by I have, generally, had a pretty good experience with Apple’s new iTunes Match music service since its debut last week, but there is one particular album that is giving me fits on iTunes Match.
As you can see in the screenshot below, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Complete” album — consisting of over 300 songs in total — is having trouble “matching” 63 of those songs on iTunes Match so I can download them to my computer via iTunes. The error I’m getting is 5002 — so, preternaturally — Apple blames my local network connection, even though I can buy and download new music and pull other matched songs from the iCloud without incident.
The original Rachmaninoff album was purchased on Amazon.com as an MP3 digital download, but for some reason, it was encoded only at 128kbps.
After having that album “matched” on iTunes Match, I deleted the original 128kbps songs and asked iTunes Match to download the matched 256kbps songs from the iCloud.
The replacement process worked well for 237 songs on that particular album — I did that iTunes Match replacement process for over 2,300 songs without a hitch — but those remaining 63 Rachmaninoff songs will just not download.
I contacted iTunes Match support for help. It is clear to me the album is slightly corrupted on the Apple servers and the master files need to be replaced. Simple process, right?
Not so fast!
This is Apple support we’re dealing with — and if they can blame the end user first, and not their servers — then they’ve done their job.
After going through all the initial checkpoints with basic Apple support — with me providing screenshots of the error to support my case that the problem was not actually on my end — the matter was escalated to an iTunes Match support manager over the weekend.
The manager wanted to change my iTunes password so she could have Apple engineers troubleshoot my problem. I had to provide several secret identification memes in order to prove to this manager that I actually owned the account.
I found it strange that the manager wanted to access my iTunes account. I didn’t listen to my gut, though, and I provided all the tiered identification warrants she required. I asked if I would still have access to iTunes and iCloud and everything else tied to my Apple ID.
The next day, the manager sent me a reset password and told me that, yes, I would be able to use my Apple ID as needed while my case was in troubleshooting mode. She also asked me not to change my password until the testing was complete.
I immediately tried to use the new password the Apple manager sent me and it didn’t work! I could not login to my Apple account. iCloud was dead. Everything Apple in my life was suddenly inaccessible!
What had I done?!
Was this Apple manager legit or not?
I quickly went to iforgot.apple.com and reset my password to regain control of my Apple ID and iCloud and iTunes and everything else. I replied to the manager that I was revoking my permission for Apple to poke around my Apple account and that I had just changed my password.
Here I am today — safer, I think, but still 63 songs song-less — and I have no idea if Apple engineers will ever solve their iTunes Match Rachmaninoff problem or not — but at least I have my Apple ID back and safe and secure in my own hands where it belongs.
I’m guessing they will not solve it and tell you that the reason is because you revoked their priveleges. It’s too bad they aren’t more helpful.
I just heard back from the manager who assured me no purchases were made after she changed my password and that my account was not compromised. She said the password worked when she tried it. I tried copying and pasting that password and typing it out by hand and it Did Not Work!
The manager also said that even though I reset my password and revoked my permission for Apple to test using my iTunes account, “Apple engineers will continue to investigate” — which I find odd… because why couldn’t they investigate without resetting my password?