I have a 30 Mbps internet connection. When I run a speed test against my connection I almost always hit 30 Mbps. However, when I download podcasts and other files from iTunes my download speeds max out at just over 7 Mbps. I ran the diagnostics in iTunes and everything checked out fine. Any ideas on why I getting such a slow download speed?
Windows 7
I can't help, but by way of confirmation, I typically get a 12 hour forecast for downloading a SD movie on a PC.
This is not your system.
I have to stay up tending the computer- it may speed up overnite. Sometimes it loses even that which it had and starts over.
It's not my system. Netflix streams away with never a buffering moment, reliably, any time of day.
I wish, when the issue is clearly Itunes/apple only issue , they would stop dishing out the usual suspects which a savvy user will haved tried a million times already. It's a terrible time waster.
I'd fell much better if they said " We have server and distributor issues, we're sorry and we are fixing it."
Genious - Thanks so much. Went from 8 hours to 27 minutes when i did this.
If you're using Google DNS, Open DNS, or similar free DNS services, this may be what is affecting you. Try puting in a static DNS setting such as the following:
12.127.16.67
209.244.0.3 - 209.244.0.4
4.2.2.1 - 4.2.2.6
For Mac users (Lion):
System Preferences > Network
Now make sure your appropriate connection you are utilizing whether it be your WiFi, Ethernet or otherwise is highlighted and currently active, then click "Advanced..."
Click the DNS tab, and then click the "+" icon under DNS servers to add in one or more of the above static DNS IPv4 settings.
Click "OK" and make sure to hit "Apply".
Windows users:
Follow these instructions to add in static DNS IP settings:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Change-TCP-IP-settings
My apologies, I don't have a Windows machine in front of my to walk you through the steps quickly.
Hope this helps everyone, it worked for me! Went from 80 KB/s to 5 MB/s
Please like this post if it fixed your issues!
This link helps fix a windows7 64bit issue that does pop up. If you run the diagnositic you will see itunes not enabled on firewall this link will help win vista-win 8 users. I did this on three PC's and they can all download fast. I did several test one PC downloading the same TV episode as the other and was able to reproduce results after disabling itunes after fixing it.
The reason for bringing up the facts about DNS, was that many in the discussion had misconceptions about how content is delivered, and DNS has implications for download speed. But if that does not solve your issue, we could try something else.
1) If you run "traceroute swcdn.apple.com" - and "traceroute trailers.apple.com".
2) Which ISP do you use?
3) How long time does a regular movie take to download?
4) How long time do you expect it to take?
Everything in the itunes diagnostic checks out okay. My windows firewall is disabled and I am not running any AV or Spyware software on this PC. I am behind a DD-WRT firewall but I do not think that the issue is with any of my settings in the firewall.
I did some more testing. The iTunes installation with the slow (7 Mbps) connection is hard wired to my router. This PC is running Windows Server 2008 and has the roles as a primary domain controller, DNS server, and DHCP server. When I run the diagnostics within iTunes it states:
- WebKit accelerated compositing is disabled
- Core Media is not supported. (16002)
When I tested my other installation of iTunes (running the save version) on another PC I was able to pretty much max out my download connection of 30 Mbps. This PC runs Win 7 and is connected to my domain, using the above mentioned computer as its DHCP and DNS server. When I run the diagnostics it states taht the Webkit accelerated composting is enabled and the core media is supported.
Why is Webkit accelerated enabled on one and not on the other PC that is giving me trouble? Why isn't core media supported on my troubled PC?
These are the only two differences that I can see between the installations on my Win 7 PC and my Windows Server 2008 PC that could be leading to my problem.
On the PC in my office (the Windows 7 box joined to my domain) I was able to achieve downloads within the 25-30 Mbps range within iTunes. When I use my server to download via iTunes, the downloads will start off around 15 Mbps and quickly drop to 7 Mbps.
When I run a test on speednet.com on either PC, I max out my download speed at around 30 Mbps. My server is hard wired and my office pc is connected via wireless.
I am getting extemely frustrated on why my server is giving me problems downloading via iTunes but my office pc is not.
This has gone on since 2008. Apple does nothing but states this is the problem of wireless or browser or hardware yet I have no problem with Netfliks or Msnbc or utube....
Switched to Mac because Microsoft did not address their software glitches only to find Apple does the same. If they would at least address the fact that they have a probllem/
Same experience here with anything being downloaded from Apple! For at least the last 5-6 months we have gone from very fast down loads from Apple Software Update Servers which were humming at around a Megabyte to 1.5 MB a second for the better part of the last DECADE! Which was fantastic and essential for upgrading dozens of computers on the many networks we manage. Now every single network for the last 5-6 months is only getting fractions of theses throughputs. Down to 30-80 KBs (Per Machine) which is a nightmare. It makes no difference geographically in Sydney or which Service provider. We have called the service providers and they have tested the pipe to Apples servers and they get the same results. We were comfortably getting 1GB downloads with in 20-40 minutes per machine with up to 5 or six machines on an ADSL 2+ connection at a time... easily, now its taking 3-4 hours to get a gigabyte per machine with only 2 or 3 computers at a time.
Its a nightmare and yes we use an in-house OSX Servers SUS and down load the big updates and distribute them internally but there are now so many different updates required for different machines its difficult to do this and we just upgraded 2 computers to Lion and they wanted to down load over 2.5GB in updates each with out the system software updates which we had previously downloaded. SUS on each computer was indicating just under 24 hours to down load 2.5 GB from Apple. We were able to down load this with in an hour previously.
Its become a nightmare harking back to the performance we were getting from the internet in the Nineties. It is suspected that since Apple removed their mirrors from around the world we all have to go to the States to get our Software, iOs and iTunes updates and Apples growth is impacting on their ability so serve up the bandwidth with everybody downloading ridiculously large 3.5 GB Lion installers.
Interestingly Microsoft servers are dishing up the same poor bandwidth performance as Apple yet Google is the same its always been at around 800-1MB a second and many other big companies blow the Apple servers out of the water on the same networks.
Something has to be done about this as our clients are beginning to complain seriously about it as its costing significantly more to run an Apple Network.
And no one from Apple wants to talk about it. And this post will most likely self destruct once Apple reads it!
I'm going to post this in several threads. I hate doing that so I apologize but I hope more people can see this as it very well may be the issue for many.
Six months ago I had a very similar issue to the one I just started having in the past couple days. My speed tests were great and I have a 10Mbit DSL connection. Downloads from what appeared to be anywhere were great except from Apple. Apple said there was no problem. My ISP said there was no problem. I was very persistant with my ISP though and after a month of my ISP insisting there wasn't a problem or that the problem was me or Apple, they finally found a problem on what they called their DS3 going back to the Main Switch on my Line Group.
So back to the past couple of days. Same problem. Today I contacted the person I was in talking with six months ago at my ISP to see if it's on their end. They just got back to me that it was indeed their DS3 again. My download speed from Apple is back to normal. Very odd that I was only seeing an issue with Apple's servers though.
Well now that is VERY interesting and requires further investigation with the service providers that have insisted there is no problem with their connections. Time to out the service providers and shame them in to action if they are not prepared to investigate. Michael which service provider was this issue discovered at? If you would. If its the same service providers then we may have a pre-existing case to persue and an in/persistent to resolve it.
I guess it's okay to say it was CenturyLink. Once the top brass in my area got involved, the very very helpful and nice. Something like this is very hard to see on their end and on the consumer end. In fact they said more people than just me were effected but I was the only person to log any complaint out of the addresses assigned to that card. They had to do specific tests to that card in order for it to even show errors. They were very surprised that it failed again so soon and had I not brought it to their attention, they wouldn't even have known there was an issue.
Netflix user, never any problem, film wanted to watch was only available on itunes.
Unbelievable slow speed of download in itunes, madness, I have 40mb broadband
Have been using BBC iPlayer for years, again never any problem.
Not sure if I shall purchase a movie again in itunes, probably only when I am being proactive, downloading a movie for play the next day or something.
I can concur that these speeds from the iTunes servers are indeed, very, very slow.
I have a 100 mbps cable Internet connections via Midco.net. I get blazing speeds from nearly everything, all the time. I just ran a test during my download of a movie just now, and the test came back at 110 mbps.
However, whenever I download movies via iTunes, or anything for that matter, speeds fluctuate between 5 - 7 mbps, rarely exceeding this.
Hopefully Apple's forthcoming data center upgrades will address these issues.
Sometimes though, it is just a slow connection to Apples servers and nothing can be done to speed it up.
Way back about five months or so, I had purchased the Paranormal Activity the Chronology movie in HD. It's almost 9GB in size. It started out downloading slow and said it would take about four hours on my DSL connection. About an hour in, it got a lot faster and was down to about 45 minutes left to download.
A few months ago, I deleted it to make room for a few other movies. I decided to download it again so I could watch it this weekend. Same thing happened but this time, it said it would take six hours to download. About an hour in, same thing, it was down to about 45 minutes left.
I downloaded another HD movie and this one was 3.4GB in size and it took 30 minutes.
Apple has some issues to work out still and the slow downloads aren't always because of a setting on our end.
From what I've read it has to do with the ports you select on your TCP/IPV4 settings. Google "best ports to use with itunes" and try a few out. Google has a set of address that works pretty well for me (I'm in Charlotte, NC). I'm not a computer expert by anymeans. This has helped my download speed tremendously!!!
Why are My iTunes Downloads so Slow?
