchase, and when I go to File > Burn Playlist to disk, the menu item is gray. I have lots of other playlists that are albums purchased from iTunes, they all seem to work (at least the menu option is black and clickable). I have restarted my computer. No idea about this one. I typically am good at diagnosing and curing my Mac ailments.

     

  • by alex_h1,Helpful

    alex_h1 alex_h1 Sep 30, 2016 7:57 PM in response to Peter Bloch
    Community Specialists
    Sep 30, 2016 7:57 PM in response to Peter Bloch
    Hi Peter,

    Since this is happening with a specific playlist, let's go ahead and create a new playlist with the same songs, and see if you can burn it:

    iTunes for Mac: Create a playlist

    Let us know how it goes.

    Cheers.
  • by Peter Bloch,

    Peter Bloch Peter Bloch Sep 30, 2016 7:57 PM in response to alex_h1
    Level 1 (69 points)
    Video
    Sep 30, 2016 7:57 PM in response to alex_h1

    Alex, thanks for trying to help. I was pretty sure I had done that already. but I did it again, exactly by those instructions, and got the same result.

     

    One thought I had was that this particular album has different DRM attributes compared to other albums I have purchased on iTunes. That seems odd, you would think that Apple would require all music to be sold with the same limitations and capabilities. but this is really how it seems to be acting - as if it was designed to be downloaded and listened to on iTunes, but not burned to a CD.

     

    I know... seems far fetched.I am out of ideas. Maybe I need to find a way to re download the album? I sort of remember that this is hard to do, but maybe not. Any ideas on that?

     

    BTW, the album is Carrie Newcomer, "The Beautiful Not Yet."

  • by sterling r,Helpful

    sterling r sterling r Oct 1, 2016 3:53 AM in response to Peter Bloch
    Community Specialists
    Oct 1, 2016 3:53 AM in response to Peter Bloch
    Hey Peter,

    Thank you for using the Apple Support Community. Due to the nature of your issue or question you may find more information by using another one of Apple's support resources - https://getsupport.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.action

    Take care.
  • by Peter Bloch,

    Peter Bloch Peter Bloch Oct 1, 2016 3:55 AM in response to sterling r
    Level 1 (69 points)
    Video
    Oct 1, 2016 3:55 AM in response to sterling r

    I didn't know that I could schedule a phone call with Apple Support, so I have initiated that, will speak to someone at 6:30 this evening, and I will report back here if the solution is useful for others. Thanks so much.

     

  • by Peter Bloch,Solvedanswer

    Peter Bloch Peter Bloch Oct 1, 2016 4:01 PM in response to Peter Bloch
    Level 1 (69 points)
    Video
    Oct 1, 2016 4:01 PM in response to Peter Bloch

    Thanks to Sterling's suggestion, I had a phone conversation with an Apple support consultant, who did a great job. It turns out that the problem is that I have an Apple Music subscription and I listened to this album on AM before purchasing it. That seems have to confused the situation, as my computer thought I had already downloaded the album's songs. And songs downloaded via Apple Music are in Apple Music AAC format. They can't be burned to a disk, they don't want to give people the dual permission to zillion albums during one month of Apple Music subscription, burn them all and then drop the sub.

     

    The solution was to delete all the songs in that pesky playlist, which then put the iCloud icon next to the songs. Then I re downloaded the whole album songs, and presto-chango, the "burn playlist to disk" menu item is black. As I typed this, I burned the CD, it just popped out.

     

    This was an odd one, kind of falls between the cracks of Apple Music subscription and purchasing Apple Music from iTunes. I hope in the future they clean this up so that purchases automatically "cleans the slate" from subscription downloads and makes the playlist "clean" and burnable.

     

    Thanks all for your help.