completely frustrated and demoralized about resolving iTunes download failures

[RyanGermann]

I'm frustrated with iTunes.

I go online today and buy the new Kylie album, "Kiss Me Once". Special edition with 2 extra tracks and 5 videos.



I have a 15 mbps connection with very good fibre optic backbone: my connection is consistently good.

I start the tracks downloading.

Half of them fail outright. I click the "retry" button. Eventually most of them complete.

I start playing the completed tracks and they stop halfway through and skip to the next track. I try playing the m4a track in VLC and it stops at the same point... so obviously the download was truncated.

Is there anything I can do about this? Do I have to manually verify whether or not the tracks have downloaded properly (despite what iTunes claims about "download completion"?

Am I the only one who thinks this is an inexcusable hassle to put customers through when there are probably a dozen or more techniques Apple could employ to ensure that downloads complete and that when iTunes says a download is complete it is correct?

I don't have many problems with Apple products, but the ones I do have are maddening beyond reason.

 

[Kashan Osama]

I'm frustrated with iTunes.

I go online today and buy the new Kylie album, "Kiss Me Once". Special edition with 2 extra tracks and 5 videos.

View attachment 52164

I have a 15 mbps connection with very good fibre optic backbone: my connection is consistently good.

I start the tracks downloading.

Half of them fail outright. I click the "retry" button. Eventually most of them complete.

I start playing the completed tracks and they stop halfway through and skip to the next track. I try playing the m4a track in VLC and it stops at the same point... so obviously the download was truncated.

Is there anything I can do about this? Do I have to manually verify whether or not the tracks have downloaded properly (despite what iTunes claims about "download completion"?

Am I the only one who thinks this is an excusable hassle to put customers through when there are probably a dozen or more techniques Apple could employ to ensure that downloads complete and that when iTunes says a download is complete it is correct?

I don't have many problems with Apple products, but the ones I do have are maddening beyond reason.

looks like itunes never kissed you once

 

[kataran]

Welcome to iMore Ryan

Sorry to hear about your iTunes issue I'm going to assume your running the current version of iTunes. At this moment it seems your doing everything right after reading your post.


iMore Ambassador -iPhone 5s

 

[Jaguarr40]

Ryan I can imagine how frustrated you are and i have had similar problems so with that let me suggest something to you. There are 5 components to iTunes all listed in your add/remove programs if you have a PC. I would recommend removing iTunes and it has been a long time so I would google or call Apple iTunes support and ask the sequence these 5 components need to be removed because they have to be and then reinstall clean the latest version. You will not lose anything. Also a good idea to give them the error message you posted and i think and hope this will solve your problems. I wish you the best ok and let us know how things worked out.

 

[RyanGermann]

Thanks very much for the suggestions: but honestly, the last time I contacted iTunes support on this issue, I was frustrated (it was for a different album purchase) and when the tech asked me "how do I know they aren't complete" I said that both in iTunes and in VLC the playback stops halfway through the track. He asked "What's VLC" (srsly?) so I explained and he said "Oh, that's the problem: iTunes tracks are optimized for iTunes" to which I asked "so playing the tracks is somehow corrupting them? (and I kind of got snippy and he hung up on me).

I'll try stripping my system completely of iTunes and reinstall in the next time I have the problem. I just now listened through the album all the way through and only 1 track was still 'busted' so I downloaded it and it worked... but the sad thing is that this particular track has a very strange beginning that sounds like a corrupted file (figures!)

 

[acerace113]

Thanks very much for the suggestions: but honestly, the last time I contacted iTunes support on this issue, I was frustrated (it was for a different album purchase) and when the tech asked me "how do I know they aren't complete" I said that both in iTunes and in VLC the playback stops halfway through the track. He asked "What's VLC" (srsly?) so I explained and he said "Oh, that's the problem: iTunes tracks are optimized for iTunes" to which I asked "so playing the tracks is somehow corrupting them? (and I kind of got snippy and he hung up on me).
...

I play songs that I've purchased from iTunes on Winamp with absolutely no difference in quality even the ones that are mastered for iTunes so I have no idea where that apple support person got that info from.


Sent from my iPhone 5S or 5th gen iPod Touch using Tapatalk

 

[Njoates]

I have had similar issues for years and have come to hate iTunes. I keep thinking they will implement a download service that does not have these obvious problems.
About.com has 5 pages dedicated to tell people how to navigate around all of the different types of iTunes download failures, or other web sites to check out to find the answer to the problem.
Apple Support continues to believe that the best troubleshooting method is to have their customers spend their time and go through different procedures on different web pages.
AMAZON, YouTube, Netflix, Crackle, ...no other media download service has the problems that iTunes has.

How many folks have found that they paid twice for the same iTunes product...or just given up trying to recover their purchases (like I have now with the present season of Mad Men...made the mistake of paying Apple for the whole season and 5 our of 8 episodes have failed to download successfully...I'm totally out of synch with the series now and can't be bothered anymore)?

I have no doubt that Apple iTunes has made millions of dollars from failed downloads that people are just too busy or too fed up with iTunes to bother with. Yeah...I've come to hate iTunes and Apple's very lacking Support.