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

Having spotted a vague "normal service has been restored" message on the iCloud status page ( http://www.apple.com/support/icloud/systemstatus/ ) I once again tried deleting my entire iTunes Match cloud library from another computer, doing alt+"Turn off iTunes Match" on my main machine, then rerunning the matching process. After all that, the same problem persists, I'm sad to say.

When downloading playlists to my iPhone, it inevitably hits the "item not available" error sooner or later. This time, some songs I had trouble with before are fine, some that were fine before are giving the error, some that were previously matched are now uploaded, and some that were previously uploaded are matched. It is all over the place.

In short, I'm finding the whole thing an enormous headache. Most annoying of all, there's absolutely no way of knowing that a particular song will not download until you try it. I've reported the problem again, this time on phone support, and they said it would be "escalated" and would get back to me. I will keep you guys informed.

I'm bittterly disappointed because, until just over a week ago, iTunes Match was working absolutely perfectly for me across my iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. This is pretty much the first time I've been anything other than really pleased with an Apple product or service. Even MobileMe worked for me :-)

Please respond when you hear something. I'm following this issue as I feel the same exact way. In fact, I'm going to also report the matter with phone support.

I am having the same issue. Several tracks from Radiohead's "The Bends" are not available. I took the advice of one of the posters to this thread and turned iTunes Match OFF on my iPhone, so I can manually drag them from my Mac library over to the iPhone, as a temporary fix, but this is not a preferred course of action. I don't know how many of my thousands of songs I have on my iPhone this is happening to and would hate to have to keep iTunes Match turned off on my iPhone for this.

It's happening to me too. I noticed it on

song = "Mexico" by "Cake"

album = "Prolonging the Magic"

I also noticed that the version of this album in the iTunes Store says (Deluxe Version) next to it.

Frustrating.

I have the exact same problem. I tried playing a song and it skipped 3 tracks one after the other. When attempting to download it gave me the error you are getting.

Artist=Papa Roach

Album=Infest

Songs=Revenge, Snakes, Never Enough

Experiencing the same issue here, and until a few days ago I had *never* seen this message for anything I attempted to download. As with other users, turning iTunes Match OFF then back ON makes *no difference*.

Attempting to play or download certain tracks on my iPhone 4S will result in the message "This item cannot be downloaded. The item you have requested is not available for download."

It does not seem to matter whether their iCloud status is flagged as 'Matched' or 'Uploaded' -- both types of files can result in this message. For example, the self-titled album by Blind Melon is in my library, and all tracks except #7 are flagged as 'Matched' in iTunes while track #7 is flagged as 'Uploaded'. I am able to download/play about half of the album, including track #7 (No Rain), but I get the error message on tracks 2, 5, 6, 8, & 10. The error message has persisted on specifically those tracks (and no others) for a few days now.

re: ocmacdude & the song 'Mexico' by 'Cake' -- I happen to also have this album in my library (half matched, half uploaded), and seeing your post I decided to try downloading that same song 'Mexico' (track #2, flagged in iTunes as uploaded). It worked with no issue whatsoever, but then on track #4, 'Guitar' (flagged in iTunes as matched), I got the error message again. So, it doesn't appear to be a problem with the *specific song* -- at least in this case.

Perhaps the problem has nothing at all to do with specific songs in the iTunes catalog (as demonstrated by the above example), but rather speicifc songs as referenced in our individual accounts?

In any case, BAH! How frustrating. I guess it's time to go back to AudioGalaxy for streaming and regular old iTunes drag-and-drop for offline access.

...will be watching this thread.

I second pretty much everything everyone had said in this thread. I too have only noticed it within the last week or so.

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.

Thanks for that post, Jundan. It's a very helpful workaround for "fixing" the non-downloadable tracks. My big issue is that there is no way to determine whether a particular track has the issue until one tries to download it (or stream it on an Apple TV). If there were a way to create a smart playlist of such tracks, it would make this workaround a breeze - unfortunately there appears to be no way of doing this because, as you rightly point out, there isn't anything actually wrong with the original files on the computer.

The other drawback of deleting and then re-adding the problematic tracks is that we lose playcounts, ratings - and they disappear from any playlists that they were previously in. In small libraries, it's not such a big deal, but in larger ones, it's virtually unmanageable.

This needs urgent attention from Apple, who have still to respond to me, despite a promise to do so two days ago.

Thanks Jundan for the workaround. Your workaround is better than anything Apple has come up with.

I also agree with neaflan. For large libraries, the only real solution is a true fix.

I have a second level support request in place, in addition to numerous "feedback" submittals on the iCloud support page. I am pining the 2nd level support person regularly. We just need to keep the pressure on.

My biggest beef of all is that we paid additionally for this service. It was not part of a hardware bundle, or some freebee. I would be content (for the moment at least) if Apple at least acknowledged the issue. But so far nothing. Between this issue, and Smart Playlists not working properly, I have been quite disatisfied with Match. At this point, I would not renew Match, nor would I recommend it. The product fills a small gap, but there are other ways (and free I might add) to get 90% of the way there...

Having this issue too, here are 4 songs with the issue on my Top Rated Playlist:

Artist: Arctic Monkey

Album: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I am Not

Song: Perhaps Vampires Is a Bit Strong But..

Song: Certain Romance

Artist: Outkast

Album: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

Song: Last Call

Song: Bowtie

What's interesting, someone mentioned Beastie Boys: Paul's Boutique: Share Your Rump, that's fine on my setup.

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 have contacted Apple about this issue, and have received the following correspondence:

Walter here again with iTunes Store Customer Support. Thank you for getting back to me with screenshots of the error messages you have been receiving when trying to convert and download songs. I know you're eager to have this error message investigated and I apologize for this inconvenience.

I found that other customers have also been experiencing this issue and Apple's engineering department is currently working toward a resolution for this issue. Don't worry I'll keep you updated with the developments of the investigation.

Thank you for your patience and for being a great customer. I want your iTunes experience to be as enjoyable as possible. Have a great day.

I was about to call myself... I fixed one song with the method suggested, but going thru the whole library and finding the files with error 11111 was too painful.

Thanks for calling and if you hear anything let us know.

Phil

That's an amazingly promising response from Apple. I hope you can post the outcome back here if/when "Walter" gets back to you. Thanks.