Why are My iTunes Downloads so Slow?

I'm so fed up with Itunes! It takes DAYS for me to download movies. Currently my movie is downloading at 167 kb/sec >X0 at this rate i'm wishing I never bought it. such poor service. I expected more.

Yep, it's really bad. I think it's back to buying DVDs (they are cheaper too) and putting them through handbrake (gets you at least the original language too).

Hello,

I am having this same exact problem. I would really appreciate it if someone could direct me to how to fix this issue. This problem has been going on for days since I got my new iPhone 5. It hasn't anything to do with the iPhone 5, I don't think... but the downloads are taking forever to download through my iTunes on my MacBook Pro. It's getting frustrating because, I can't do anything.. everything slows down because of this issue. Please, please, please... help me. Thank you very much for any information someone gives me.

Hi TheCannon101,

Apple isn't going to help you. You have to fix it yourself.

There have been a few proposed solutions that are easy and that work, such as Amazon Prime, YouTube movies, Netflix, and if you search google for "Netflix vs " and wait, google will provide other options as well (use any name there, not just Netflix).

I guess color me skeptical that it's DNS. DNS should only make a difference until the initial connection is made - after that, the address is cached, and for the duration of the transfer, it's a straight stream (unless I miss something and Apple/Akami is multi-plexing downloads of individual files and changing sources in midstream.

But, I've been using Level-3 DNS (4.2.2.x) for years, and have started seeing bandwidth issues over the past month or two.

In particular, I see high-variability in download speeds - it gets *very* slow on Saturday nights, but even during the week, it can change by 10x or more. My network is a verified 25-30 mbit connection (tested against servers across the country), so I know it's not on my local end.

Here's a perfect example. Three HD episodes downloading at the same time right now.

1) 1.99 GB - 40 minutes

2) 1.86 GB - 2 hours

3) 2.04 GB - 3 hours

I see that same situation updating apps - I'll get a 50MB app in 10 seconds, while the 7MB app takes 2 minutes.

It looks like some, but not all, of the download shadow sites have bandwidth issues, and either iTunes doesn't do any sort of load balancing against the various servers, or Akami's not doing their job well.

And another example - took a break from downloading, came back. Those last two are now:

2) 1.65GB left - 5 hours

2) 1.2GB left - 4 hours

And just tested the network - 35mbit/sec to a server in SF.

This is new behavior - last fall, similar sized shows would download in a fraction of the time. There's something wrong with Apple/Akami's network.

The only thing that I can figure out is that iTunes must limit download bandwidth. I have tried changing every setting under the sun and I have a 50 Mb per second connection. I would guess that Apple doesn't respond to anything regarding this and always says it must be your Internet connection because they don't want to flat out say that they are limiting download speeds. I have the same problems as everyone else, it takes ridiculously long to download a movie. Don't tell me it is my connection either, because I can download 2 GB movie in under five minutes from just about anywhere else, however when Apple comes into play and iTunes that 2gb movie turns into a two or three hour download. Very frustrating.

Rented a movie today... it says it will take 26 hours to download and I only have 24 hours to watch the remaining 2 hours of the movie.

This is the last movie I ever rent from iTunes.

I'm getting the idea that it's a problem with the servers at akamai. I'm having the same slow speeds at websites who have hosted ( parts of ) their site there. Apple used to store their downloads there as well...

I dunno, i found a workaround for my phone. Downloading an album and rates were insanely slow for LTE (about 8 kB/s). I paused the first download, waited for the second to start, and the unpaused the first download again. It downloaded the first and second song almost immediately. Then the third song would start slow and i would have to repeat the process. It was a little annoying but way faster than the alternative.

Not sure if anyone else posted about this (I didn't read the whole thread), but recently we tested some internet filtering software with our router. Doing so changed the DNS server our router uses to the internet filtering company, instead of our ISP. While my speed tests were all perfect (32mbps+ on a 25mpbs connection from Comcast), my Apple TV was taking an hour just to load HD TV espisode. I discovered the manual DNS servers today in the router settings and promptly changed it back to "automatic". After the router rebooted it was using a very different set of DNS servers. Instantly my Apple TV was able to stream HD content like before, and my PC is now downloading 2-gig iTunes episodes in less than 20 minutes. In case anyone is wondering, I am using a Netgear R4500 dual-band router from Costco.

I downloaded a 4 gig movie from iTunes from my ipad and it took roughly 20 min. I then tried a equal sized movie from my Mac mini which took 7.5 hours. My ipad is of course using the wireless N and my mac mini is a gigabit connection to the router. Any thoughts, it seems to point to the software / settings on the mini rather than a router or outside server issue?

I have resolved my issue by further trial and error. I had changed my default media location in iTunes to my synology NAS. As soon as I reverted back to the iTunes default my speeds were back up. If anybody knows how to fix the download speeds with changing the default media location I would love to know.

The iTunes store.

Sigh.

Going on a long trip and thinking, 'Hey! I'm going to binge watch the last season of the show everyone has been talking about?"

WRONG. It won't be downloaded tonight. You'll spend a few minutes dorking around trying to copy the first or second episode to your mobile device in the morning and probably miss your flight.

Ever had a long layover before a flight? You think, hey, I'll download a couple of TV shows, maybe a movie?

NOPE.

Date night! Let's rent/buy a movie and watch it (thinking it's something like Netflix.)

BETTER OFF GOING FOR FRO-YO.

Seriously. The download speeds from iTunes are LUDICROUS. I just bought the MadMen season 6 to catch up for some international flights. Initial download estimate for just the first episode (a double episode, granted) was 4 hours. Four hours later, it's downloaded halfway and still estimates four hours.

This is not the first time this has happened to me. But it is surely the last.

WHY THE HECK ARE DOWNLOADS FROM THE iTUNES STORE SO BRUTALLY, RIDICULOUSLY, 1990s SLOW?

DNS Servers have NOTHING to do with your download speeds.
DNS = Domain Name System.

They only tell your Computer which IP is behind itunesdownload.apple.com (or whatever they are named, i made that one up)

Once it has this information, it doesn't care about the DNS for quite some time, as he already knows where to look for that site

The DNS is nothing more than a phonebook. As long as your computer remembers the number, he doesn't need to use it again.

Also opening up Ports in your Router OR Windows Firewall wont do anything at all.

iTunes is an outgoing connection, so they both don't block it. If they did, it wouldn't work at all.

Don't just randomly start opening up ports if you don't know what they do. It is not needed, and it wont help you at all.

The problem here is on the side of apple. And they don't care about fixing it.

I'm also running on 100Mbit, and im waiting since 30 minutes for 30MB Download of an App to finish.
Seriously, thats slower than ISDN speed was....

Only about an hour ago, i loaded the big Debian DVD Set with almost 12MByte/s. Every service runs fast for me, except anything i download from itunes. Doesn't matter if its my Windows8 Machine, my iPod, or whatever. Same problem everywhere. And its only with downloads from iTunes.