Download Error. Tap to retry.

THIS! (works!)

Tell ya what, iTunes Store, all these solutions that involve re-downloading on your computer with iTunes pretty much shoots anyone in the foot who might be, say, traveling. I was on a business trip and figured I'd download a movie on the phone to watch on the return flight.

Little did I know what a nightmare I'd be getting into: First the abort because it can't work on 3G. Then, starting the download after connecting to Wi-Fi, only to abort because the phone auto-locked after two minutes. So I turn off auto-lock, and let the phone run for a while. I have to make a call, so I (god forbid) close the iTunes app.

When I get back to it (and, side note, have to enter my password for about the 18th time... Is there a setting somewhere to save it? If not, can there be? Typing any sort of reasonably secure password on an iPhone soft keyboard is a Herculean exercise in patience.), the iTunes app gives the dreaded "Download error. Tap to retry" loop. Forever.

"Oh just connect the phone to your computer and download it there." That'd work great if you didn't prevent me from syncing the phone to more than one computer. I don't travel with an iMac -- it's sort of hard to get under the seat in front of me on a plane. It will, however, be a solid solution when I get home. I'll enjoy watching the movie I've already paid for from the comfort of my couch on a large screen.

However that doesn't solve the problem that I paid $3 to rent a movie to watch on an airplane, and spent over an hour of my time over the course of two days just trying to download it.

I love the iTunes Music Store. I love using your products. But things like this really make me question if anyone at Apple actually uses these products. If you're going to tell me this is an uncommon combination of usage cases, I'll be thoroughly surprised. Why do you make it such an ordeal to obtain content someone has already paid for? Why can't the content download in the background? (After all, Apps can!) Why can't downloads resume cleanly? Why can a song or movie that's downloaded completely fail to process and not give any option to re-download or delete or refund or any other option other than "download it via another method and sync it to your phone"?

I certainly had the potential to spend actual money on songs and movies while on the road in the future, but until you revamp the download system, you won't get a single penny from me.

I'll end this rant here, because I know I'm preaching to the choir and there's not actually any Apple Customer Service or "Suggestion Box" staff that pay attention to this vast wasteland of peer discussion that is the best support tool Apple's customers are allowed to have access to.

This worked! You're right though, I had to be quick about it. Thanks for the suggestion!

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!

I had the same prob today and tried your fix Lukeless - worked great (as soon as I could manage to hit the pause button. Very happy - thanks for the tip! (maybe it's just an Aussie workaround!;)

The answer is more simple than you'd ever imagine: you don't have enough storage for the download. You'll need to delete some songs/shows to make more room.

I can confirm this. The download error is most likely because there isn't sufficient storage space on the phone. Check under Settings / General / About. Try deleting a few apps and try again.

OMG. After trying all frakin day your fix did the trick! Granted that took a bit too but THANK YOU! ::glomp:: I can now FINALLY finish downloading Die Another Day. You're the best.

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?

Cheers man I've had that problem for ages. But thanks to you it's solved now. Even if I did have to delete half my south park connection.. Thanks

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.

Tapping pause worked for me. Thanks!

I had this song stuck for DAYS then I saw your post, and I TAPPED TAPPED TAPPED til it finally restarted loading!!! THANKS SO MUCH!