Download Error. Tap to retry.

Dr House - is your phone in warranty? Ideally, less than a month? I had exactly this problem and it was only fixed by replacing the phone. They did this in the shop as part of a 40-day return. It isn't specific to iOS7 - this appears to happen a lot. I'm surprised Apple have never put out an official fix, that I can see.

Yeah its only 2 days old its a 5s. The only reason it doesn't seem to be hardware is that it is different songs each time I restore and it is usually only 2-3 songs out of 1900 when i restore. Also I agree its not limited to iOS 7 but all previous iOS's were capable of getting out of this "loop" of download errors I am stuck in, there is no way to delete the failed downloads which to me still points to software. Hardware shouldn't be the culprit since every time I start the process over, the phone will download the previous songs that were in error on my last restore and then error out on a different song. It seems to be a network interuption that causes the failure but why on earth is there no way to recover? Seems to me just closing the iTunes app on the phone completely or just a reboot should allow for the download to reinitiate, or simply allowing the usuer to delete failed attempt would make the most sense!! So bizarre, no way I can get a replacement 5s anywhere 2 days after launch, its sold out everywhere, not even worth the headache of that process.

Fifth restore a charm??!?? Finally success, very frustrating but diligence seems to pay off here, thanks for the suggestion as well.

After upgrade of iPad to iOS7 the probem disappeared.

after upgrade to IOS7 the problem appeared.

Ok so my phone is like stuck I guess. I downloaded music on my computer an went on my phone to download it on to the phone without having to plug it in. When I did that my phone just stopped wanting to download an erased all my music an now the music I try to re download is sticking in processing mode an I can't erase it or anything an it just one song stuck in processing an my phone won't let me download anything else till that one song is done downloading an it's stuck so I need help .

This does not resolve my problem. I wan't the download to complete. This occurs for me on my podcasts since updating to ios7. I can only download them on my PC, and not directly to my iPhone 4S. Still playing around with the settings, but haven't found the correct config. to allow me to download my podcasts directly (over 3G or Wifi.)

Three support chats with Apple Support, an appointment at the Genius Bar ... and, my songs still get stuck at the "processing" stage. Can't download previously purchased or Music Match'd songs via wifi (any wifi) or 3g.

The Geniuses reset it back to factory new condition, supposedly. It still wasn't downloading. Then one of them did a bit of voodoo, clearing the safari cache and web data (shouldn't it already be clear? It was just restored to new), setting cookies to never accept .. and, suddenly, the 3 songs we were watching downloaded. I'd been there for 2 hours and needed to go, so I said, thanks, I'll see if it's fixed. Of course it wasn't. Haven't gotten a download to pass "Processing" since. Tried repeating that ridiculous voodoo to no avail.

So, I am back to managing the iPad like it was an iPod circa 2005 - putting songs on it with iTunes. WHich is a trick once you're using Match. You have to disable music match in iTunes, disable it on the iPad, and then finally you are able to manage the syncing of songs by hand with iTunes.

To make sure it isn't my account that is at fault, I logged one of the store iPads to my itunes acccount and was able to download previously purchased songs just fine ... something I cannot do since the ios7 upgrade. (I wonder if this is specific to older hardware ... an iPad2 purchased two years ago.)

This problem really stinks and it hope that they get thousands of people at the Apple Stores requesting help with it so it will get fixed in the next bug fix release.

Hadn't even tried podcasts yet.

Looks like they work for me. Good luck, P-ta.

I've experienced this issue multiple times, which I believe started after I brought some songs over from iCloud onto my iPhone. The strange thing is even though the downloads reach approximately 75% and then fail, I'm still able to go into my music library and listen to them.

Issue seems to have resolved itself after syncing and restarting the phone.

Hi everyone,

I had this exact same issue. I got a replacement phone and downloaded iOS7. NONE of my purchased songs would download and it kept saying - download error, tap to retry and when I tapped to retry it kept saying '.... cannot be downloaded, please try again later'. So frustrating as I didn't want to lose over £60 worth of music!

I tried the suggestion of 'deleting' the songs from the downloads list on itunes. Swipe each song to the left (when using an iphone) and then press delete. A lot of them then played fine in itunes and the ones that still hadn't downloaded, miraculously started downloading properly once you pressed the cloud icon next to it in itunes.

PHEW!

It does work, just swipe to delete all of the ones in the download list and then click the cloud icon to download the rest. Hope this helps.

I was so confused. I subscribe to several podcasts. A few of them would download just fine yet one of them would start the download but stopped just short of finishing and I would get the dreaded error message, "Download failed, tap to retry." I have an iPhone 4s. I don't use iTunes on my PC, just download directly from my phone. After reading some of the posts, I got the idea to disconnect WiFi and try it that way. Lo and Behold, the non-performing podcast downloaded just fine. Go figure.

I have fixed the problem that doesn't involve quick tapping or calling apple support!

You must connect the iPhone to the computer unfortunately. If you don't want to or cannot, keep tapping and maybe you'll get lucky!
For me: I connected to iTunes (had to get the update) and went to Purchased under the store button on the side bar. I RIGHT CLICKED and selected Search for available downloads. This Re-Downloaded the song on my iTunes. I dragged the songs that weren't working to my iPhone (my settings are such that I manually manage all songs etc). I shut iTunes on my phone, and reopened it to find my downloads were clear! I went into my music list on my phone to see that the songs that I wanted were available to download from the iCloud. I tapped the iCloud with an arrow icon, and boom it downloaded.

Try messing around with that and it should clear it up.

There is no way to delete it with a swipe now that iOS 7 is here. Any fixes with this are now out of date.

Good Luck.

The really odd thing about this issue is that it is different for different podcasts. One podcast will work fine while another won't finish. I did find a solution that works for me. I have a 4s. When I get the error message, I delete the failed download, click on download old podcasts, re-download the failed download. Then, before I press the arrow to install the podcast, I turn off WiFi. Amazingly enough, it works every time. I hope this helps.