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

I'm experiencing this exact problem and it's pretty annoying. It even happened when replying to this thread. At first I thought perhaps I may have downloaded a bad app but I don't think that's it; all of my apps have been well-behaved under iOS 7. Of course it could be that an app might not be ready for 8 and could be a bit buggy. I hope this bug is fixed soon whatever it is.

I have had this same issue ever since getting the free U2 album on IOS 7.1.2 or the GM build cant remember what one I was on but I got it right after getting the albul on my ipod touch 5g. I had downloaded it on it firt not my pc like I normally due. It just pops up randmomly with

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

Its very annoying seeing this randomly when doing stuff on my ipod. No matter what I do it keeps poping up even when I went back to using 7.1.2 from GM build it still showed up. I want this popup stopped for good. I dont want to be forced to make a new account just to get rid of it. I have talked to support and they were no help with getting rid of it.

OK, so after trying a few different solutions to no avail, I decided to try turning off the "background app refresh" feature (Settings>General>Background App Refresh) and since then (about 8 hours ago) the pop ups have not returned. 🙂 Eight hours of relief is significant in my case because the pop ups were appearing so frequently it was beginning to make using my lovely iPhone a miserable experience so I really think turning off this feature is the key (for now) and I'm going to, one by one, allow each app to refresh to see which one may be the culprit. Good luck, folks.

I'm receiving the same issue here.. I'll try that to see if I can minimize the popups at least.

I believe it's definitely iBooks causing the issue. I've tried hiding/unhiding purchases, deleting all books, downloading all books, etc.. in hopes that something will get reset, but no luck thus far.

You know I think you and lyfwj might be right about iBooks being the culprit here, npfetmac. I had forgotten to mention that I went into the iBooks preferences (Settings>iBooks) and turned off the option to allow books to "access publisher's content from the internet" and I then turned off the options "Sync Collections" and "Sync Bookmarks and Notes" just before I turned off Background App Refresh this morning. The pop up relief I've been experiencing may actually have been the result of disabling iBooks' ability to download content from the internet and not from preventing other apps from refreshing. I turned background refresh back on a couple of hours ago and have had not one pop up since. -fingers crossed- Hope this helps someone.

Hi I too have been having this problem and cannot get rid of it either. Followed your advice on ibooks but message just appeared again!! It started 2 days ago when I downloaded the u2 album...... I have since deleted the album from iTunes and the phone but still get message. There doesn't appear to be a pattern to it appearing. I currently have background app refresh on so will try taking one off at a time. It happens with either wifi or 3g on. I will also see if it appears with background app refresh off??

There must be someone who knows what this is?

PLEASE HELP

I'm having this same issue on my brand new iPhone 6. I think it must be something to do with the U2 album because I got that message when downloading it. Now the only time I get it is when I reboot my phone.

If I hit retry, my phone makes the little spinny icon up by the wifi/3G/lte/etc icon.

When I hit retry nothing happens the box just goes it has become a real mystery. I have wiped u2 off everything!! I have turned off nearly everything that runs in background in all settings but still pops up every now and again.

Its driving me mad - hope someone comes on here with a solution

At least I only get it when I reboot my phone. It sounds like you guys get it frequently, which would be REALLY annoying.

probably appeared 20 times today!! just have to get used to it until someone suggests a solution.

I have also been dealing with this annoying pop up. I have apps background checking off. Have no iBooks downloaded and turned off the publisher search another poster mentioned. Removed any downloaded music.

RIght now now the pop up happens when I start up or reboot my iPad Air.

HHope a solution happens soon.

Tried disabling background app, disabling iBooks and many most if not all suggestions on here but still to no avail, happening on my iPad 4 and the wife's ipad2 and still getting the flaming ( least offensive word I could think of ) pop up.

I think there may be an update to fix this from the geeks at apple so may just have to wait til then, I just hope it's sooner than later.....

A few potential possible problems I see (just thinking along all the bases we have to cover so far):

1) It might not be related to iBooks. (I haven't even used iBooks on my new phone and rarely used it on my previous phone.)

2) It might not be related to the U2 album.

3) It might be related to something we have not thought of yet. (About the only thing we all have in common is the problem and that we've either downloaded the U2 album or fiddled with iBooks, but the amount of people who have downloaded the U2 album and/or fiddled with iBooks is huge.)

4) There might not be enough of us experiencing this problem for Apple to even realize it exists.

I guess it must either happen because of the U2 album and/or because of iBooks, and/or something else entirely. 🙂

Did I miss anything?

I too have the same problem on my iPad Air. Think it might have something to do with iBooks. Tried turning sync collections and online content off from the iBooks settings. Also tried all sign out - reboot - sign in / stay signed out combinations. Deleted all my books, downloaded them again, synced with iTunes, hid all my purchases, synced again... Nothing helped so far. Even tried restoring over the cloud but no, the pop-up keeps appearing. It's really annoying.

I Have been messing around with my iPad and still no luck finding a culprit. I went to go into newstand and the pop up came on. But looking at all my magazines nothing was in the process of downloading or downloaded.

Another time it popped up going into iTunes. Again nothing was downloading or downloaded from what I could see?

These two instances might have been just coincidence and not related.

i Have no clue if any info is in the diagnostic section of settings that may help.