Tracks marked as "album only" on the iTunes Store downloading as m4p files

Hi...I am at a loss as to why this is happening too. I have raised the case with iTunes support as I have only noticed it over the last few days. (I am running iTunes 11 and iOS 6.02 on my iPhones/iPads.

I have tested it on different Apple ID'S. Any album that I buy from the iTunes store that has some tracks listed as album only do play in iTunes. However those particular tracks that were shown as album only are MP4 OR MPEG protected.

Here are the 3 albums I tested -

Rod Stewart Merry Xmas Baby (Delux)

Track that is album only and DRM is Have yourself a very merry Christmas.

The very best of Neil Diamond - several tracks including I am I said which is DRM

A Symphony of British Music (Olympic Ceremony)

Track - The Spice Girls Wannabe and several others too that show as album only are also DRM.

Not sure if many other people are having this issue but wish it would get sorted as while it doesn't affect playing them in iTunes it does affect my Sonos system as you can't listen to DRM tracks on Sonos.

Anyone else having these problems are have an answer?

Many Thanks Rob

I'm seeing other posts as far back as 2008 talking about tracks downloading as M4P's, but are in fact Purchased (not Protected) AAC files. Many are having success simply renaming the extensions to M4A and re-importing to the library. Other devices should play the files fine after they are renamed to M4A - they just don't recognize the M4P extension. I'm gonna try this now with tracks I've recently re-downloaded from the cloud to a new Macbook Air, many which came down as M4P's even though they were recent purchases (long since Apple went DRM-free). On some albums, the tracks came down as a mix of M4A's and M4P's. But I'm trusting they are all in fact unprotected.

Rob, even though Finder says "Protected MPEG4 Audio", does iTunes Get Info say "Purchased AAC" or "Protected AAC"?

Hi. Thanks for your thoughts. iTunes shows them as purchased AAC whereas Finder says protected. Sonos is not liking them as they are protected. Is it in finder where you change them to M4A as that still hasn't fixed them to play on Sonos. I think it may have worked but then something went wrong after syncing with my iphone and iPad etc. still haven't heard back from Apple iTunes support. I got a quick reply after a very detailed support request saying that some music videos are still protected! I replied twice explaining that they are not videos but audio album only tracks but no response yet. Any suggestions would be really helpful.

Rob

I've tried renaming a few files just now and I can now play them on my Android phone (copied through USB). And I noticed I didn't need to re-import the track into iTunes - they are still there and Get Info shows the new file extension. Sorry I don't know how Sonos plays those tracks - does it stream? Could the old filenames still be cached in the Sonos somehow? I can only guess at that.

Hi. Thanks for the reply and testing it. Am not at home now to test but have tried it on my parents itunes library and it looks like by creating a new AAC version it takes the DRM off and should be able to play on Sonos. Will update this post later, Really appreciate your help Tim.

Rob

Simply renaming the file extensions from .M4P to .M4A worked for me with the "Drive" motion picture soundtrack album. The first 5 tracks are marked "album only" and downloaded with the .m4p file extension as many others are seeing. The rename helped me, I hope it helps you.

-J