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How to change country in App store

I've been fighting with this issue for over several days so I'd appreciate if someone could help me out here.


So I got my new iPad mini about a week ago. While registering it with the iTunes (or maybe App Store, I'm kinda drawing a blank here) it asked me to specify a country. My family originally is from Germany and I speak German, so just for the heck of it, I thought, what if I specify Germany? So I did. Everything installed OK, but then the time came for me to set up the app store to install some apps. And that's when I hit a brick wall.


When I go to App store a popup comes up telling me that some information needs to be entered. I click OK. It then brings me to a window where I'm supposed to specify my payment information -- credit card and such. So I do that. Mind you that I live in US and I specify my US visa card with my US address. When I click Next it tells me that I cannot use this card for this store. It drove me nuts! I even called my bank thinking that my credit card got hacked... they said it's in good standing.


Then if I log out and log back in, the app store has this option "View Apple ID", which I use and then it shows, Country/ Region -- Germany. I click it and it says, "Change country or region". I click it again. Then it says Store - Germany. I click it again and pick United States. Click next. Then confirm EULA, click Next. Now everything looks in English (before it was in German) and I select Visa and type my visa number and then my address and click Next. After which the spinner comes on and after a second or two I get this window (attached) that says,


"Your session has timed out. Please try again. Code: 5107"


User uploaded file


I've been trying again since last week. How long am I supposed to keep trying to start using my new iPad????


PS. I am at a point of bringing it back to a store.... seriously!

Posted on Jan 31, 2013 11:19 PM

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61 replies

Feb 1, 2013 7:17 AM in response to Den B.

Just to clarify... It happens every time I try to change a country. I don't live in the US, but usually I use the US App Store because it contains more free apps, and I don't specify my payment details. When I want to purchase an app, however, I switch to the Israeli store (through my apple ID) and specify my payment details. That usually works. For some reason it stopped working and it's driving me crazy. So to summarize: when I try to switch to the Israeli store (from US) I get the same error code, and the same session has ended message. What a horrible user experience. I hope you can fix that soon (or alternatively, change you name to Microsoft). I suspect it all started after the new iOS update a few days ago. FYI! I live in Israel and have a valid Israeli address.

Feb 2, 2013 11:33 AM in response to Den B.

I think this might be part of the problem.


You cannot use a U.S. credit card in any other iTunes or App Store except in the U.S. store. That is how it works and you can't change that. You can only purchase from a particular country's store if you have a valid credit card that is registered to a legal address in that country, so you can't buy from the German Store with a U.S. credit card and you cannot buy in the U.S. store using any other credit card.


According to the "letter of the law" of the iTunes Store, you are not to purchase from a country other than the country in which you live. The reason being that you just might be trying to circumvent government restrictions, licensing or copyright laws if you buy from another country. If Apple is not allowed to sell content of a certain type in that country for these reasons, they do not want you skirting around the issue this way.


So getting back to the initial issue, when you "just for the heck to it" decided to use the German App Store - but didn't really purchase anything - and then went back to the U.S. App Store because your credit card wasn't working, you gummed up the whole works. Not very technical I realize, but I do think that might be part of the problem.


You might be better off starting all over again now, by going to Settings>General>Reset>Erase all content and settings - which will totally erase the iPad - and then start all over again.

Feb 2, 2013 11:52 AM in response to Demo

My suggestion was simply that this problem could be occurring for less justifiable reasons. But by all means, Den B. should consider your advice. It might be right for his particular situation which prompted that error.


Although, before he erases all purchases, I'd recommend he or she try to switch countries from iTunes. It worked for me, even though I was getting the same error on my iPhone.

Feb 2, 2013 12:16 PM in response to besjbo

besjbo wrote:


Although, before he erases all purchases, I'd recommend he or she try to switch countries from iTunes. It worked for me, even though I was getting the same error on my iPhone.

I agree with this. But, if the purchase are from another country store and he has issues getting back into that store, he will not be able to update the apps any longer and at some point, the apps could become useless if another iOS update is required in order to use those apps.


and, he also stated this ....


"I've been trying again since last week. How long am I supposed to keep trying to start using my new iPad????"


and that says to me that he hasn't downloaded anything yet. Purchased apps can be downloaded again for free as long as you use the same Apple ID that you bought with as well no matter what he does.

Feb 4, 2013 8:09 PM in response to Den B.

Ok, same here... Already two days I am trying to switch my apple store account back to US store. I was downloading some magazines from App Store and when I downloaded some magazines that are actually from Croatian market since then I can't update my other apps that are actually from US store... So now I have realized that in settings of my apple id is Croatian store and when I change it back to US and after submitting I get and note YOUR SESSION HAS TIMED OUT. PLEASE TRY AGAIN. ERROR CODE 5107 and it repeats all the time... I have tried almost everything: on laptop, my iPod, throu iTunes even to make a new apple id and nothing till now still couldn't change the App Store region... So please, if anyone has an solution or at least an advice will be very helpful... because this has become a very annoying issue for me...

Feb 5, 2013 10:35 AM in response to Demo

I tried that yesterday.


I'm certainly in the UK store, I can download free apps from the UK store, all pricing is in £ but it still gives the same error on updates -:this id is not valid in the US store, please switch to the UK store.


Clicking links from sites that direct to UK apps opens the dialogue, not available in the US store, do you want to switch to the UK store? Clicking confirms I'm in the UK store, I can download the apps, but I still get the same error for updates.


I also get the ERROR CODE 5107 when trying to follow the instructions everywhere.

How to change country in App store

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