Error in iTunes Match - "This item cannot be downloaded"

Well, it's time for an update, and a partial solution. I wish I could edit my previous post, but I don't seem to have that option. So here goes another long post…

Although I still feel that this problem is something that Apple needs to resolve without user intervention, there is a way the user can deal with it themselves. As stated in another thread on this topic, the problem can generally be fixed by performing the following steps:

1) Remove the song(s) or album(s) in question from iTunes and iTunes Match (When deleting from iTunes, check the box to "Also delete this song from iCloud" -- but keep your files)

2) Force Update iTunes Match (Store Menu > Update iTunes Match)

3) Add the song(s) or album(s) back to iTunes

4) Force Update iTunes Match again (Store Menu > Update iTunes Match)

5) Try again to download the song(s) or album(s) from your other computer or mobile device -- in most cases it will now work without the error (an example of an exception is described below).

You may notice that certain songs now have a different iCloud status then they previously did. They may have been Matched, but now have been Uploaded, or possibly visa versa. Although a proper explanation still eludes me, I believe that somewhere therein lies the heart of the problem -- that the iCloud status for certain songs is no longer accurate, and that the system fails to correct itself as needed without user intervention.

So, the problem is easily fixable by the user, right? Well, sort of. Even assuming that each 'broken' album can be 'fixed' by spending time in iTunes removing it from and then re-adding it to iCloud -- that isn't the service that was paid for. Worse still, the process above isn't perfect, and here is an example of it failing using some of the same tracks previously mentioned in this thread ('Prolonging the Magic' album by 'Cake'):

Before performing the steps to correct the problem, tracks 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, & 13 were all flagged as 'Matched' while tracks 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, & 11 were flagged as 'Uploaded'. After purging this album from iTunes/iCloud and then re-adding it, every track except #10 was re-uploaded, and flagged as such. Track #10, for whatever reason, was once again flagged as 'Matched'. Guess which track was now the *only* one that gave me the error when trying to download it on the iPhone? Yup, track #10. However, I then went through the steps to correct track #10 (yes, again, having just done this minutes before with the whole album) and *this time* it uploaded instead being flagged as Matched -- surprise, it now works from the iPhone!

On the other hand, performing those same steps to correct the problem on the self-titled album by Blind Melon was 100% successful on the first try, with no lingering problem tracks as there were in the previous example with Cake. In this case, before attempting the 'fix' on the Blind Melon album, I had every track except #7 flagged as Matched, with track #7 flagged as Uploaded. I was unable to download tracks 2, 5, 6, 8, & 10 which were all subject to the error in question. After performing the 'fix', tracks 1, 3, 4, 9, 11, & 12 were now flagged as Matched, and tracks 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 13 were now flagged as Uploaded. The entire album downloaded just fine from my iPhone.

So, there is inconsistency in the matching process, and there are inconsistent results from performing this 'fix', but the potential does exist for the user to manually work around this error. Why is this so rotten? Well, for example, and besides being a giant time sink, if someone is away from their computer -- say for days or weeks on a trip -- they won't know there is a problem with an album or song until they encounter it, and will have no recourse for resolution until they return to their computer with iTunes and the original files. Not cool Apple, not cool.

It does not appear to be a problem with local corruption of the files, because the same exact files can be used as the source when 'fixing' the problem. Also, I have a very hard time believing that the problem would be actual data corruption on Apple's end, what with all their investments in state-of-the-art data centers for this explicit purpose. I suppose it could be an issue of 'network corruption' during transmission, but again that seems a lousy excuse when prior to this error cropping up those 'broken' files were perfectly downloadable.

What is actually going on? I do not know, but it sure it frustrating.

Ok... I was having issues with iTunes Match since I purchased a new iPad Air.

Songs wouldn't download showing just a message saying "Unable to download song" and giving me just two buttons:

- 'Ok or Done' or 'Retry'.

Pushing 'Retry' wasn't helping cuz the same message window keeps coming again and again and again.

Resetting all (Match & iPad) woulnd't help also.

Syncing through iTunes with USB would just transfer my library partially (who knows why and I'm still looking for a solution for this issue).

Uploading my 12,259 songs to icloud again was a total waste of time.

So, something was 'stuck' in the process of iTunes Match and the download process.

SOLUTION:

1. Went to iTunes Store on my iPad with Match settings on.

2. Went to Donwloads and saw a queue of the songs files

3. Detected a song file still in 'processing' and deleted it

4. Also deleted unecesarily the first row of files waiting for download (just in case)

5. The queue started the download process again.

6. Ces't fini! iTunes Match is back online again!

RESOLUTION:

Apple still dropping the ball on this one since they still can't get something basic (managing queue lists) done right!

Hope this helps lots of folks on here.

Yep, I

1) removed the Whole Arctic Monkeys Album from my iTunes library

2) re-added the Album (via folder import) in iTunes

3) marked the Album to be sent to the cloud

4) watched music match update

5) all files are now available in the cloud and have downloaded to my iPhone 4S

This manual method works but it blows.

I too am having this error.

I have found that deleting the individual file from my computer (and ticking the box to delete from icloud also), then readding that file to itunes (and readding to icloud), will allow that track to be synced to my iphone again.

However this is happeening to many songs randomly distrubuted throughout my library.

Is apple doing anything to fix this?

Jay, I used this feedback form, choosing the "iTunes in the Cloud" dropdown. The iTunes feedback form doesn't have any appropriate drop-down for iTunes Match:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html

However, I only really got anywhere after using phone support. A few individuals on various threads are reporting some progress in "dead" tracks being now downloadable, so hopefully the engineers are getting somewhere.

Its working for me now. It showed the message amy times, and I just kept retrying until it eventually did it. but its a ral pain to get my music, I should only have to click download once. If there is an error then it should not tell me and try next time, so over time I can get my music with no hassle.

Had this problem too,

I couldn't find answer nowhere so i start digging deeper 😉

anyway this https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204439 works for me like a candy.

Problem solved

Agreed, Matt - I should have said I had reported this to Apple, and I urge everyone else affected to do the same. However, they simply noted my issue and then pointed me to the standard iTunes Match troubleshooting steps available in the support section, none of which are of the slightest use. I urge others to report the issue to Apple and possibly to send in a link to this thread to Macrumors or Appleinsider, etc, in the hope that they'll flag it up. The blogs often get more attention than individuals.

I should add that the support section lists iTunes Match under "iCloud > iTunes in the Cloud", therefore I believe that the following is the appropriate link to report the problem: http://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html And to report the issue under the dropdown "iTunes in the Cloud". I accept that it is not the same service as iTunes Match, but the iTunes feedback form does not have any appropriate field for reporting this issue.

Itunes does modify certain lossless formats - AIFF and WAV - in the background whenever a file in one of those formats is marked for upload. It is that AAC that gets uploaded, so it's done local on your computer prior to being uploaded. I doubt this is the cause of your problem on the iphone though.

You seem to have the iPhone set properly for downloading from Match, or you wouldn't get the matched songs downloaded. The easiest way to confirm that is to pick an album where you have a mix of matched and downloaded songs and go to the bottom of the track list on the iPhone and hit "download all" Watch to see if all the download clouds change to circles and eventually fill in. If you are still getting that error. I would start by powering down the iPhone, waiting a few minutes before starting it back up, then see if that clears the problem.

Barring that, I'd call Apple support.

I have this problem that only the most recent of my ITunes bought tracks are played. Now I had an Apple ID/password change earlier this year and it seems that I can only play tracks that have the same ID/password combination as the one I use for Match. All tracks I bought undre the old combination are simply skipped (although they look matched/uploaded). My Apple TV shows them as "matrerial not found".

So is the Apple ID/password combination to be suspected? And is there a way to fix this? And the answer is not buy all that music again 🙂

And in relation to this topic: could an ID/password issue be the cause of your problem? Are the tracks you can't download possibly imported/bought under a different ID/password?

Hello,

I had a this problem on a new iPad and after doing some deduction, I worked out that this is due to an incompatibility with one of my third-party apps.

I was miffed, because this is a brand new iPad, but it was resolved easily:

* I did a full reset (Erase All Contents & Settings) after first backing-up just in case.

* I then started the iPad as a new iPad and ignored back-ups and chose not to set-up iCloud

* I logged into iTunes using my Apple ID

* Fired-up iTunes, went to 'Purchased

* Clicked on 'All Songs" and "Not on this iPad"

* Clicked "Download All".

Worked like a dream and all of my music downloaded successfully.

I am now putting all of my old applications back, but I have a feeling that Google Chrome is what caused the problem… I wonder how many of you have Chrome on your iPads?

Hope that this helps! 🙂

I too have been having this issue on random songs for quite some time. It's rather odd and frustrating as I ripped all of my music from CDs. Example: Radiohead's Hail to the Theif refuses to download the 1st track but everything else is no problem.

As an odd note I was having these problems with 2 tracks on Paul's Boutique a couple of weeks ago. I was able to 'fix' those tracks by deleting the entire album from my iPhone and then redownloading it. The files that were giving an error before downloaded without pause. I can't seem to make this work for the tracks that are currently giving me problems though.

I have to say that I'm becoming more and more frustrated and disappointed in the iTunes Match service. I can't honestly recommend it to anyone given the current state of its development. Apple needs to make this a priority to resolve if they are serious about being a leader in cloud services.

I just wanted to chime in on this as well, after monitoring the forums for a few days. It's obviously a widespread problem so if a few more of us add our voices, perhaps it'll get picked up by one of the Apple blogs and get taken a bit more seriously by the folks at Cupertino.

Over the past week, I've noticed that utterly random matched tracks would refuse to download on my iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, or Macbook Air (on which I don't keep local copies of songs). My master library is on my Macbook Pro. On the iDevices, I get the "This item cannot be dowloaded" error. On the Macbook Air, it's the "error 11111". It affects only a small proportion of my library - but there's no consistency to it, and it's extremely annoying because some of the tracks in question are favourites.

I went so far as to delete all music from the cloud, using my Macbook Air, then using alt+"Turn off iTunes Match" on my Macbook Pro where my local files are, then rerunning the entire matching process. It didn't help - the same problem persists, but this time some of the tracks that previously would not download will, and some that previously were fine won't download!

For now, I've reverted to turning iTunes Match off and using the old sync method. I'm normally what some people would describe as a bit of an Apple fanboy, but I'm disappointed that this hasn't been addressed and doesn't even appear on the iCloud System Status page as a problem.

I also am having the same issue. It's real troublesome when you're playing an album or playlist and the music stops because one of the tracks is 'unable to download'. I have used the 'trashing, re-matching, re-synch and re-match' method to get the track downloaded but that is time consuming process. I've sent apple feedback.

I've been haivng this issue too. It seems like it's been happening a lot in the past few weeks. Random songs that I uploaded and successfully matched now "cannot be downloaded" (error 11111).

These are songs that I ripped from my CD collection and have been in iTunes for years as AAC files. Most were below 256k and are now showing up as matched so they are truely "the iTunes Store copy". This error shows up on my phone as well as any computer I log in with my iTunes Match account (on different networks even).

I contacted iTunes Store Support via email and was told they are consulting with the "Senior Adviser" and will contact me when my issue will be resolved, but I'm guessing that won't be anytime soon...