"Unable to download item. Please try again later. "

yeah man, have to disable the U2 album at the link i posted, only way i found to fix it.

Ugh. This bug is getting very annoying. I've been getting it on my iPhone 6 Plus for the last several days now and I can't figure out what's causing it. I can get it to appear EVERY time I reboot the phone (within 5 seconds, it pops up). And it also appears randomly throughout the day: sometimes it'll pop up several times in a period of an hour or so, and sometimes it won't appear at all for several hours. Can't find any pattern. Have tried all the troubleshooting tips I can think of, and I don't think mine is related to the U2 album (I didn't have the album and it never downloaded to my phone). I used the removal tool from Apple anyway just in case, and that didn't fix it either. I did purchase a couple of albums from my phone, but I have since deleting them and nothing on the phone now. I'm going to try doing a backup in iTunes and then restoring.

Well, I backed up my phone, did the Erase All, and then restored and now the popup seems to have gone away. Note that I did the backup and restore via iTunes, not iCloud so I'm not sure if that makes a difference since some others were reporting that restoring did not fix it.

And while I'm glad it's gone (for now), since I never did figure out what caused it, I'm afraid that it's going to come back again...

I've had the same problem, but I think I've now resolved it, fingers crossed, I'm not sure what caused it, but it could have involved the U2 Album and Digital Booklet and possible updating iOS, this is on an iPad mini by the way. I connected the ipad to my desktop (Macpro), opened up iTunes from the Macpro and then into the menu bar 'store' > view account, logged-in and alongside the Apple ID Summary title there was a note 'Download waiting...' or something along those lines, clicked on that a couple of times, and the file (digital booklet) downloaded, I then synced the ipad. And to make sure I had the book, I then went back into iTunes Store, from the Macpro, into music>purchased, (under artist and not album)>recent purchase, and there it was, double clicked to open and saved it to the desk top, just to make sure it was a complete download.... and I've not had the pop-up window since... and thats been about 3 hours, it would have popped up about 3/4 times usually within that time.

I'm sure it was the U2 Digital booklet, as when originally downloaded the album, all that was visible was the songs, now when I open the album the Digital Booklet is the first in the list

Will update if it reappears, but at the moment things are looking good.

After trying everything, I finally resorted to a full factory reset and full restore. So far, eight hours later, no pop up. I think the IOS 8 update corrupted files on some devices. This may be the only way to fix the issue.

Thank you to all who have attempted to resolve this issue. Despite all the helpful suggestions I'm still getting the "Unable to download item" pop-up when I re-boot my A1429 iPhone 5 running IOS 8.0.2 - as I have since I updated it to IOS 8.0.0.

I've unsuccessfully tried all the solutions suggested in this thread - other than a factory reset. I've also tried solutions suggested in the other two Apple discussion threads dealing with this issue. I've reported the problem to Apple Support, and, at their suggestion, to the Apple feedback page. I also reported it to iTunes. Hopefully Apple will either issue a bug fix or some instructions. I'd prefer to avoid a factory reset.

For the record, my A1430 iPad running IOS 8.0.2 is unaffected by the error, only the iPhone 5. It may be relevant that I downloaded the U2 "Songs of Innocence" album to the iPhone, but not to the iPad. I also ensured that the album's digital booklet (ie., pdf file) was fully download from my iTunes account via iTunes on an iMac. Unfortunately it is not possible to download digital booklets directly to an IOS device such as an iPhone, so this may be the root of the problem.

I HAD this problem and it got worse as the days went by but I tried everything and nothing worked. I finally removed ALL DIGITAL Booklets from in my iTunes music and then synced (connected not over wifi) with my iPhone. It has been about 5 days and I have not had the problem. I did not delete the U2 album or any other album, I simply deleted the digital booklets that some albums come with. I WAITED TO POST JUST IN CASE IT STARTED BACK UP BUT IT HASN'T, thankfully.

I eventually bit the bullet and got Apple support to call me. I HADN'T downloaded the U2 album, just saved a PDF to iBooks....

DID YOU KNOW THAT IF YOU HAVE AN ISSUE CAUSED BY AN IOS UPDATE, YOU HAVE 90 DAYS OF FREE APPLE SUPPORT TO GET THE ISSUE RESOLVED?

The solution they gave me to this 'unable to download item' is to back everything up to iCloud (I had to purchase more storage 😟 )

Once the back-up's complete, put your IPhone/iPad into recovery mode (Switch it off completely), plug it into your PC. Hold down the round button on the front, keeping it held down until the red iTunes symbol appears on phone/pad screen.

ITunes on your PC screen will say 'iTunes has detected an iPad/iPhone in recovery mode. You must restore to continue'

Click on okay and follow the prompts.

This has worked for me.

good luck....

Thank you for the info - I was not aware of free support and the iPad recovery mode. This is great.

I was just going to put up with it on my IPhone 5s but it's my nature to (eventually) fix what's broken. So after reading many answers I resorted to the ITunes Restore to Factory Settings after doing an IPhone Backup to my Laptop. I restored to Factory Settings and followed with a Restore of the Backup. This after removing/deleting/emptying everything I could find from the free U2 download (what a mistake that was to download - which I did through my IPhone - normally I would download to my laptop and then sync the IPhone). I am now free from the nuisance and everything is back to having no popup. I no longer have the free U2. Nothing will ever be accepted as free by me again from ITunes. It is not a great precedence to offer free music as for the struggles that new artists endure. I should have known better not to accept music for free ... it cost me way more in time than what it was worth ... and what a nuisance it was.

FINAL UPDATE:

UPDATE #2:

So as I described in my prior post, I was able to fix this issue by backing up my iPhone to iTunes, then erasing the phone, then restoring from backup in iTunes. This completely eliminated the popup and I have been using my phone since then without issue.

However, I am now able to duplicate the problem, and it's definitely an issue with music downloads on the phone. I do think it's specifically the Digital Booklets that are part of album purchases. That's why for some people it was the U2 album that automatically downloaded. For me, that was NOT the problem because the U2 album never downloaded to me device, nor did I try to download it (I had auto downloads disabled).

For me, it was the purchase of an entirely different album that caused the problem (but an album that still had a digital booklet). I didn't know that was the problem until I tried to purchase another album after doing the erase/restore on my iPhone.

So I purchased an album from iTunes on the phone and everything seemed to download fine (all of the songs and music videos downloaded fine). But guess what popped up at the end of the album download? Yep, the "Unable to download item" message. And now, it's doing the same thing where it appears EVERY time I do a reboot of the phone, and pops up occasionally while using the phone too.

And again, I have tried everything to fix the problem without success. Since I knew exactly which Digital Booklet was causing the problem, I thought maybe I could fix it. I plugged in my phone to my Mac and attempted to do all sorts of syncing with Music on/off, Books, on/off, etc. If I try to open the Digital Booklet for this album on my Mac, it will not open (says it's corrupted, even if I redownload it from the cloud). Not sure if that is part of the problem or not.

At any rate, I am now doing another erase and restore and will NOT be doing any kind of music downloads on the phone until this problem is fixed. It's definitely an issue with cloud downloads of music albums. I could probably have avoided the problem by just downloading the songs individually instead of touching the Cloud icon for the entire album. I would think that downloading individual songs would be okay, but I don't want to be the guinea pig again! LOL.

Can anyone else verify this? If you're brave enough to try it out, just download an album you've already purchased by going to iTunes on the phone/iPad, click the Cloud icon next to the entire album (not the songs themselves). Wait for your entire album to finish downloading, and then see if you get the error. If not, reboot and see if it appears then. Make sure it is an album that has a DIGITAL BOOKLET with it.

FINAL UPDATE:

So as I described in my prior post, I was able to fix this issue by backing up my iPhone to iTunes, then erasing the phone, then restoring from backup in iTunes. This completely eliminated the popup and I have been using my phone since then without issue.

However, I am now able to duplicate the problem, and it's definitely an issue with music downloads on the phone. I do think it's specifically the Digital Booklets that are part of album purchases. That's why for some people it was the U2 album that automatically downloaded. For me, that was NOT the problem because the U2 album never downloaded to me device, nor did I try to download it (I had auto downloads disabled).

For me, it was the purchase of an entirely different album that caused the problem (but an album that still had a digital booklet). I didn't know that was the problem until I tried to purchase another album after doing the erase/restore on my iPhone.

So I purchased an album from iTunes on the phone and everything seemed to download fine (all of the songs and music videos downloaded fine). But guess what popped up at the end of the album download? Yep, the "Unable to download item" message. And now, it's doing the same thing where it appears EVERY time I do a reboot of the phone, and pops up occasionally while using the phone too.

And again, I have tried everything to fix the problem without success. Since I knew exactly which Digital Booklet was causing the problem, I thought maybe I could fix it. I plugged in my phone to my Mac and attempted to do all sorts of syncing with Music on/off, Books, on/off, etc. If I try to open the Digital Booklet for this album on my Mac, it will not open (says it's corrupted, even if I redownload it from the cloud). Not sure if that is part of the problem or not.

At any rate, I am now doing another erase and restore and will NOT be doing any kind of music downloads on the phone until this problem is fixed. It's definitely an issue with cloud downloads of music albums. I could probably have avoided the problem by just downloading the songs individually instead of touching the Cloud icon for the entire album. I would think that downloading individual songs would be okay, but I don't want to be the guinea pig again! LOL.

Can anyone else verify this? If you're brave enough to try it out, just download an album you've already purchased by going to iTunes on the phone/iPad, click the Cloud icon next to the entire album (not the songs themselves). Wait for your entire album to finish downloading, and then see if you get the error. If not, reboot and see if it appears then. Make sure it is an album that has a DIGITAL BOOKLET with it.

I followed the advice of Telthepensioner and used a backup and recovery mode to remove the “Unable to download item” bug from my iPhone 5. In my case I used iTunes rather than iCloud for my backup. Hooray! I am no longer plagued by the “Unable to download item” pop-ups.

Before starting work on my iPhone I should have gone to Settings / iCloud settings and turned off Find My Phone. I didn’t do this, so I had to do it later, interrupting the Recovery process. If you’ve got Find My Phone running, it’s best to turn it off before you start.

To perform the backup I connected the iPhone via USB cable to my iMac. Using iTunes I then backed up the iPhone’s content to the iMac. Then I ejected the iPhone in iTunes, physically disconnected the iPhone from the USB cable and turned it off.

It was important that my iMac was connected to the web during the next stage because it needed to download a copy of IOS 8.0.2 from Apple as part of the restoration process.

After ensuring the iPhone was off, I then (as per Telthepensioner’s instructions) held down the iPhone’s home button (the round button on the front) while I plugged the USB cable from the iMac (or other Mac/PC) back into the iPhone. I kept pressing the iPhone’s home button until the red iTunes icon appeared on the iPhone’s screen, confirming it had gone into recovery mode.

At the same time a prompt appeared on the iMac screen - enabling me to start the recovery / factory reset and data restoration processes.

When I’d completed all this, my data, music and apps were back on my iPhone - with no pop-ups!

I agree with Travisimo that trying to download another iTunes digital booklet (or re-downloading the U2 Songs of Innocence digital booklet) would probably re-create the problem and re-start the unwanted pop-ups. I don’t have time to test the theory, but I can tell you that I do still have U2’s Songs of Innocence music files on my iPhone. The music files themselves are not causing a problem - but I’ve ‘hidden’ the album ‘purchase’ in iTunes and I’m taking great care not to download or synchronise the associated digital booklet to the phone.

I have this problem too with my iPod touch 5th generation that runs iOS 8.0.2

Same exact problem. It started doing this a few minutes after I downloaded ios8. Apple needs to fix this. I record music on a DAW app and when this pops up it pauses the recording and ruins everything. It is INCREDIBLY frustrating. If this doesn't get fixed soon I'll buy an android. I have the iPhone 4s, and I am approaching my upgrade, so the switch to Android would not be a difficult task. Your move Apple.