A disk burn failed for a playlist. I bought them all off iTunes: An unknown error occurred (-3)

Error Message received in iTunes.

Message was received while trying to burn my playlist to CD:


The attempt to burn a disk failed. An unknown error occurred (-3)


1) A day ago I burned version A of a playlist & it worked just fine.


2) I decided to edit this playlist into another more pleasing mix: Playlist B

Thus I copied playlist A to the new name [ B ] & reordered tunes, swapping out 3 or 4 tunes in the new B version.


3) I tried to burn the B list to CD & this is where the cryptic error occurs. ***


4) To test the problem – I re-burned the Playlist A version without incident.


5) I deleted the failed B playlist & made the same tune edits to the original playlist A.

Now Playlist A won't burn.



Aside: There is another 4 yr old comment in the forum about the same thing, albeit it was for a Windows machine. Neither link in the replies to that post work. Hence a new problem entry.

iMac 21.5", macOS 10.14

Posted on Dec 18, 2019 1:21 PM

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Posted on Dec 23, 2019 6:31 AM

OK. Got it. It was one lone track in the playlist that was the culprit.

The burn attempt kept crashing out while prepping the same tune over & over.


The tune played fine on the computer, but did failed on CD prep after initiating a burn.

I deleted the local copy & re-downloaded the track for the playlist & it worked fine.


Thanks for the suggestion, though.

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Dec 23, 2019 6:31 AM in response to turingtest2

OK. Got it. It was one lone track in the playlist that was the culprit.

The burn attempt kept crashing out while prepping the same tune over & over.


The tune played fine on the computer, but did failed on CD prep after initiating a burn.

I deleted the local copy & re-downloaded the track for the playlist & it worked fine.


Thanks for the suggestion, though.

Dec 19, 2019 9:25 AM in response to CroMagnum

Still looking for advice or elucidation on a failed burn of playlist to a CD.

It seems like the [unburned?] disks ejected are still good, but I haven't tried writing to them.


ALL the music in the unburnable playlist was iTunes purchased the day before.

It all fits on one disk.


What is a -3 error?

Really seems like there ought to be a friendlier way to get some sense of these cryptic codes.

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A disk burn failed for a playlist. I bought them all off iTunes: An unknown error occurred (-3)

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