corrupted AppleID recovery?, major iTunes problem

Question

Level 1

3 points

corrupted AppleID recovery?, major iTunes problem

Hi,

I've posted previously to iTunes for Mac with a problem regarding an AppleID that suddenly stopped working for no reason. I'll provide a link after I post this.

We seem to have lost access to our primary AppleID for iTunes downloads. This has taken out both ability to buy/download from iTunes, and also our homeshares, which are linked to this id.

This is not a simple forgotten password or ID. using the iforgot... site, we cannot recover this ID. According to that site, it is not found.

I am looking to find other users who are having or have had a similar experience. If you can post your experience, whether there is a resolution and if so, what that was, or whether you think you may be having a similar problem, would be helpful. Trying to crowdsource a solution, or enough info to get to one...

After a lot of time doing Apple's debugging work for them over the phone with a support supervisor, I managed to document iTunes in a state where it displayed the 'lost'/corrupted AppleID in the top-right corner of the iTunes app window, but listed a different AppleID in the Account Details inside that window. My current understanding is this is not supposed to be.

Apple's response to this problem leaves a lot to be desired, shall we say, at the moment. But I'm not done yet. I'm working on that. I do note the supervisor I worked with was very patient and helpful as far as he was able to go, but any forward progress was stopped where he had to communicate with Apple's iTunes people in Austin, TX.

Apple wants to ignore the old ID and have me use a newly created one. That's great for Apple, but it ***** for their customers who have multiple devices. Every device has to manually re-configured if we either change AppleID or even change the password of the original ID.

Apple has provided conflicting answers, depending on the source, and how much work they've done looking into it, saying in one case that they can see the old AppleID and in another that no such ID exists. This latter answer would be very funny, if it wasn't happening to me.

If this rings a bell for anyone, please post!

thanks

iTunes account / apple ID-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Oct 25, 2011 7:31 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 31, 2017 5:55 PM in response to short hills

All combinations/permutations of my name, e-mail, and username are showing non-existent in the Apple ID database. I honestly just want all my memories back. I have years of music, playlists, photos, videos, notes, and more that was on there. I'm super bummed that they have not been able to find a solution to this. Apple is usually so good at this kind of stuff 😕

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Answer 2

short hills Author

Level 1

3 points

Oct 25, 2011 10:32 AM in response to short hills

If you search "apple id disappeared" in the communities, you will find several threads that appear to match this problem. Unfortunately, no solution has been posted. Others are seeing this problem. I can't reply to any of those posts for some reason.

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Answer 3

short hills Author

Level 1

3 points

Oct 25, 2011 10:35 AM in response to short hills

Interesting study showing Apple 'sixth worst' company in terms of customer complaints.

http://www.groubal.com/top-10-customer-service-complaints-twitter/

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Answer 4

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Oct 25, 2011 12:27 PM in response to short hills

short hills wrote:

Interesting study showing Apple 'sixth worst' company in terms of customer complaints.

based on postings in Twitter.

However, in 2011, Apple has the highest customer satisfaction rate (for the tech industry) 87% vs 78% for 2nd place HP.

http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=262:press-re lease-september-2011&catid=14&Itemid=287

Apple has been at the top (or in the top 3) (in the tech industry) for like the last 10 years.Same for Apple Customer service.

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Answer 5

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Oct 25, 2011 12:30 PM in response to short hills

short hills wrote:

This is not a simple forgotten password or ID. using the iforgot... site, we cannot recover this ID. According to that site, it is not found.

Did you try selecting Forgot your AppleID?

This searches on name and email addresses, not an Apple ID.

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Answer 6

short hills Author

Level 1

3 points

Oct 25, 2011 1:58 PM in response to Chris CA

many times as directed by Apple support. many variations. same result. not found.

Internally, Austin iTunes told the apple tech support rep they saw both the old and new ID, but the iTunes support traffic to me conforms to the "it's your problem, not ours" mantra of tech support as in "we don't see the old id". I have informed Apple that if they are correct and this ID doesn't exist, and this is all my hallucination, then I must have a lot of fraudulent charges on my credit card from iTunes, and I am going to dispute every one, which I am.

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Answer 7

short hills Author

Level 1

3 points

Oct 26, 2011 1:37 PM in response to short hills

UPDATE

here is the latest

iTunes support has sent me a message asking me to do a bunch of stuff to modify the 'new' id.

It seems that the new id has replaced the old id. The kicker is, according to information from yesterday, this only happened on 10/23 AS A RESULT OF ME FOLLOWING RECOMMENDATIONS OF TECH SUPPORT TO fill out this and click that.

Oh boy, this is going to be a fun conversation...

I think I'll get them to explain to me exactly what happened PRIOR to my call to tech support, before I follow any more instructions.

If they can't tell me that, then I shouldn't be listening to them...

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Answer 8

churtak

Level 1

8 points

Oct 28, 2011 11:49 AM in response to short hills

Count me in... an apple id I have had for over 5 years is no longer showing up in the system, because I changed the e-mail address to my @me e-mail. I cannot access my purchased items or upgrade apps... I have probably close to $800 worth of music and books purchased, and a fair bit of $ in apps. I have spoken to two tech support people so far, and they said my accounts have been merged, but nothing is showing up as purchased in my @me account.

Hopefully it is just a purge thing, and in a day or so it might correct itself. Apple support have been very nice, and are trying their best, and I must say I have owned Apple products since the mid 80's, and this is the first time I have had to call support for anything Apple related.

I find it odd that there are a fair few posts around the internet on this issue in the past few days...seems like a glitch. At least I have the e-mail receipts from the Apple Store for everything I have purchased from the beginning! Sometimes it pays to be anal!

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Answer 9

short hills Author

Level 1

3 points

Oct 28, 2011 12:17 PM in response to churtak

I have found another user (a friend) who lost their ID 3 weeks ago and is still dead in the water. All of the posts I've seen on the net, dating back several years, none suggests any positive resolution.

One thing unclear is that the message is different depending on what you click on and/or who you talk to. I know I saw guidance that you can change your email without changing the appleID, but I've now been told by at least one tech support person and seen in one email from iTunes that your ID must MATCH your EMAIL?!! This is stoopid. emails change all the time!

Anyway, by any chance, did you have a password set on the account that did not conform to Apple's now-recommended 8 char min + including 1 number? I am wondering if they purged any accounts w/ non-conforming passwords. I can not enter my old password (even though the system would reject it anyway as having been used in past year). It does not conform.

Please let me know if you had same situation w/ password. just a theory right now.

Also, tech support in Austin changed their story from seeing both IDs to now saying it's one id, I just have to change it back to the old one.

- cheers

marc

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Answer 10

churtak

Level 1

8 points

Oct 28, 2011 12:21 PM in response to short hills

No, my password was legal. Everything was working fine, have been in the Cloud for 2 weeks, using seperate id for the cloud and itunes. All I did was change the email on my itunes account.

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Answer 11

churtak

Level 1

8 points

Oct 28, 2011 1:12 PM in response to short hills

So... a solution was found in my case... and it was my own silly fault. When I went into my original iTunes account, I wanted to see if I could use my @me.com email address for my iTunes as well as my iCloud. Instead of typing xxxx@me.com (which would not have been allowed anyways as it turns out, because it is already in use with my iCloud) i typed xxxx@e.com, an invalid email address. So there was no way to recover the email that was sent to me to verify the change, and the iTunes help desk could not find my old iTunes id, because I had changed it... SO if you are going to change your iTunes id, be VERY CAREFUL that you have not mistyped your e-mail address as your new apple id, because if you do, it is like finding a needle in a haystack to recover it. Thanks to some very helpful and ingenious techs at apple, I am up and running!

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Answer 12

short hills Author

Level 1

3 points

Oct 29, 2011 8:42 AM in response to churtak

Glad to hear you were able to get someone there to go off-roading and help you. That is really the issue. Every new person sends the same list of standard things to check/do. It's like groundhog day. I've basically had to just tell them either get someone who can DO, or don't waste my time. So far i have an Apple ID using the old name back, but still working on getting password restored and verifying purchase history to make sure it is really finding the info that should be associated with the ID prior to 9/29.

The big problem is no one can explain why the Apple ID went bad in the first place. This is definitely happening to other people. It's not clear if I got the old ID recovered, or simply created a new ID with the same "string". If you can't get the old ID (or at least same identifier string) AND the password back, you are stuck reconfiguring all your devices...

It seems like there is some confusion and conflict in the 'docs' about how Apple IDs work. some sources say Apple ID != email, others that you can't have an Apple ID != your email. It could be related to trying to change the email associated with an existing Apple ID. Not sure yet, b/c Apple can't seem to document precisely the change history of the ID.

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Answer 13

sam16ch

Level 1

4 points

Jul 15, 2017 11:36 AM in response to short hills

I am having the same problem. I decided to make a new account since the other one just stopped working. But i am still being charged for Apple Music although the account doesn't work.

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Answer 14

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Jul 15, 2017 11:42 AM in response to sam16ch

If the account is not there, what account is being charged?

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Answer 15

Oct 31, 2017 5:49 PM in response to sam16ch

me too. I have thousands of dollars of music on there... and its not even about the money. I feel like they took away YEARS of irreplaceable memories; photos, playlists, notes, apps.... Apple w t f.

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