Why are My iTunes Downloads so Slow?

These are the results for me here in the Netherlands...

traceroute: Warning: a1442.v.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net has multiple addresses; using 65.172.31.51

traceroute to a1442.w11.akamai.net (65.172.31.51), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets

1 192.168.2.254 (192.168.2.254) 1.305 ms 1.015 ms 0.840 ms

2 195.190.241.14 (195.190.241.14) 41.047 ms 37.310 ms 40.921 ms

3 nl-asd-dc2-ice-ir02.kpn.net (213.75.1.66) 45.777 ms 42.789 ms 47.825 ms

4 nl-asd-dc2-ice-ir02.kpn.net (213.75.1.66) 48.582 ms 47.086 ms 47.821 ms

5 nl-asd-dc2-ice-ir01.kpn.net (213.75.1.146) 41.676 ms 38.095 ms 48.001 ms

6 asd2-rou-1022.nl.eurorings.net (134.222.93.138) 36.768 ms 45.289 ms 36.520 ms

7 nyk-s1-rou-1001.us.eurorings.net (134.222.231.230) 125.279 ms 125.147 ms 124.979 ms

8 nyk-s1-rou-1021.us.eurorings.net (134.222.231.238) 120.605 ms 120.313 ms 120.231 ms

9 ahbn-s1-rou-1001.us.eurorings.net (134.222.232.34) 124.779 ms 137.846 ms 125.954 ms

10 ahbn-s1-rou-1041.us.eurorings.net (134.222.231.121) 125.196 ms 124.785 ms 124.819 ms

11 sl-st31-ash-.sprintlink.net (144.228.205.37) 125.857 ms 125.830 ms 125.442 ms

12 sl-crs2-dc-0-13-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.25.14) 127.751 ms 127.302 ms 127.398 ms

13 sl-crs2-rly-0-0-3-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.8.165) 129.270 ms 129.528 ms 129.914 ms

14 144.232.4.186 (144.232.4.186) 143.139 ms 142.337 ms 142.351 ms

15 144.232.20.187 (144.232.20.187) 142.701 ms 143.844 ms 143.212 ms

16 144.232.1.104 (144.232.1.104) 141.983 ms 142.265 ms 141.970 ms

17 65.172.31.51 (65.172.31.51) 142.205 ms 142.755 ms 142.584 ms

I don't know how to interperate these readings...

1) traceroute: Warning: a1442.v.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net has multiple addresses; using 212.247.20.41

traceroute to a1442.w11.akamai.net (212.247.20.41), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets

1 dsldevice.lan (192.168.xxx.xxx) 66.854 ms 86.385 ms 97.996 ms

2 dXXXXXX.cust.tele2.se (x.x.x.x) 361.574 ms 352.081 ms 218.999 ms

3 xx.tele2.net (130.244.x.xxx) 192.381 ms 262.468 ms 245.016 ms

4 * * *

5 * bck-core-1.tengige0-1-1-0.tele2.net (130.244.68.27) 259.299 ms 139.350 ms

6 * kst5-core-1.bundle-ether4.tele2.net (130.244.39.140) 171.429 ms *

7 * * *

8 * 212.247.20.41 (212.247.20.41) 176.641 ms 205.933 ms

2) They're not prioritizing that I know of or that I can detect. They're not known for meddling with services. But who knows for sure?

3) Yeah, but I can live with 2 hours for now, even if I'd prefer faster.

4) There's no measurable heavyhanded overhead and in addition other types of downloads from other servers go very very fast, usually close to filling my bandwidth, though not always. Occassionally there are problems but I don't see how those comes in play here. Intermittant network problems are a pita.

You have to much round trip time already at your router. I find that fairly strange, and suggest that the problem either is in your local network or somewhere in your ISP's network.

When I traceroute the same IP that you got, I get the following result:

4 se-tug.nordu.net (109.105.102.21) 9.412 ms 9.176 ms 9.127 ms

5 se-fre.nordu.net (109.105.97.1) 10.485 ms 13.533 ms 9.918 ms

6 avk-core-1.gigabiteth4-0-0.swip.net (194.68.128.21) 9.247 ms 9.471 ms 9.407 ms

7 kst5-peer-1.ae1-unit0.tele2.net (130.244.39.10) 10.409 ms 11.931 ms 10.061 ms

8 212.247.20.41 (212.247.20.41) 10.153 ms 9.718 ms 12.441 ms

If I run a traceroute on the hostname, I get this:

5 se-fre.nordu.net (109.105.97.1) 9.944 ms 10.638 ms 9.926 ms

6 s-b3-link.telia.net (213.248.97.17) 9.205 ms 9.569 ms *

7 80-239-254-58.customer.teliacarrier.com (80.239.254.58) 10.310 ms 9.311 ms 9.278 ms

Do you get significant better RTT if you ping/traceroute other services?

Sorry. that may have sounded harsh which was not my intention.

All this talk about DNS made me look harder on my network issues, like mean speeds and the occassional drop out. I found this interesting tool "Namebench" https://code.google.com/p/namebench/ for evaluating Name Servers and I am chasing the best DNS for my network now.

I don't care about DNS or any other technicqal aspect. I just paid 16 quid for videos that I want to watch on my PC now - as in today. If I want to wait days to see the videos I want then I'll go to Tesco and get them just as cheaply. Pull your finger out Apple. You can take your design and coolness and must have BS and save it for the hyped up stage launches. Here in the everyday world I want my videos. Where are they? You have my money. I want my videos and when I see 3500 hours left to download then, OBVIOUSLY, that;s not good enough. Not even close. Get it sorted or stop charging people money.

Before I updated my iPad to iOS7 I could begin watching rental movies as it was downloading. The whole iTunes 'experience' since iOS7 update has not been for the better I have to say. Going to give Netflix a chance.

I just wanted to reply to StumpyBloke. DNS has everything to do with it because the DNS server response you get from the server is what dictates what apple server you download from. I use my own DNS server which querries the 13 root DNS servers on the internet directly which gives me the best download speed. I tested this theory and did some packet sniffing analysis of DNS responses and I can see the DNS requests my computers make get constinantly differnet responses based on the DNS servers. I took the responses and traced them geographicly and can see a definate coorelation. I know not everyone is a network engineer like me but the best thing to do is to test using your isp's DNS servers and other public DNS servers while downloading the same exact thing everytime. I suggest closing itunes in between the changing of the DNS settings. Once you have a good result stick with it. Cheers and happy downloading.

This issue frustrated me for some time. I decided to reset all DNS settings on my computers (PC and APPLE), Apple TVs, routers and servers to the ISP specified servers. After that, all DNS cache information was flushed and then for good measure rebooted the lot.

This has fixed all problems relating to speed of downloads for iTunes, Apple TV and Apple Store search and downloads.

I've noticed that on occasions tracks will download quite quickly on simultaneous downloads and then there is the odd one that says it will take over half an hour for just 10 MB of music. In order to speed the process up I've simply stopped downloading that particular track with the pause icon and then gone to the menu bar at the top of itunes that says STORE and checked for avaialble downloads.

These have then come straight through.

Don't know if this helps or not.

I'm having ridiculously slow iTunes downlodas too. I'm on Windows 8 on a FiOS 150/65Mbps plan, and changing DNS settings has done absolutely nothing for me. Has anybody else gotten any other methods to work? I know it has to be something iTunes-related because Steam gets me around 140Mbps, but i get 15-18Mbps on iTunes 😟

I recently upgraded my Internet connection from 12 Mbps (bits/s) to 60 (and in practise I get 75 at most major sites). So I am now experiencing this problem as well. On Windows my TV show downloads now average 15.

What I've noticed is that (for me) the issue is Windows specific. I have tested with an iPhone 5s, iPad Air, iTunes on MacBook Air and iTunes on Windows 8.1. It is *only* Windows iTunes that has trouble downloading at my new faster connection speed. Other Windows applications have no trouble.

I have also noticed that during download (on Windows) it is almost as if the disk is thrashing, so that (maybe) the download is in fact I/O bound. This doesn't make a lot of sense, given other Windows apps don't have an issue, but since "64 bit iTunes" is actually a 32 bit process perhaps there is some iTunes specific I/O weirdness going on here.

Has anyone else noticed this too - that it's a Windows only issue?

Dave Ings

Exactly the same issue with me...and I mean exactly!

On my iMac downloads will come down at about 12MB a second (I do mean megabyte) but on my Windows machine no more than about 2MB. And, as you say, the hard drive is under 100% load constantly when downloading anything from iTunes...again, only on my Windows PC. My iTunes library is on a separate SATA 6Gbps drive too...so no hardware bottleneck there. Never have found a fix for it, but have always had the issue.

I'm desperate enough to fix this that I was on the verge of scratch reinstalling Windows 8.1 (on the somewhat thin theory that some sort of weird I/O configuration error only affecting Windows iTunes had crept in).

But given you are experiencing exactly the same error, a scratch Windows reinstall would seem to be a waste of time. So thank you for posting!

Dave Ings

"Apple Techs" if with that you mean computer technicians and software developers working for Apple doesn't typically read our posts here. Griff1324 that you replied too is a user just like we're all users as is you. In some cases we're Mac support people from outside of Apple — working for other companies — with no special voice in where Apple development is focused.

If you want Apples ear you could do bug reports, call Apple for support (paid or if you're eligible free) or go to an Apple store and consult the genius desk.

What you describe in my experience typically means your machine is too weak, have too little RAM for what you ask from it and/or have too many background application running when you use iTunes.

I wouldn't say your issue is typical iTunes behavior, but I do think iTunes is too slow sometimes. I never see the beach ball (that "spinning thing") however and my machine is very old.

Anyway, this thread isn't about the speed of the iTunes application, but about iTunes download speed, so no need to respond further here. Instead start a new thread about your issue.

I don't know why any of you are attempting to defend apple or blame the issue on anyone other then apple its 100% on them I just downloaded a 100mb iTunes update in less then 30 seconds but I've been downloading an item I bought from the iTunes store of roughly the same size and its on hour 5 and only 60% done. They have the bandwith and resources to accommodate us but once they have you're money then there is no need for them to put any more resources into that item because they know you will download it no matter how long it takes cause you already purchased it.