Download Error. Tap to retry.

I had this problem as well, however I did find one way to get this to download on my iPhone. What I found that worked was to tap to retry the download and as it's attempting to download it again I hit the pause button (I had to be quick). Once it was paused I hit the button again to resume the download and it successfully completed. I hope this helps some of you out until Apple fix this bug.

What you have to do is go into settings and switch off WiFi to force the download to use the slower cellular network to download the track. This will give you enough time to click on the Pause II icon when it appears briefly after you click on the track to download. Once paused and subsequently unpaused, the track downloads normally. You may wish to switch the WiFi back on to shorten your download (if available)

I had the same problem as everyone else an followed the advice to try and pause the download and it worked for me. The only problem I had was you have to be realy quick to hit the pause button realy quick took me more than a few tries but saved me from having to download it on my computer and sync it to my phone would have wasted even more time so I think this is a quick fix and hopefully soon they will create a fix for this problem

I ran into this with one song today. I tried to download it directly to my iPhone, but got the error message. I went to iTunes using my MacBook Pro, clicked on my account on the top right and it told me I had one incomplete download. I clicked there to finish it and synced. All fixed. Annoying, but it was simple to resolve. I guess I'll only download using my laptop from now on.

I've experienced the Tap to Retry error the last two times I've downloaded music directly to my iPhone. The first time, iTunes on my computer finished the download automatically after connecting my phone. The most recent time, that did not work. I tried rebooting the phone, downloading over wi-fi, buying the song again on my phone... no luck. Reading this thread, I noticed the comment about quickly hitting PAUSE after trying to continue the download. You've got to be quick, and it'll take a few tries, but THIS WORKED ON MY IPHONE! It's a work around, but doesn't require wi-fi or my desktop. Thanks for posting!!

I just wanted to say thanks, I tried the suggestion to quickly hit the pause button and my song downloaded straight away to my iPhone no problems! This definitely seems like the solution to a problem tons of people are having! 🙂

Lukeless solution worked for me as well. - "I had this problem as well, however I did find one way to get this to download on my iPhone. What I found that worked was to tap to retry the download and as it's attempting to download it again I hit the pause button (I had to be quick). Once it was paused I hit the button again to resume the download and it successfully completed. I hope this helps some of you out until Apple fix this bug."

Great fix - retry the download and QUICKLY press pause. Then resume the download as usual when it shows up in the Download list. I had to hit retry about 20-30 times, but it errors out quickly, so it didn't take much time.

Someone mentioned switching WiFi off and using Edge or 3g to make the download slower and easier to pause. I like the idea, but if that doesn't work for you, (if it comes back as too large to download over the network, or if you just want to try something different) what I did was try to get the processor on the phone to slow down.

How did I get the processor to slow down? Well, since you can't get a lot of apps to run in the background, the one that you can that always slows things down (at least on the 3g, maybe less so on the 3gs) is playing a song in the iPod app. So I played a song and tried again to do the pause, and then I was able to get it. Hope that helps!

I just got the answer from Apple Support:
Open iTunes on your computer, connect your iPhone/iPod
At the top, where it says File, Edit, View, etc.
Choose "Store"
Then "Check for Available Downloads"

I did this & it finished downloading 4 songs - they are now on my iTunes, but not my iPhone, which is easily fixed with a Sync.

I noticed that I could not download if I previewed a song before purchasing, but the Apple rep said it also has to do with AT&T only allowing a certain download size, and since I downloaded an album without being on wi-fi, I may have exceeded that size, causing the error.

I've had this error for days! Just found a solution, hope it works for you guys.

I plugged iPhone into my computer and opened iTunes. Then, under "Store" go to "Purchased" (this may be available under only the newest update of iTunes). It should take you to a page where at the bottom, there's a button that shows "Available Downloads." When I clicked on that, it took me to two tracks from an album that wouldn't load. I clicked on that and it immediately started loading the songs. The troublesome one (I realized there were actually 2 files, not just 1), took a second longer but then it finally finished. From the "Purchased" screen, I was able to move the songs onto my phone and then when I went back to iTunes on iPhone, and navigated off the "Downloads" screen, when I came back to it, the song was gone.

I should probably note that I stumbled upon this after trial and error and I think this is what I did - but it worked like a charm without having to purchase the song again. It could have been because I moved it onto my phone from my computer or because it just recognized it automatically since it was downloaded.

So sick of having to type in password every 5 minutes!!! Hope this helps!

Oh my gosh! You are telling my story! I am on vacation in new Hampshire and have been for 2 months. My iPhone is my only computer connection and I have 2 months worth of pictures and one movie that I purchased for the kids. I rented a movie the other night for the first time and it went ok. Then i went to rent another and I got the dreaded download error tap to retry. Well I tapped and tapped and it doesn't work. I can't delete it either, from my iPhone! I can't erase my pictures from my phone bcuz I have nowhere to save them. The partailly downloaded movie has sucked up all my extra space on the phone so I can't get another movie now! I can't plug my iPhone into my computer bcuz I am not home! So I am screwed until I get home in a week. I have spent hours trying to find some iTunes help on this subject and come up short. This is not cool to be on vacation and be stuck with my phone hostage! Help!

This happens to me a lot. And I found a little fix that works for me every time. When it's stuck on download error /tap again, I tap it and while it's trying to download again for a few seconds, you will notice the pause download icon pops up quickly and only for a short time before it gets the error again. I tap that quickly, pause the download for a few seconds, then tap it to resume. It starts the download from the beginning again. Works every time for me! Maybe it will for you!:)

I'm having this problem for the first time ever, on an iPhone 4. Unfortunately, the pause button only comes up for about 0.01 seconds and I can't manage to tap it. I don't know if this is because the iPhone 4 is faster or what.

In iTunes on my Mac, it says "Downloads available: 1", but when I click on the "Download now" button, nothing happens. Seems like some kind of communication problem between the store and my devices.

Any ideas?

Thank you Lukeless for this simple but effective fix, you're a genius!!

I tried other suggestions such as uploading via itunes store on my computer and checking for available downloads - the song I was having trouble with downloaded on my computer but wouldn't sync to my iphone. I also checked storage space on my iphone - 2gb left, plenty to download a 6.2mb song. Nothing worked until I tried your little gem of advice. Cheers mate.

I tried everything and nothing works! Now i am just mad that my incomplete download is taking up two gigs of my fourteen - is there any way to just delete my download - i couldn't. Find anything through my computer's itunes or anything. Tia