There are purchased items on the iPod that have not been transferred?

Thanks igwanna! That is what finally worked for me. I had about 10 more apps in my itunes library that were not on my ipod touch. I deleted the extra apps, then followed your directions. Now I am able to update to 4.2. 🙂

Thank you so much!

After running into the same problem, I re-authorized my computer, got the message that it was already authorized but tried to right-click transfer purchases and it worked like a charm. Thanks all.

I had similar problems to everyone above, and nothing was working as suggested. iBooks was my problem, this post certainly helped me! Thank you!

I had at some point downloaded an iBook but I never had installed the iBooks app. So, that iBook was the one thing sitting out there that was remaining.

I installed iBooks, and transferred purchases, sync'd again and was able to upgrade without the warning message.

thanks all!

None of this worked. Does ANYONE have any ideas?

Had the same problem. Right clicking on my iPhone4 worked. The purchases were on iBooks.

Sigh... just encountered this problem trying to install the 4.3 update on two 3GS iPhones and an iPad.
I also have two iTunes accounts (one associated with each phone. ... lots of variables

Also, If you did not notice, iTunes itself updated twice "last week, it currently shows 10.2.1(1) (update of 8 March). I did notice that after the first update (10.2.0 released on 2 March), my iMac itself seemed "constipated." The second iTunes update (maybe 3 days later) fixed that issue. The first update was iTunes only. The second update was iTunes + Java.

My first iPhone and the iPad both updated to IOS 4.3 with zero issues/problems. However, the second phone continually gets the "purchased items" message.

So far, I've been through all of the various recommendations with no luck.

More after I've found a solution.

... almost forgot.

One day a week or so ago, I had a problem (which Apple never did resolve) where two apps got transferred from one iTunes store account to another on one device, but were fine on the other and in iTunes itself. I could update the app via iTunes to the iPhone, but could not update the app over wifi directly from the AppStore. All of the "get info" in iTunes was correct and owned by the proper account. It was on the one iPhone (which is the one which updated with no problem) that the ownership was wrong.

I wonder if those two apps are the problem .... hmm.

Message was edited by: William H. Magill1

Never found a specific item...
No music on this iPhone (3 Starbucks promo songs); deleted and re-syncd the books and apps... still got the message.

Finally, being unable to find the "purchased item" that wasn't transferred, I just clicked "continue" and crossed my fingers.

The 4.3 update completed, all of the apps were there, all of the books, and the 3 Starbucks songs.
No ill effects to the camera roll, notes or contacts.

So... who knows what that message was all about.

I also had this problem (along with my itunes thinking that 4.2 was up to date for my iPad, when 4.3 has been released). Anyway, for the iphone and this error, I gave up all the silliness of rebooting, authorizing, transferring, etc. I simply upgraded anyway. Itunes is pretty bloated and it's only getting worse.

I get this message as well... even after transferring purchases... downloading available content... and backing up...

I'm pretty sure ITunes is about the worse program to use to date... I fear it every time I have to do anything with my IPhone..IPod..and/or IPad....

****... If Apple were to simply, just do a Google search on "ITunes *****", they might get the hint... Tons of hits within a 10th of a second...

I will admit that they are getting better with this stuff... yet it's still a convoluted mess... Fail on top of fail... 😟

I had the same problem trying to update my iphone. I also have an iPad and what solved the problem was I connect my iPad to itune, syn everything, then connect my iphone to iTunes and then it worked. Other things I had tried with this thread's help before the last step was update all apps on my iphone, reauthorize my computer.

And this is why we don't buy music at iTunes, kids! Use Amazon...cheaper, higher quality, and not every going to loose it!

Just my 2cents...after having the same stinking thing happen to me!!
You would think that the company making the Whole Widget could get it consistent and right...I mean, they don't even have anyone to point the finger at! Sheesh.

sincerly: An Apple bigot (but a realist too).

Another possible route to a solution (it seems different things work for different people):

I tried a few of the suggestions here, but what ended up working for me was to go to the app store on the iphone, update all apps that needed to be updated, and sync.

After that, the software update was all go.

Okay, I've finally solved this stupid problem.
Here's what I did:
1. Click "Store" and select "Authorize this computer..."
2. Click "File" and select "Transfer Purchases from..." (or you can right click on the iPhone/iPod menu)
Now you should be able to update without such error message.

NOTE: when I tried step 2 without step 1, iTunes didn't fully transfer all my purchase, but doing step 2 after the step 1, iTunes was able to transfer (at least by looking at the number of items it was tranferring).

same here.