iTunes now all Plus -- but not all purchased songs are upgradable

Yes, I have experienced this as well. Excluding the free Single of the Week and Discovery Download, which I always assumed would not be upgradable, I have 57 tracks left.

12 are still there but not showing as upgradable
... one of these has been changed to "Album Only" so I can't even re-buy it.
6 are available on other albums (i.e. 'Greatest Hits')
32 are no longer on iTunes
... 24 of these are iTunes exclusives

To be fair, most (but not all) of these were purchased before the announcement of 100% Plus in January so technically I have no right to expect an upgrade. But it would be nice!

I'll contact them eventually to see what can be done, but first I'll give them a bit to sort things out. It's quite possible some artists chose to pull their stuff, or haven't bothered to upload replacements, and that's not Apple's fault.

-- Steph

I have this problem to0. Some songs are completely identical to ones available as plus, but I still can't upgrade them as iTunes doesn't think they are the same. You can click on the arrow next to the song and find the exact song from the exact album for sale on iTunes as a + version, but no joy in getting the upgrade.

Then there are the albums like R.E.M. Automatic for the People that have been upgraded to + but they forgot tracks 1 and 2, so iTunes sees I bought the whole album, but the upgraded album is "incomplete" so I can't upgrade any of the songs or the whole album.

There must be a way to address this with Apple.

Message was edited by: ikramerica

Same problem here - I'm a long time iTunes customer and I've been upgrading to the plus versions of songs as they've been made available. Now that all songs are available in plus format, the link on the iTunes Store home page that leads to the upgrade choices is no longer present.

The link will not appear if the iTunes Store doesn't register any of the track you've purchased as being upgradable. First, confirm that the track(s) you've purchased appear in the iTunes Library as iTunes Plus. All tracks in the iTunes Store should now be Plus, but some that could not be obtained in iTunes Plus from the record companies may have been removed completely.

If you do see the tracks available, what can apparently happen is that for various reasons (replacement of a track in the Store with another copy, slight changes in the release identification, etc.) the link between the track and your Purchase History can break, which will result in the track not appearing as eligible for iTunes Plus upgrade even though it exists as Plus in the Store.

What you'll need to do is contact the iTunes Store Customer Service department using the form at the bottom of the Purchase Issues FAQ web page (there is no category specifically for this issue, so I'd suggest just picking one under the Purchases - problem area) and explain the problem to them. It may take a couple of email exchanges to get past the "form" email responses, but eventually they should work out a solution for you. You may need to provide the track name, artist and order number so they can confirm the original purchase.

Regards.

I came to the forum looking for an answer to this same question (I had one song that I wasn't getting an upgrade offer for). Just thought I'd let others know that I followed Dave Sawyer's advice and had full resolution -- in the form of a credit to my account -- with Apple's first email reply, in less than 24 hours.

Apple & iTunes rock!

I took Dave's advice and sent the following to Apple (the xxxx's are to hide personal data only and weren't part of my e-mail to Apple which had exact order #s, etc):

Customer First Name : William
Customer Last Name : xxxx
email : billytxxxx@xxxx.com
Web Order # : Mxxxxxxxxx
Support Subject : Purchase(s) - problems
Sub Issue : Already own item
iTunes Account Name : billytxxxx@xxxx.com
Platform : Windows Vista
Country : United States (English)
Item Name : Songs I cannot upgrade.....????
Comments:

Hello:

My name is William xxxx and my fiancee's name is Alison xxxx. We are both avid iTunes users with a consolidated, family iTunes library.

I know that iTunes Plus has been fully implemented on the iTunes store now. Yet, I still have the following music in DRM *.m4p (protected) format with no option in sight to upgrade. It seems that these songs are no longer available on the iTunes store. Will you be adding them back slowly at some point in the future and I can just upgrade them then? Can I upgrade to other versions of these songs now available on iTunes? What are my options to get these songs upgraded to iTunes Plus format? I appreciate your advice and information regarding my questions. Thank you.

Best Regards,
Bill xxxx
billyxxxx@xxxx.com
xxx-xxx-xxxx

Purchased from the iTunes store under account billytxxxx@xxxx.com (58 Files)

Order #M19418xxxx (4/25/2006)
04 Sound and Vision.m4p (David Bowie - Low)

Order #M19874xxxx (5/3/2006)
03 Goody Two Shoes.m4p (Adam Ant - Super Hits)
1-01 Lowdown (Live).m4p (Bozz Scaggs - Greatest Hits (Live))
1-03 Heart of Mine (Live).m4p (Bozz Scaggs - Greatest Hits (Live))
2-08 Look What You've Done to Me.m4p (Bozz Scaggs - My Time)
04 The Great Pumpkin Waltz.m4p (Chick Corea - Happy Anniversary, Charlie Brown!)
04 Doctor Who Theme (Electro Club Mi.m4p (Galaxy 4 - Doctor Who Theme)
01 What Is Love.m4p (Haddaway - Haddaway)
2-11 Got to Give It Up (Part 2).m4p (Marvin Gaye - Gold)
04 Forever Mine.m4p (The O'Jays - Soul Singles)
08 Love Train.m4p (The O'Jays - Club Epic, Vol. 3)
02 Use To Be My Girl.m4p (The O'Jays - Soul Singles)
1-24 Doctor Who.m4p (Ron Granier - 100 Greatest TV Themes)
16 The Caves of Altamira.m4p (Steely Dan - Roaring Of The Lamb)
03 More to Come.m4p (Steely Dan - Roaring Of The Lamb)
04 Parker's Band.m4p (Steely Dan - Roaring Of The Lamb)
15 Sun Mountain.m4p (Steely Dan - Roaring Of The Lamb)
04 The Ballroom Blitz.m4p (Sweet - The Best Of)
01 Little Willy.m4p (Sweet - The Best Of)
13 Love Is Like Oxygen.m4p (Sweet - The Best Of)
11 Rock 'n' Roll Machine.m4p (Triumph - Classics)

Order #M20723xxxx (5/19/2006)
05 What's the Use.m4p (Jamie Liddel - Multiply)

Order #M20727xxxx (5/19/2006)
01 Sweet Sweet Baby.m4p (Michelle Featherstone - Fallen Down)

Order #M20938xxxx (5/23/2006)
01 Give It Time.m4p (Eric Lindell - Change In The Weather)

Order #M21074xxxx (5/26/2006)
05 Get It Right Next Time.m4p (Gerry Rafferty - Right Down The Line, The Best Of)
04 Right Down the Line.m4p (Gerry Rafferty - Right Down The Line, The Best Of)
01 Don Quixote.m4p (Gordon Lightfoot - Don Quixote)
02 Dancin' In the Moonlight.m4p (Orleans - Dancin' In The Moonlight)
03 You Can't Change That.m4p (Ray Parker Jr. - Greatest Hits)

Order #M21181xxxx (5/28/2006)
04 Danny's Song (Loggins & Messina).m4p (StoryHill - Duotones)
09 One Toke Over the Line (Brewer &.m4p (StoryHill - Duotones)

Order #M21558xxxx (6/4/2006)
02 Desire.m4p (Andy Gibb - Desire)
08 I Can't Help It.m4p (Andy Gibb - 20th Century Masters)
09 Time Is Time.m4p (Andy Gibb - 20th Century Masters)
09 I Want It All Now.m4p (The Tubes - 20th Century Masters)

Order #M37068xxxx (2/3/2007)
03 Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've.m4p (Hamilton, Joe Frank - Greatest)
01 Don't Pull Your Love.m4p (Hamilton, Joe Frank - Greatest)
02 The Love I Lost.m4p (Harold Melvin - The Ultimate Blue Notes)
1-08 Celebrate Me Home.m4p (Kenny Loggins - The Essential Kenny Loggins)
1-17 Heart to Heart.m4p (Kenny Loggins - The Essential Kenny Loggins)
1-15 I'm Alright (Theme from Caddysh.m4p (Kenny Loggins - The Essential Kenny Loggins)

Order #M37452xxxx (2/7/2007)
04 Raspberry Beret.m4p (Prince - Around The World In A Day)
1-03 Dance to the Music.m4p (Sly & The Family Stone - The Essential Sly & The Family Stone)
2-10 If You Want Me to Stay.m4p (Sly & The Family Stone - The Essential Sly & The Family Stone)

Order #M37531xxxx (2/8/2007)
06 Easy Lover.m4p (Philip Bailey - Chinese Wall)
23-06 As.m4p (Stevie Wonder - The Complete Stevie Wonder)
1-05 Lady.m4p (Styx - Return To Paradise)

Order #M46748xxxx (6/2/2007)
02 Song 2.m4p (Blur - Blur)
10 Missing You.m4p (John Waite - The Complete John Waite, Vol. 1)

Order #M61320xxxx (11/22/2007)
01 El Parrandero.m4p (Sin Animo De Lucro - Master En Parranda)

Order #M11M20xxxx (1/21/2008)
01 Shockwave (Edited Version).m4p (Black Tide - Single)

Order #M11M20xxxx (1/21/2008)
1-07 You're So Vain.m4p (Carly Simon - Clouds In My Coffee)
01 Want Ads.m4p (Honey Cone - Greatest Hits)
01 The Morning After.m4p (Maureen McGovern - 20th Century Masters)
03 Wonderwall.m4p (Oasis - (What's The Story) Morning Glory)

Order #MG9HY5xxxx (3/21/2009)
06 Epic.m4p (Faith No More - This Is It, The Best Of)

Order #MG9HY7xxxx (3/25/2009)
01 We're Not Gonna Take It.m4p (Twisted Sister - Big Hits and Nasty Cuts)
02 I Wanna Rock.m4p (Twisted Sister - Big Hits and Nasty Cuts)

Purchased from the iTunes store under account island girlxxxx@xxxx.com (2 Files)

Order #MGB7NVxxxx (3/21/2009)
01 Jesus, Take the Wheel.m4p (Carrie Underwood - Single)

Order #MGB7Q0xxxx (3/31/2009)
01 9 to 5.m4p (Dolly Parton - Greatest Hits)

I'm not ver impressed with the canned response I recieved from Apple's support team today regarding my e-mail and I'm not sure how to proceed further with Apple. I was already well aware of exactly what iTunes Plus is before they droned on to me about it in their reply.

Unless Apple is willing to provide me with some means to upgrade the rest of my music, I will personally no longer use the iTunes service to purchase music and will use another party such as Amazon instead. I will also no longer recommend iTunes to my friends and colleagues as I used to. If they do make good with me, I'll post it here and be an avid Apple supporter once again.

Here is the canned reply I received from Apple today:

Hello William,

Thank you for contacting the iTunes Store Support Team. My name is Kedra and I will be assisting you today. At Apple, superior customer service is always our goal. I understand that you have several concerns and questions about our iTunes Plus music. Thank you for inquiring about iTunes Plus music on the iTunes Store. I'm happy to tell you that iTunes Plus is the new standard on iTunes.

The iTunes Store now offers only iTunes Plus DRM-free music. Every song available in iTunes is an iTunes Plus song. You can choose from over 10 million songs, priced at only $0.69, $0.99, or $1.29 each. Most albums are still available at $9.99.

iTunes Plus downloads are songs and music videos available in our highest quality 256 kbps AAC audio encoding (twice the audio quality of protected music purchases), and without digital rights management (DRM). iTunes Plus music can be burned to CD as reasonably necessary for personal, noncommercial use, synced to any AAC-enabled device (such as iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV), and played on any Mac or Windows computers you own.

It's easy to upgrade your iTunes library to iTunes Plus. You don't have to buy the song or album again; you only pay the upgrade price, which is $0.30 per song. (Music video upgrades are $0.60 and entire albums can be upgraded for 30 percent of the album price.)

You can see all of your available upgrades on the Upgrade to iTunes Plus page. You can also upgrade all of your DRM-protected purchases to iTunes Plus from this page. To get there, click Upgrade to iTunes Plus under Quick Links in the main iTunes window.

When you click the Buy All button, you will replace all of your eligible music and music video purchases in your iTunes library with iTunes Plus versions of the content. You can also perform individual upgrades by clicking the Buy button to the right of any item.

iTunes Plus music is continually added to the iTunes Store, so your upgrade offer may change at any time. Please check back often to find new music available for upgrading.

To preview, purchase, and play iTunes Plus music, make sure you are using the latest version of iTunes, available free of charge on the iTunes website:

http://www.itunes.com/download

For more information, please visit the iTunes Plus FAQ:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1711

Once again, thank you for being a member of the iTunes Family. Your business is greatly appreciated. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to make your Apple experience more enjoyable. The iTunes Store wishes you a great day!

Sincerely,

Kedra
iTunes Store Customer Support
Please Note: I work Wed-Sun from 11AM to 8PM CT

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to assist you. You may receive an AppleCare survey email about your experience with my customer service; any feedback you provide would be greatly appreciated.

I got the exact same reply to my question, except from "Destyni". When I replied saying that that wasn't what I asked, this is the reply I recieved:

"Destyni here, and I understand that you are having issue upgrading, you should try upgrading again." - This was followed by another canned message about what iTunes Plus is.

Again, I replied saying that I would upgrade if I could, but I cannot and that is the problem. This is what I got back:

"Destyni here, and I understand that you are having some problems with upgrading, please check back at a later date. The eligible items will be added to the Upgrade My Library page as the items become available for upgrade."

So even though all items on the store are iTunes Plus, not all of them are eligible for upgrades? This seems wrong to me.

My previous dealings with Apple support have been nothing but great, but this is just unacceptable. I have to wonder if my entire first message, which detailed the entire issue to great length, was simply skimmed over and I was sent these canned reponses instead of actual information pertaining to my situation. Even something as simple as "Although all our songs on the store are now iTunes Plus, it make take a few days for the upgrade option to show on your account" would have pleased me greatly, but instead this is what I got. It's a shame.

*Side note: It may be nothing, but the link to iTunes support in their signature was http://www.apple.com/suport/itunes/ww, an obviously malformed link. It seemed odd to me that there would be such a blatant error in their contact information sent to all customers.

Message was edited by: burntfire

I got what a better response in terms of the actual reason, but as a customer not good enough:
---
Thank you for your interest in iTunes Plus. I understand you purchased DRM-protected content on the iTunes Store and are concerned that you have not been able to upgrade some of your purchases to iTunes Plus. My name is Vickie and I can appreciate your concern and am sure I can help you with this today.

Unfortunately although items are now all iTunes Plus format in the iTunes Store we have not been given the rights to upgrade some of our old files to iTunes Plus.

Items are sold on the iTunes Store on a contract basis for a period of time as agreed upon with the record label owning the rights to that content. Until iTunes receives the rights to upgrade the files you originally purchased we will not be able to offer the upgrade option to iTunes Plus.

If the record label delays in renegotiation of their content, the items are removed at the end of the contracts term. If they renegotiate, they are reinstated in the store, and appear unchanged as you see them now. When items are removed like this, the originals can not be returned to the customer any longer. If you see songs in the iTunes Store available in iTunes Plus but you have the same song in DRM format but cannot upgrade the item it is because the file you have is different the the new, modified file in the iTunes Store that we receive from the record label.

You can see all of your available upgrades on the Upgrade to iTunes Plus page. You can also upgrade all of your DRM-protected purchases to iTunes Plus from this page. To get there, click Upgrade to iTunes Plus under Quick Links in the main iTunes window.

Please check your account periodically to see if your DRM purchases will become eligible for the upgrade to iTunes Plus.

I am sorry for the inconvenience this may cause, Simon. Thank you for your patience and understanding. If you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to reply to this email.
---

See, I can live with that response. It makes sense, even if it isn't great. Too bad they don't just say that upfront on the upgrade page and save everyone a lot of hassle.

Message was edited by: burntfire

Hey guys,

I had this problem as well, but also an additional problem I'm wondering if anyone else has run into:

I had some songs with explicit lyrics. When I did the plus upgrade, I now have the clean version. I've noticed it on 6 songs from 2 different albums so far. Anyone else run into this?

Kind of... I use to have a few songs tagged Explicit and now there is none...

Unfortunately, I can't remember which one was explicit except for one song from "Cake" ("I will Survive").

But if I look at the album ("Fashion Nugget"), the all album is now (or was?) tagged Explicit... And the only song of the album tagged Explicit is also tagged "Edited"...

And when I listen to the song, I can clearly hear the F-word... 😉

So yes Explicit tags are gone but offending words are still there in the only case I can remember...

Mine are definitely missing the expletive words. You can clearly tell it's an edited version.

Same here - I had two songs come through as "upgradeable" this morning and bought them right away. Once downloaded, I discovered that the songs are HEAVILY edited - to the point of being virtually unlistenable with all of the audio dropouts, backwards masking and other editing tricks to take out the offending words. The newly downloaded tracks are clearly marked "explicit" but they are very much the edited versions.

Actually, just looked in the store again and noticed something. Both of the tracks which I upgraded were from 2Pac's album "Heartz of Men". If you look in the store, the album is listed twice, and both listings are tagged as "explicit". Clicking on the samples, though, you can quickly notice that the tracks on one of the listings are edited while the other listing is explicit.