iTunes Match Not Working For Some Protected AAC Files

I'm going to take a guess here. Most likely the artists never approved removing DRM. Because of this, and maybe even issues with not wanting their music in the ICloud, it doesn't work. ITunes Plus I'm guessing is a requirement (non-DRM).

Exactly the same here: around 13000 songs to upload, most worked fine, but around 50 or so show up as not eligible. In my case, about half of those are old VBR mp3 rips that are showing up as 64 kbps, so not satisfying Apple's (arbitrary) 96 kbps limit. But the other half are Protected AAC audiofiles.

Just like with you, zbbeck, I purchased those songs using an old apple id. The funny thing is, is that it is apparently quite random: one track out of an entire album is marked not eligible, while the rest are fine (and certainly downloaded with the same apple ID).

Actually, one thing the tracks do appear to have in common, is that they are often the last track of a 'delux edition' or an obscure e.p. Another thing is that I bought them in Europe when I still lived there. Maybe the tracks are not available in the US iTunes store?

With the low-bit-rate VBR rips, I could find my old CDs and resample them, or convert them to AAC's and use the match functionality. But I can't do any such thing with Apple's Protected AAC files!

@dbaps: guess again - I have several hundred Protected AAC's that were matched fine.

Did it match the files, or did you end up having to upload the newly ripped AAC files? I'm not too keen on the audio quality loss from going from AAC to CD and back again... If it were to match the resulting files, so I could download a higher quality version, that would be fine.

zbbeck wrote:

How can I tell? It gets in there, but I can't tell if it matched it to the store or uploaded it. It sounds fine no noticeable difference of degredation. I actually don't see how it would degrade by copying it to a CD and importng back.

In iTunes, go to View, then View Options and then check the box for iCloud Status. You should then see a column that shows either "Matched" or "Uploaded."

I'm in the same boat here as most of you... I have 15 songs (thankfully) out of 8,800+ that are showing as ineligible and were purchased with other Apple IDs, which are all authorized on the matching/uploading machine. In every case there are other songs from the same albums as the songs showing as "ineligible" that are on iTunes match just fine. Contacting Apple support was almost laughable. It's very clear that the support for iTunes Match is limited at best, as the support advisor wasn't even aware that you could include songs purchased with different authorized Apple IDs in your iTunes match library. Just FYI for everyone, support article TS4504 actually provides instructions on how to do this, but offers no solutions for when the item shows as ineligible. I'm going to give zbbeck's workaround a go and if he/she doesn't beat me to it, I'll report back with the results on "Matched" or "Uploaded."

Ok... So - of the 15 songs that were previously "ineligible," I deleted two because they were actually music videos (which should still be included, according to TS4054) and I never, ever watch them. That left 13, which I burned to a CD and re-imported back into my iTunes library... The good news is that this did work and all of the songs are now in my iTunes match library (thank you zbbeck!). The bad news is that 10 out of the 13 were "Uploaded" and the other three were "Matched." For now, I'd rather have the songs in my iTunes Match library than not, even if they are at a less than optimal quality. I'm thinking that there are some kinks to work out yet with Match, obviously, and eventually the songs will become "Matched" as opposed to "Uploaded." As I go through my library I'll notice randomly that whole albums will be "Matched" with one or two songs "Uploaded." That seems like a bug in the matching process to me, because those same full albums are available in the iTunes Store.

Thanks for posting your findings.

As for me, I have given up on iTunes Match. Too many glitches/ommisions to make it usable for me:

1. The issue in this thread

2. Tracks turning up on my iPhone with wrong album art/track info (_really_ annoying this one... you think you're playing one thing and another track starts playing instead.)

3. Lack of Genius support - I use this around 50% of the time when I'm on the go

4. Lack of playcount + last played updates (none of the tracks I've played using iTunes match have shown up in my 'recently played' lists. I use this and play counts a lot in smart playlists.)

5. Lack of support for smart playlists refering to other playlists - I use this feature an awful lot

6. Lack of 'direct' syncing - downloading 40GB of music via the cloud doesn't make sense - I think Apple should provide a hybrid model, direct wifi syncing when you're at home, iCloud when you're on the go

I could also add: no support for multiple libraries, but that's not a deal-breaker.

It seems that iTunes Match was released prematurely; hopefully the next update will addres these teething problems. For now, I'm going back to old-fashioned wifi syncing.

Great list summing up the issues. If it ever finishes matching my library I'll probably try out the iOS implementation but I suspect I'll switch it back to regular syncing pretty quickly.

If you have songs in your library that are protected by DRM, and were purchased from a different iTunes Store account than the one you are signed in with those songs are ineligible for iTunes Match <http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4054>.

how about burning those songs to CD, dragging the originals to another folder (for safe keeping), importing the ones newly burned to CD, then selecting them and choosing, from the itunes menu, Store > Update iTunes Match?

Maybe this will be a clue for someone: I have a couple of albums that were purchased years ago from iTunes with an old Apple ID and everything on them matches except for a single song.

For example, the album "The Best of Blondie" matched everything except for track 5, "Sunday Girl" which is "Not Eligible". In the case of Paul Simon's "Negotiations and Love Songs" everything on the album matched except "Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes".

Now, granted, neither of these songs are in heavy rotation for me right now so I wouldn't call it a deal-breaker for iTunes Match, but it does seem to indicate something's wrong somewhere.

I've got the same problem. Select songs from albums purchased long ago with a different account show up as "Not Elligible". Definitely a small bug in the system.

Michael Allbritton wrote:

If you have songs in your library that are protected by DRM, and were purchased from a different iTunes Store account than the one you are signed in with those songs are ineligible for iTunes Match <http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4054>.

Michael, unless I'm missing something, nothing in TS4504 says anything about songs in a library protected by DRM purchased from a different iTunes Store account being ineligible for iTunes Match. The only thing that comes close is the statement saying that "A song will not be uploaded to iCloud if the song contains DRM, was purchased using a different Apple ID, and could not be matched." But that's not even the issue I think most people are referring to... To make it real simple: if a two song album was purchased from iTunes a while back using a different Apple ID than the one used for iTunes Match, and the album is still available in the iTunes Store, one song is being matched just fine in iTunes Match and the other is showing as ineligible.

At the heart of the issue is that TS4504 in fact actually provides instructions on how to authorize machines for playback of DRM protected songs purchased with different accounts that are in one's iTunes Match library, inferring that those songs would be there in the first place, meaning they shouldn't be ineligible. The problem is that so far iTunes match is treating those songs, even from the same album, differently - ie. some work and match fine and others say that they're ineligible.

DRM songs should show up as purchased if it's on the same ID. They should match or upload if they are a different ID but authorized on that machine (which has always been possible). And they should only give an error if they're not authorized on that computer.