iTunesMatch has matched song but not 256kbps

To get your Matched and Purchased songs to the higher quality Bit Rate, you need to Delete them from your computer, and then Download them back from iCloud; clicking the iCloud Button next to the song. (Note: When the pop-up asking if you want to delete the song shows up, make sure the Delete from iCloud option is un-checked).

I have followed your advice and some songs will in fact download at 256, but others, from the same album even, download at 128. What am I missing?

Thanks

If you check the iCloud Status, are the songs considered "Matched" or "Uploaded"? If they're Uploaded, then redownloading the song keeps the exact same information and Bit Rate.

This has worked - mostly - for me, however: my copy of U2's "The Wanderer" from the Zooropa CD does not re-download at 256 kbps. I talked with iTunes support about this... apparently the original file is only 224 kbps?!? *growls* Ah, growing pains....

I don't know if this is the place to discuss this, but it is related to my problem and I have not found anything closer. I had too many songs for iTunes Match, so I created a new, empty library. When I signed up for the service, the only things that appeared in that new library were cloud versions of past iTunes Store purchases, which were available for download at my option. The problem is that certain songs and albums purchased at 128kbps that I know are still available in the iTunes Store were missing. In the case of individual songs, most of those songs are greyed out on the track listings of the albums from which they come, indicating I purchased that particular song from that particular album currently available in the iTunes Store. I don't know how to tell whether an album I have purchased is same version as that currently available, but most appear to be identical (I have noticed that "remastered" or "bonus tracks" versions or albums that have had other modifications may not match if the original purchase was not so enhanced but am not referring to these). The bottom line is that I cannot download 256 kbps versions of these songs.

I have refreshed and re-loaded iTunes Match several times with the same results.

Any idea why some songs off an album will appear as "uploaded" and others as "matched"? I've seen this a couple of times. In one instance, the album isn't sold through iTunes, so that made some sense. In the other instance, however, the album is available, with all the same tracks. I'm not going to pay $1.29 to upgrade the one song that "uploaded" at 192k instead of 256k, but I'm curious why this would happen. I've tried deleting the local file several times but it doesn't change.

Spongeman1022 wrote:

If you check the iCloud Status, are the songs considered "Matched" or "Uploaded"? If they're Uploaded, then redownloading the song keeps the exact same information and Bit Rate.

You're right about some songs being uploaded may not be available through iTunes. If you "Match" the exact song information (Album, Album Artist, Year, Track Number, etc.) that is shown exactly in iTunes, that usually resolves the issue. You just have to Update iTunes Match.

If that still doesn't resolve the issue, delete the song from iTunes and iCloud. Then import the song file back into iTunes and Update iTunes Match.

Good Luck!

FYI, song metadata has very little, if any, impact on whether a song is matched or not. The biggest factor is the waveform of the song.

in my library of 9200mp3 there are 84 songs that are "matched" but i cant upgrade these to 256kbs, even if i delete them from my mac and download them again.

when i delete one i see the mp3 become grey and the bit rate is 256kbs but when i clic on the cloud to download it, its stuck at 128kbs..