"Unable to check for downloads. Network connection was lost".

Same issue! Very disappointing

I have this too. Apple chat support could not resolve the problem......

Same with me. I've upgraded iTunes, all software is up to date, my internet connection is fine and my firewall settings are fine. iTunes support was useless (everything they said to check was fine so they think it is my internet supplier causing the problem!).

This has been going on for about a month now and is really very disappointing.

Same here. Mavericks up to date. Have reinstalled iTunes 11.1.4. Restarted router. Restarted iMac. Able to access from iPad on same network, so not an ISP issue.

Able to access store, match etc. Just not download a paid for film.

Have Googled extensively which leads to same Apple troubleshooting guides - which don't help.

Grumble...

I have found the solution. Went into the networks settings and there was a new kind of option which i needed to enable. Shame that it was not the apple genius service that found this.... I found it by accident...

Could you elaborate on the option? Thanks

Have you tried restarting your computer? Some settings need to be completely integrated to take effect. Which is fully integrated by resetting it.

Same for iPhone you probably need to reset the phone to have the system reset to resolve errors

Sure. I clicked on Network in the settings. It asked me if I want to set up the Thunderbolt Bridge. I chose yes and there might have been one - two further questions. I just enabled the set up.

When I went into Network first time, it immediately asked me about this. It was not like I tried to set it up. Currently the status of the Thunderbolt Bridge is Not Connected.

After this I thought to give it a try again to download and it did work.

I use Maverick. The problems started after I installed Maverick. I have a retina macbook, so not sure how this would work on other machines...

Hope this helps. Dont know much more about this.

I have been having a very similar problem for a few weeks now, also with iTunes UK. I say similar, because it clearly is related to what people are describing here, but there are a couple of significant differences.

In my case I seem to have a number of "phantom" available downloads. That is I am absolutely certain that there is nothing that needs to be downloaded, but iTunes or the iTunes store (or both) think there is.

I can interact with the store just fine: I can sign in, sign out, browse the store and make purchases or rent movies and they download just fine (eventually, read on for an important detail).

The problem is that iTunes seems to be convined that I have downloads available. I have "automatically check for downloads" enabled in my preferences. So when I start up iTunes it seems to think that there is stuff waiting to download, and then proceeds to prompt me for my iTunes password up to 3 or 4 times. Then iTunes will become unresponsive while it attempts to connect to the store. Eventually these attempts time out, with the error dialog "Unable to check for downloads. Network connection was lost". It seems like I will have one of these for each login dialog I was presented with earlier, and until all of them have timed out I can't really do anything else. However, once they have timed out I can resume interacting with store and download purchases.

For the last couple of weeks iTunes said that I had 2 available downloads -- as I said I am convinced I do not. This morning an album I pre-ordered became available. The album has 11 tracks. Now iTunes says I have 13 available downloads, BUT -- and this is significant -- the album has downloaded anyway and I have been listening to it today. That is why I said at the beginning that these in my case seem to be "phantom downloads".

This is very frustrating because although I can still use iTunes the issue with it attempting to download what it thinks are available downloads, then prompting me over and over again for my password, which then eventually times out, is happening fairly frequently, not only when I start iTunes.

BTW I also was prompted to set up the Thunderbolt Bridge in Network options but doing so did not solve this issue.

I too get the check for downloads prompt every time I start iTunes, followed after a while by the usual 'network was lost message', and despite this message again when I order something from the store the items then download normally. apparently, however, I still have 5 items waiting to download. I read on another post that someone eventually got Apple to delete those items and everything worked normally from that point on. Maybe that's the answer.

The whole Thunderbold Bridge issue doesn't apply to me as I am using a Mac Mini with no Thunderbolt connection. I'm also still on Lion.

I resolved my problem by contacting iTunes support and asking them to remove the downloads from my available downloads queue. Now everything is back to normal. However, that might not be a solution for everyone. In my case the available downloads were erroneous -- I had already downloaded the items in question and they were in my library.

If you have things in your available downloads queue which you *don't* already have then having iTunes support clear your queue might not be a good solution, I'm really not sure.

Perhaps the best thing to do is to contact iTunes support and ask exactly what these available downloads are first. Then if you already have them, ask for your available downloads queue to be cleared and your problem should be solved.

Hi, all,

As with previous poster, problem now solved after contacting iTunes help. Seemed to have been phantom downloads in queue. Reply from Apple very prompt, took two goes but easily solved.

Worked for me too. I got iTunes to remove the three bogus downloads queued up and I no longer get the error messages.