Can't authorize songs under old Apple ID

This solution does not work. Is there any solution yet to the problem of getting songs bought under a previous ID to be authorized on my computer? I changed my apple ID to my old ID (my old email ID which still works and under which I bought the songs), and then I deauthorized then authorized this computer. Songs still won't play. It tells me the computer is not authorized, tells me to log in with my ID to authorized the computer. I do that, it says my computer is already authorized, but I still get the error message.

Hello all...

I am having the same exact problem described in this article. I have tried all the suggestions listed. So far, nothing works. I recently upgraded my PC to Windows 7, and that is when all the problems started. First by iTunes not being able to create the iTunes folder. (I fixed that by the way). I lost all my playlists - I was able to resolve that issue using iRip. Once iRip brought the playlist back, I lost the authorized content.

Someone needs to get Apple and Microsoft to get along better. I blame Microsoft for the iTunes blow up after my upgrade to Windows 7.

(Anyway)

Please someone find a fix to this.

Thanks

i'm on windows XP with itunes 9
same problem.
asking for old login

Same exact problem here--but only a coupla dozen songs bt under old account ID. Can play songs on my desktop itunes, and they transfer to ipod, but won't play, just show up for a second and go back to the "play" icon instead of "pause." A related problem is that 4 of my apps do the same thing--show up as transferred but don't play. This is a new ipod and I'm pssed that it doesn't work without problems. Have spent hours researching this and find it UNBELIEVABLE that rich mighty Apple can't fix this problem. I have two queries in to support. First response said try all the basics (which I had said in my query that I had tried) and pointed me to about 6 articles on various vaguely related subjects. As if I want to spend 6 more hours reading crap. I'm almost at the point where I may return the ipod, I'm so disappointed with Apple's lack of attention to such a basic problem. Please let us know what if any solution you find.

I am having the same issue. My current Apple ID/Password does NOT allow me play any tracks purchased with my previous Apple ID. An Apple rep sent me this article http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1389
Unfortunately, iTunes keeps prompting me for my old Apple ID/Password. That Apple ID no longer exists. Therefore, I cannot log-in with that account. If anyone figures out a solution, please reply.

Ok...Hallelujah...this fixed the problem!

Follow the KB article posted, and removing the SC folder was the specific item that worked for me. Reminder, I am running Windows 7. Removing the SC folder made iTunes have to reconfigure. Once the iTunes install completes, authorize your machine with your NEW/EXISTING username and password. It will tell you that you already authorized the machine, but...all the songs that wouldn't play before will play now! Thank you very much kincamilsilverlake!!!!

I'm wondering if the OP ever found a solution to this problem? I'm having it too, moving songs to a new Mac. Removing the SC folder didn't work, and the account that appears in Get Info is one that Apple says doesn't exist (anymore). The KB article has other solutions, but these are for Windows. I'm writing to Apple next...

AH-HA!

I e-mailed Apple Customer Service (I got a reply in just over an hour) about this.

I do, in fact, have more than one account. However, the account name that appeared on my Summary pane for the songs I couldn't authorize was not the name of the account with which the song is actually associated. This explains why I kept getting the error about the non-existent Apple ID. I have two accounts, and both names are e-mail addresses, for whatever that is worth.

The customer service rep was able to give me the "names" (again, e-mail addresses) of the accounts, and from that I was able to deduce which one was the one I was having trouble with; when I logged in with that Apple ID, I was able to authorize the songs.

SO, try all e-mail addresses that you might have used, and see if one works. If not, e-mail iTunes Store Customer Service (via the iTunes support pages) and ask for all other accounts associated with your Apple ID. Then you should be able to authorize older songs purchased with outdated accounts.

Where are you sending this email? When I click the email link it takes me back to the discussions page. Very frustrating!

At http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ under Customer Service, click on Authorization. Two tabs should appear - click on Troubleshooting Authorization Problems. At right, click on the large button that says "e-mail us".

If that doesn't work, try this link.

Hope this helps.

I am still having problems with apps for my ipod touch they will not transfer because it is not authorized to be played on this iPod? But a TV show with the same address works on my computer with no problems.

I have an Ipod touch and a new Macbook Pro. I found that songs purchased under an old ID (defunct email) won't play on the Ipod, and I contacted Apple. The rep said that, well, they're not going to play because they were purchased under an account that no longer exists! I said to her, do you mean to tell me that there is no way to play these, and she said that is correct. She apologized for not being able to solve my problem. I thought this was amazing, that Apple had either let a glitch like this slip through, or decided that we can't play purchased music after a certain point. I'm never buying music from itunes again.

Pinetreepete: If the account no longer exists, then it seems reasonable to conclude that you closed it - is that the case? I doubt that Apple would close an account out of the blue (i.e., without a customer request) and/or without any warning. A search of the internet shows many results that indicate that closing an iTunes account will likely result in your being unable to authorize songs purchased under that account. This is logical behavior. Interestingly, I've tried searching on Apple's website for information about closing or deleting an iTunes account, and can't find anything. So closing an account must be "hard" to do, and probably came with warnings about the possible consequences. If you don't think you closed the account, then you might try re-contacting customer support and seeing if there is another e-mail address that is linked to your account, or if there is some other means of identifying an additional account that you might not realize you have.

I have ech2002's problem. There is no old/new ID issue. Only that my AppleID account no longer exists. Attempts to recover it using old email addresses (in the iforgot.apple.com application) failed. I sent an email to support a week ago with no response yet.

Actually it's not that hard at all to get an old apple id to disappear. You just log in with that old id and make the mistake of updating the information.

Take me, for example. I had an old id named <Old Email> from before 2005. Then, a now-ex girlfriend decided to give the account a nickname <Argyron> and use that to log in. I believe apple calls it an alias. That was in use at the store from 2005 to 2008. After we split, I changed that to be a different <New Name> because I never really liked the nickname anyway. Note that only one of those Apple ID's is an email address. And while I sign in here with <New Name> it still puts Argyron on my posts. The apple id argyron does not exist. Sigh.

So, there are songs in my library tagged with three different account names, and the computer must all be authorized exactly as the songs are tagged in order to play that song. Fast forward to recently, when I had a bit of a fire.

Backup disks = gone. Drive containing the entire music library = mortally wounded and gasping from thousands of bad sectors. That's more than a couple hundred gigs of songs, audiobooks, archived podcasts, itunes movies, entire tv show seasons and iphone apps. The great majority of that purchased through the itunes store.

Windows has really junky freeware data recovery tools. I've moved to linux and have been using that to try to recover the files off of the dying drive. I believe all the audiobooks and itunesU and ringtones are recovered. The many movies and seasons of tv shows, which looks like 150+ gigs of stuff, is not looking so good.

So, I've installed windows in a virtual drive, so I can run itunes to sync with the iphone while still working on saving my stuff with the more-useful linux tools. In the process of adding the meager 16 gigs I now have to the library of the newly installed itunes, somehow I updated my <Nickname> information to match the <New Name> info, including the apple id itself. It's not bad enough that people have to remember different login names for different sites, with different passwords if they are properly careful, but itunes is the only place where you must remember multiple user names for a single account. I don't even want to imagine the spaghetti problems that can appear if you also mix in separately created accounts on AIM and MobileMe. There really does need to be a Merge Accounts feature.

So yes, you can make your entire previous apple account disappear, without the sort of red flags you would expect to show up.

And by the way, folks... Gnu DDrescue does good work for data recovery. And sticking the drive in the freezer does help in some situations. And it is actually a bit funny to watch windows update think it has the whole computer to itself inside one window while you're reading email in another. And, for the love of your itunes library, put your backups in a fireproof box.