Cannot connect to iTunes Store - Make sure your network connection is activ

I finally gave up and just went back to version 9.0.3 and life is good again...

I have a Mac OS X 10.6.3 and am SO FRUSTRATED. Stupid update and no everything is outta whack. Come on Apple! FIX IT!

May be worth noting - the way that iTunes initialized the store is different now - and for me - it's an institutional internet filter / firewall problem. (my institution uses Network Composer)

It's probably got something to do with the *.edgesuite.net address iTunes tries to access. (Apple uses companies like Akami - to whom edgesuite.net is registered - for bandwidth distribution - but unfortunately 'edgesuite.net' is firewalled-out in many situations because it's known for some less-than-reputable ad distribution)

any suggestions on what to do? reinstalling? I just backed all my files up onto external hard drive just in case it decided to crash...do you think that apple will fix this problem or should I "downgrade" to a less new itunes?

I had this same problem when I first installed iTunes9. One possible solution for those of you who are running a Windows based computer is to do this:

1. Start> Control Panel> Network and Internet Connections> Internet Options

2. Click on the "Connections" tab when Internet Options window appears.

3. At the bottom, Click on LAN Settings.

4. Make sure that you have selected to have your LAN Automatically connected by CHECKING the box next to "Automatically detect settings"

5. Also, make sure that you choose to disable the use of a proxy server by UNCHECKING the box next to "Use a proxy server for your LAN (These settings will not apply to dial-up or VPN connections)"

6. Click "OK" for that window and Click "OK" in your Internet Connections window.

7. Exit and Restart iTunes9 and click on either "iTunes Store" or "Radio" tab.

If this does not work for you then you may want to try to run a Diagnostics Test by going through:
iTunes help> Run Diagnostics> Check the box next to "Network connectivity tests"

You can un-check the other options diag. test if you want to, you'll probably save yourself some time.
Just follow the instructions and at the end once you're given your results. When your results are in, you'll notice that there are help buttons in the results window and it should take you to the apple/support file that best fits your situation! This worked for me and now I'm happy.

Also make sure that if you have a firewall that you allow iTunes to access the internet and also its important that you allow Bonjour to access the internet as well.

That's about it, hope this helps the people out that are running XP SP2/3

I suspect that it is more a network access policy than a bug. iTunes uses an undocumented server or configuration to initialize the iTunes store - so it's hard to build an exception in an Internet filter or firewall for it.

Incidentally - I've noticed that I have no problem on an unsecured connection (that is - one that isn't a LAN managed by an administrator -a direct line from the ISP like Charter or Comcast) and if I bring the same machine back to the secured network after having initialized the iTunes store connection - I can browse freely. If you complain to your network admin - they may also be able to help.

I assume that if this is going to be fixed by apple, it'll be done in another release (you know, like 9.1.1 or 9.2).

So basically, if you haven't got an iPad (The only real change in functionality from 9.0.3) you could downgrade ferom 9.1 - but if you do, you might need to manually rebuild your library as I did - because 9.1 will upgrade the library - making it unreadable by older versions of iTunes. (to do that - if you're on a Mac, hold down the option key while starting up iTunes and create a new library - then manually specify the location of your music etc. So iTunes re-catalogues it)

anablepo wrote:
May be worth noting - the way that iTunes initialized the store is different now - and for me - it's an institutional internet filter / firewall problem. (my institution uses Network Composer)

It's probably got something to do with the *.edgesuite.net address iTunes tries to access. (Apple uses companies like Akami - to whom edgesuite.net is registered - for bandwidth distribution - but unfortunately 'edgesuite.net' is firewalled-out in many situations because it's known for some less-than-reputable ad distribution)

Any idea exactly what changed about the initialization?
I am having the same problem and we have a linux box running dansguardian/squid/shorewall and I cannot find anything in the logs from the machine as it is trying to make the connection. All the Akami stuff has been whitelisted. Not finding anything else "blocked" in the logs. Any ideas? Oh and yes, as soon as we take the linux firewall box out of the picture, everything works fine. And just like the others, it all started with 9.1 update.

I am not exactly sure what the URL looks like but when iTunes tries to connect to the web our internet monitoring service was blocking the site from getting out. Apparently there is an extra (.) in the URL at the end of the address. That (.) basically breaks the connection. Once we added that exact URL in our monitoring service the iTunes Store could then connect. It appears that APPLE has a defective line of code sending out the store request. I was however able to get to the store via a normal WIFI connection earlier today but my problems were stemming from our network not being able to resolve the URL. Might be somethign for some of you to look at or at least maybe APPLE can fix it so it works for everyone else. thanks

Please post that URL that you added to your monitoring service.

The URL that iTunes was using to access the iTunes Store had a (.) at the end of the URL.

As an example= http://itunes.apple.com./blah/blah/blah

This is what our network admin had to put into the internet monitoring service as the filter exception. ( .apple.com./) without the parenthesis

Notice the additional (.) after .com. This is what apple has in the code that sends the call to the internet. Not sure why some people can connect no problem with the malformed code but I guess some systems can just let it pass through. Like I said yesterday, while connected to WIFI which bypassed our monitoring service, I had no problems connecting so there may be more of an underlying issue (firewall, proxy settings, etc.) We can now connect no problem. Hope this helps.

Message was edited by: swatteam321

Message was edited by: swatteam321

Message was edited by: swatteam321

We have a similar setup: Dansguardian/Squid/Leopard Server on an Xserve.

I was wondering if you were able to find a way to allow the broken iTunes 9.1 through to the store via Squid configuration. We have a number of users who aren't able to access the store.

Using Wireshark we are able to confirm that the malformed address ( http://ax.init.itunes.apple.com./bag.xml) cannot be resolved. The response from the proxy server is below. Thanks for any input.

HTTP/1.0 503 Service Unavailable
Server: squid/2.6.STABLE17
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:18:10 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 1353
Expires: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:18:10 GMT
X-Squid-Error: ERR DNSFAIL 0
X-Cache: MISS from www.xxxx.xx
Via: 1.0 www.xxxx.xx:xxxx (squid/2.6.STABLE17)
Proxy-Connection: close

ERROR: The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the URL:
http://ax.init.itunes.apple.comax.init.itunes.apple.com/bag.xml?ix=3&ign-bsn=3 http://ax.init.itunes.apple.comax.init.itunes.apple.com/bag.xml?ix=3&ign-bsn=3

The following error was encountered:

Unable to determine IP address from host name for
ax.init.itunes.apple.comax.init.itunes.apple.com

The dnsserver returned:
Name Error: The domain name does not exist.

This means that:
The cache was not able to resolve the hostname presented in the URL.
Check if the address is correct.

In my case I squid 3.0 was happy enough, but dansguardian was unhappy and returned a "Malformed URL" error.

I hacked up dansguardian just enough to accept it, but your milage may vary.

Patch and info at http://rmore.net/2010/04/09/workaround-for-dansguardian-and-itunes-9-1/

Apple----

I really need to connect to the iTunes store.

Please FIX this!

HCALEX:

Thanks! This worked! I don't know how my settings got switched, but they did!

I have the same problem since updating to 9.1. Running 10.4.11 on a Mac Mini. Those Windows setting should be irrelevant since Apple controls my whole computer.