Unknown error (8364) when trying to download from iCloud
I have a number of songs that issue an "An unknown error occurred (8364)" when attempting to download them from iCloud (iTunes 10.5.1 on OS X 10.7.2). The common issue is that these tracks all have a Purchased status, originally had a 128 kbps bit rate, and I believe were protected AAC files. For example:
Iomogen Heap: Speak for Yourself
Moby: Hotel
Coldplay: Parachutes
Dave Matthews Band: Stand Up
Moby: iTunes Originals
Moby: 18
Moby: Play
Thievery Corporation: The Cosmic Game
Garden State soundtrack
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Stadium Arcadium
Modest Mouse: Good News for People Who Love Bad News
One of the odder issues is that this affects the entire album for some, but others only some tracks. FWIW, only the Apple TV (2nd edition) can play these tracks. Neither one of my Macs (iMac and MacBook Pro w/ 10.7.2 + iTunes 10.5.1) can play them and my iPhone 4 (x2) just silently fails (no error message).
Using the Smart Playlist above, Delete (and remove from iCloud) each of the songs that previously exhibited the Unknown error (8364) and Move to Trash
Store → Turn Off iTunes Match
Copy the previously deleted songs from my Trash back into my iTunes library
Store → Turn On iTunes Match
Again using the Smart Playlist above, Delete (but do not remove from iCloud) each of the songs and Move to Trash
then control-click and Download (from iTunes Match)
Note: I'm not sure if deleting the songs from iCloud was required or not, but it appears that Apple has (or is in the process of) resolved this annoyance.
To test I deleted ALL music from my iPhone, which was added to my iTunes Match account. I then started downloading songs from iCloud to my iPhone. The three tracks above silently fail on the iPhone whereas attempting to download them via iTunes on OS X results in the Unknown error (8364).
As far as I can tell, this album is unchanged from when I originally purchased it. Also interesting is that track 4 does NOT show up in my Purchased song list, but I have the iTunes receipt for purchasing the entire album—but that's another issue all together.
FWIW, I've found two songs that are Matched by iCloud, available for sale in iTunes Music, when removed from the local iTunes library are 'available' to download as 256 kbps, but when actually downloaded remain at (revert to) 128 kbps:
The Hands That Built America (Theme From "Gangs Of New York") from U2, The Best Of 1990-2000 (track 11 of 16; disc 1 of 2)
I opened a service request with Apple on the 8364 error in iTunes Match when downloading Purchased tracks using the iCloud icon and that the problem tracks are still DRM-protected 128 kbs instead of DRM-free 256 kbs and their response was that I should use iTunes Plus and pay to upgrade these tracks! See conversation below:
Nikki,
I appreciate your response but I find it unacceptable. One of the main reasons that your customers (including myself) are upgrading to iTunes Match is for the ability to re-download their purchased songs as DRM-free 256 kbs tracks without having to use iTunes Plus. Take a look at the iTunes Match website at http://www.apple.com/itunes/itunes-match/ and the screenshot below:
It clearly says that "all the music iTunes matches plays back from iCloud at 256 kbs AAC DRM-free quality". So is it Apple's position that this doesn't also include previously "Purchased" items. It seems obvious that the issue is that the tracks in question are still DRM-encumbered 128 kbs versions. It would be a more acceptable answer to just say that there has been a problem with Apple providing all tracks in the upgraded format or that the artists/labels are not allowing it if that is the case.
If you do a quick online search of "iTunes Match 8364" you'll see there are a lot of iTunes Match customers that are expecting to be able to download "ALL" of their purchased items in the upgraded format. The Apple support forum at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3502068?start=45&tstart=0 is very active on this topic and I plan on posting your solution of using iTunes plus for a solution that was supposed to be part of iTunes Match.
Thanks,
Trey
On Jan 14, 2012, at 8:34 AM, iTunes Store wrote:
Hello Trey,
Nikki, here from the iTunes Store Support. Thank you for replying back with further information, and screenshots of the issue, Trey. I know you must be eager to have the issue resolved, and I'll be happy to look into this further for you.
Trey, after reviewing the screenshots, I have done some further investigating into the specific purchases you have displayed in the Smart Playlist screenshot. Unfortunately, it appears that all of these items have since been removed or modified on the iTunes Store, and thus will not be available through the iTunes in the Cloud feature for redownload at this moment.
To clarify further, when a purchase is made on the iTunes Store you are downloading a direct item (or link) which has been provided by the content provider. If this item is removed from the store, or modified (moved etc.) then it will no longer be possible to access this purchase to redownload the item. Due to this issue, we stress the importance of creating regular back ups of the iTunes Store library to the customer.
As I understand that you have intentionally removed many items to attempt to troubleshoot the issue, I wanted to ensure there was a resolution which would allow you access to the content again while also being able to receive the upgraded version of the song.
Thus, I have found that the majority of the list which you have provided is currently available on your account for an iTunes plus upgrade.
It's easy to upgrade your iTunes library to iTunes Plus. You don't have to buy the song or music video again; you only pay the upgrade price, which is less than the cost of the original item. Entire albums can be upgraded for 30 percent of the album price. To see the upgrade price for songs and music videos, go to the iTunes Plus Upgrade page on your country's store using this link:
You can see all of your available upgrades on this page. You can also upgrade all of your DRM-protected purchases to iTunes Plus from this page. To get there in the future without using that link, just click iTunes Plus under Quick Links in the main iTunes window.
When you click the Buy All button, you will replace all of your eligible music and music video purchases in your iTunes library with iTunes Plus versions of the content. You can also perform individual upgrades by clicking the Buy button to the right of any item.
iTunes Plus music is continually added to the iTunes Store, so your upgrade offer may change at any time. Please check often to find new music available for upgrading.
To preview, purchase, and play iTunes Plus music, make sure you are using the latest version of iTunes, available free of charge on the iTunes website:
I hope this information helps to further clarify the issue, Trey. However, if you find you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to respond back and let me know. Thank you for being an iTunes Store customer. Have a wonderful day!
Sincerely,
Nikki
Senior Advisor
iTunes Store/Mac App Store Customer Support
Please note my hours for January 8th, to January 14th, 2011:
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to assist you. You may receive an AppleCare survey email; any feedback you provide would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Nikki,
Just to clarify, I'm not having any trouble uploading with iTunes Match. The problem is with downloading Purchased songs using the iCloud download icon. It appears the issue is that there are still a lot of songs in Apple's library that are still DRM-protected 128 kbs instead of the promised DRM-free 256 kbs.
I've created a smart playlist that includes songs that have a bit rate of less than 256kbs and have an iCloud Status of Purchased. This results in a list of 106 songs. I originally removed all the tracks that met this criteria from my library in order to download fresh copies that are 256 kbps DRM-free versions. This worked for some of the tracks but did not work for most. I've included a screenshot of the smart playlist criteria as well as a screenshot of the list of tracks.
If i click the iCloud download icon on any of the 106 tracks, the 8364 error it thrown. I've included a screenshot that shows this failure downloading "My Happy Ending" by Avril Lavigne which is track #59 in the list.
When trying to use the Purchased section of the iTunes Store, the Not In My Library section says that "All of your available music has been downloaded to this computer" even though I'm obviously missing the tracks I intentionally deleted using the smart playlist I described above. I did discover that the tracks in question show up in the All section of Purchased music but the status is Downloaded even though the track is not present in my local library. I've included screenshots of this as well.
I've also replicated this problem on two other Macs joined to my iTunes Match account. On those Macs, iTunes has the same behavior for the smart playlist items and the iCloud download icon. Using the Purchased section of the iTunes store on those Macs allows download of the songs in question but they are DRM-protected 128 kbs versions. I've attached a screenshot of the Avril Lavigne track I downloaded on one of those Macs to show its in the incorrect format.
Thanks for your assistance and let me know what other details I can provide.
Trey
On Jan 13, 2012, at 3:24 PM, iTunes Store wrote:
Hello Trey,
Nikki, here from the iTunes Store Support and I am a senior advisor taking over this request. I am sorry to hear you have been receiving an error 8364 while trying to load certain items from iTunes Match, and are unable to download from iTunes in the Cloud. I can certainly understand your concern, and would be more than happy to help however I can.
Trey, when you have a moment, I'll request that you reply back with the below information to help with investigating this error further:
- a list of the content which you have been unable to upload due to the error, as well cannot redownload through iTunes in the Cloud.
- A screenshot of the error you have been receiving
To take a screen shot of your Mac, please follow the instructions in the article for your version of Mac OS X:
Taking a picture of your entire screen (Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard)
When replying to this email, please include your screen shot as an attachment. If using Mac OS X Mail, you can do this by dragging and dropping the screen shot file onto the reply window. Alternatively, you can add it as an attachment by opening your reply window, then choosing File > Attach File.
Thank you for being an iTunes Store customer, Trey. Your experience is very important to us and we truly appreciate your continued devotion to the iTunes Store. I look forward to your reply. Have a wonderful day.
Sincerely,
Nikki
Senior Advisor
iTunes Store/Mac App Store Customer Support
Please note my hours for January 8th, to January 14th, 2011:
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to assist you. You may receive an AppleCare survey email; any feedback you provide would be greatly appreciated.
None of the referenced knowledge base articles address this issue. Please
escalate my issue to someone at Apple support that can assist. Please
reference the support forum below for more examples of users experiencing
For reasons unknown I found copies of many of these tracks as 256 kbps .m4a files in my Trash. As such I was able to remove the existing 128 kbps .m4p (Purchased) files (but not deleting them from iCloud), add the 256 kbps .m4a files to iTunes and then Add to iCloud whereupon, the original 128 kbps listings with the download from iCloud link switched to 256 kbps (Purchased) files. For a few of the files I accidentally deleted the 128 kbps (Purchased) from iCloud and when I added the .m4a to iCloud they appeared as 256 kbps (Matched) songs instead. Not sure why the difference, but it worked for several of these problematic files. But I still don't understand why/where these .m4a versions came from as most of these purchased predated iTunes Plus (e.g., my original purchases were 128 kbps). My new list of recalcitrant files is:
Anna Nalick: Breathe (iTunes SOTW)
Coldplay: Parachutes (tracks 4 + 5)
Dave Matthews Band: Stand Up (tracks 3-6, 11, 12)
Feis: One Evening (iTunes SOTW)
Future Leaders…: Let Me Out (iTunes SOTW)
Hinder: Get Stoned (iTunes SOTW)
Living Things: Ahead of the Lions (iTunes SOTW)
Low Millions: Eleanor (iTunes SOTW)
Spymob: Sitting Around Keeping Score (iTunes SOTW)
As you can see, most of these are iTunes single of the week (SOTW) offerings, so I'm not too bothered about them.
Deleted item from iTunes and Cloud but telling it to keep the file (alternativly, I guess I could of just backed up the file before doing this.
Dragged it back into iTunes.
Right Clicked and choose "Send to iCloud"
Once it finished, a status of "Matched" was listed.
Deleted item from iTunes LEAVING IT ON THE CLOUD.
Redownloaded.
So it worked, but it is listed as Matched, not Purchased. Which I guess is fair, as I did not purchase a 256 version. I am guessing that whatever problem on the server caused this has been (partially) fixed.
This workflow helped me re-download the upgraded version of the file (256kbps, unprotected) when I was previously encountering the 8364 and -50 errors when trying to get upgraded version of the song.
Thanks!
Edit: Quoted original reply just in case it's not obvious what workflow I'm referring to.
I tried the following, and had (some) success:
Deleted item from iTunes and Cloud but telling it to keep the file (alternativly, I guess I could of just backed up the file before doing this.
Dragged it back into iTunes.
Right Clicked and choose "Send to iCloud"
Once it finished, a status of "Matched" was listed.
Deleted item from iTunes LEAVING IT ON THE CLOUD.
Redownloaded.
So it worked, but it is listed as Matched, not Purchased. Which I guess is fair, as I did not purchase a 256 version. I am guessing that whatever problem on the server caused this has been (partially) fixed.
I can't help, but I thought I'd chime in and say me too. I have several old DRM'd albums where I can download the tracks if I go back to iTunes Store -> Purchased section, but they fail with a 8364 error if I try and download them through iCloud.
Same problem here. I haven't been able to fix it, and iTunes email support told me it was too technical for them to deal with essentially.
I was able to re-rip the songs in question from a burned CD and get a match with them. I could then download a "Matched AAC audio file" instead of a "Purchased AAC audio file." Just as good as far as I'm concerned, but I'm less than happy that Apple refused to help.
I am also having the same issue, this is highly annoying. Also, technically shouldnt anything I have purchased never have a missing file exclamation? I have some errors here I want to re-download and finally for once get my itunes straight....
Likewise for me. All songs by Amy Rigby, including albums I purchased after subscribing to iTunes Match, are corrupted in this manner. I can't even download the new purchases, and Apple has refused to do anything about it.
I'm not sure if you have tried this already but I had the same issue. I had been attempting to download from the cloud icon in the music library and this inevitable resulted in the same error you are receiving. Since these were on purchased files, I accessed the somgs through the previously purchased area in the iTunes Store and downloaded from that interface and everything has downloaded fine. It seems like there may be an authentication issue of some sort going on.
I found the problem. Apple's music library is simply too big. While their new standard for music is 256bit, AAC, many of their songs are still in the old 128 bit DRM versions. When iTunes try to download the match, it does not find a 256 bit version and gives that error, instead of downloading the available file.
Until such time as Apple updates every song in their library (a huge task), you'll have to manually download these tracks from your purchase history.
I don't think it's an issue with the iTunes Music Store being 'too big'. iTunes Plus (DRM-free @ 256 kbps AAC) has been the standard since May 2007. Granted, it appears that the albums/tracks that trigger the Unknown error (8364) all predate iTunes Plus, but that does not mean that iTunes doesn't offer these same albums/tracks to new customers as DRM-encumbered @ 128 kbps AAC. Instead I believe that it's simply an error in the iTunes Match system where some tracks for some users aren't properly matched (partial or incomplete), which prevents download/playback of these files via iCloud. It's not surprising that iTMS continues to provide DRM-encumbered @ 128 kbps files when accessing previous downloads, but it is curious that they haven't connected their backend systems such that Apple IDs which have subscribed to iTunes Match are still provided those files rather than the iTunes Plus versions. I hope to hear back from Courtney P later this week given the holiday last week and will post a follow-up then.
The test is that after downloading them through the Previous Purchase section of iTMS and making sure they are matched for iCloud… to then delete the local (DRM-encumbered @ 128 kbps AAC) file and attempt to re-fetch it from iCloud. If you still get the Unknown error (8364) then Apple hasn't fixed that track, but if it downloads… they've fixed it. I imagine this may be related to the slightly delayed launch and that Apple is still working out the kinks. I trust that they'll resolve this error… it's just a matter of when (and being patient).
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Unknown error (8364) when trying to download from iCloud
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