Movie rentals disappear before watching them

Question

Level 1

10 points

Movie rentals disappear before watching them

Hi,
I rented some movies (4 in total) from iTunes hoping to sync them on my iPad for a road trip. Unfortunately after plugging the iPad, just before I could sync it, I ran into a bunch of bugs and then suddenly two of these movies simply disappeared from the rentals list. In the end I wasn't able to sync any of the movies. I was really looking forward to watching some movies during the trip back home so, I ended up renting one of them AGAIN! (using my iPad, and from my hotel room connection).
These movies DO appear in my purchase history, which means I was charged for things I can't use.
I'm very frustrated to say the least.
Is there some way to bring back those movies to my rentals list? Are they lost forever? (I hope not)
Please help! 😟

iMac G5 21.5, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Feb 7, 2011 8:31 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Steven Wilson

Level 2

188 points

Feb 14, 2011 10:47 AM in response to freshy

Something similar happened to me...i rented 2 movies about a week ago, watched one of them and went to watch the other last night and it's gone! There isn't even a "rental" area in the sidebar. Is this an issue or did i turn something off? And help out there?

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Answer 2

Feb 14, 2011 3:21 PM in response to Steven Wilson

all these views and NOBODY has a clue? Are we the ONLY 2 people this has happened to?

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Answer 3

B_LOOSE

Level 1

0 points

Apr 10, 2011 7:33 PM in response to freshy

I just encountered a similar problem, the very first time I tried to use my new Apple TV.

My wife and I ordered a movie last night, thinking we would just stream the movie and watch it after about a five or ten minute buffering period (like Netflix, XBOX Live, etc...). But, it appears that Apple TV works differently, and we were bummed-out to see that the movie wouldn't be ready to view for an hour and half. There was nothing we could do about it, so we let the movie download to the Apple TV.

Tonight, we sat down to watch the movie. We turned on the Apple TV, and there it was at the top left of the welcome stream, and it showed as "Rented." We started the movie, and about halfway through, I tried to use the Remote app on my iPhone to control my Apple TV. I noticed that my iPhone was not connected to my wireless network, and I couldn't get it to connect by entering the wireless password.

This happens occasionally (my router is a bit old), and I fix it by unplugging my wireless router, waiting about 30 seconds and plugging it back in. I paused the movie and did just that. After resetting the router, my iPhone connected, problem solved, right?!

Wrong, problem created! When I came back upstairs the Apple TV was on the main page. I asked my wife what happened, and she said that the movie just stopped playing, and the Apple TV changed to the main page while I was resetting the router.

I looked for the movie, and it had simply disappeared. Nowhere. Not on my wife's computer, not on mine. Talk about irritating! Why does Apple TV have to be connected to the internet if it already downloaded the movie? And why would a simple momentary internet disconnection cause the movie to entirely disappear?

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Answer 4

Apr 28, 2011 9:46 AM in response to freshy

Hi There-

just want to add my own movie rental 'mysterious' disappearance! I've just sent an email to Apple...

What happened:

- Rented movie

- it had a small amount to finish downloading, but started watching (as have done with past movies)

- the movie stopped playing all of a sudden

- no rental showing in iTunes

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Answer 5

May 5, 2011 5:45 PM in response to freshy

This happens to me EVERY TIME! I rent a movie and it shows up in the thumbnails up top. I come back the next day, they are still there. Day three I turn on my Apple TV and their gone with no way to retrieve them. I search for them again and it acts like I have never rented the movie.

They are supposed to last 30 days not two!

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Answer 6

May 5, 2011 5:49 PM in response to mackdoyle

OK, update, I tried to rent one again and it said I had already rented it and to go somewhere and "check for rentals" beofre I did that I noticed that they showed up at the top of the main screen again so I just selected it from there.

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Answer 7

joseph35

Level 1

0 points

May 14, 2011 7:57 PM in response to mackdoyle

For Apple TV issues when your router resets, try going to the settings and re-log into your iTunes account, and then hit "check for rentals"... this worked for me.

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Answer 8

Jun 21, 2011 8:39 PM in response to joseph35

I also downloaded two movies on my macbook pro 1 day ago and they showed up under rentals. When I synced up my iphone with laptop to sync, the movies dissappeared. I tried to click on itunes to rebuy to see if it would let me just reauthorize and it didn't. This is very frustrating!! Don't get lazy on us Apple, test your products working together.

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Answer 9

Graham11

Level 1

13 points

Oct 16, 2011 6:24 AM in response to ursulamaggiore

Have had identical experience. After 2 initial failed attempts to download a movie, it deleted itself half way through watching. I'm now probably not going to get to watch it as the timer has started the countdown to its expiry, and it is going to take many more hours to download.

This happened with a previous movie as well.

What's going on Apple?

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Answer 10

Golfr2b

Level 1

4 points

Oct 16, 2011 3:37 PM in response to freshy

I just experienced this as well. Rented four movies for a trip, watched one. Now the other three are missing.

Help

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Answer 11

Oct 17, 2011 6:56 PM in response to freshy

Just had this happen to me a couple minutes ago. I rented "Green Lantern" then "Red State" then paused "Red State" to let "Green Lantern" download faster. I let it download 300MB or so then started playing it. About half way through the movie, the screen just went black. I'm on a PC so I opened up Task Manager and looked at the applications running. iTunes had stopped responding so I ended its tasked then reopened it. iTunes didn't show any downloads going nor any Rentals I had. I clicked on Store then Check For Available Downloads and "Red State" started downloading but "Green Lantern" was nowhere to be found. Didn't start downloading nor show up in the Rentals section. I checked my purchase history through my account and both movies are there.

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Answer 12

Oct 17, 2011 8:04 PM in response to freshy

UPDATE TO PREVIOUS POST

I figured out how to get my rental back after iTunes FUBARed.

Go to (in Windows 7):

C:\Users\"User Name"\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Downloads\"Whatever Movie.tmp"

...where "User Name" is your user name and "Whatever Movie" will be your movie rentals name...

right click "Whatever Movie.tmp" then Open with iTunes.

After I clicked open with iTunes my rental "Green Latern" started playing as before with no problems. I watched the rest of the movie and when it was over, the movie had returned to my Rentals section of iTunes with the correct time left for the rental and everything. Seems to have fixed the mess up from before. I can only guess as to what caused it is that as I was watching the movie the first time, it caught up with what it had downloaded and iTunes didn't know what to do when it did. I would make sure to let iTunes buffer plenty for now until Apple gets the software fixed so this situation won't happen.

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Answer 13

Graham11

Level 1

13 points

Oct 18, 2011 1:38 AM in response to Graham11

OK - it just got worse. Downloaded again, disappeared again, and expired before we could watch the second half of the movie. The 5 bucks that I've wasted is insignificant compared to my son being in tears all afternoon because we couldn't finish the movie!!!!

I cannot seem to find anywhere on Apple's site where you can contact them for a refund or lodge a complaint. Does anyone have a contact e-mail address for them?

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Answer 14

flipz

Level 1

0 points

Oct 20, 2011 3:43 PM in response to Graham11

Had the same problem. I've started watching a rented movie. Then Itunes freezed and I had to close it down. After relaunch my download was gone.

Solution:Go to your home folder > music > itunes > itunes media > downloads...

You should find your download there in a tmp folder... right click the file and open with itunes... Resolved.

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Answer 15

Oct 21, 2011 3:46 AM in response to flipz

I just hit the same problem when watching red state.

Itune suddenly stuck, restarted it and now movie rental icon in itunes is gone and there is no tmp folder as suggested.

Where can I find it?

Apple should do a better job ...

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