iTunes incomplete downloads problem

[drone on]

Just started using iTunes.  About half the albums I've downloaded so far had incomplete tracks.  I have to report this to support and they reset for me to download again, which still hasn't always been successful.  Any idea what could cause this??? Thanks.

[mgriffin]

You mean you purchase a whole album, and the tracks download one after another, then what you get "finished" you find that some of the MP3s don't include the entire song? Or you mean some of the downloads just never finish, and report an error right away?

Either way I've never heard of this, and I know lots of people who use iTunes, both Windows and Mac. The only people I've known to have problems are people who are using such an old computer that hardware limitations prevent them from using the latest iTunes. I think the iTunes store doesn't play well with obsolete versions of the iTunes software. But if you've reported this to iTunes store support I'm sure they've already ruled that out.

[drone on]

Mike, the first scenario (downloads finish, no error messages, but when you go back and play them, the whole track isn't there).  Apparently this problem has been reported by others (I Googled it).  Two causes being presented are: 1) Outdated version of iTunes (not the cause in my case) 2) Internet connection problem (not likely in my case).  Could it just be that iTunes sucks and is unreliable?  Google: "iTunes is a piece of crap," or "iTunes sucks" and you get a plethora of interesting links on this subject. 

[mgriffin]

But you can search for "___ is a piece of crap" and fill in the name of any widely-used application and find thousands of hits. Name any app with hundreds of millions of users, and you're bound to find tons of people reporting problems, though as you say, most of the problems are on the user's side (obsolete application version, problems with internet connection).

Are you positive that you have the absolute newest version of iTunes, and not just the newest version that will work on your operating system? One guy I work with kept reporting iTunes download problems, and when I asked him if he had the newest version he kept insisting he did. When I finally asked to see his laptop, I found he was two major revisions behind on iTunes. He said "I kept telling iTunes to check for updates, and iTunes told me I had the newest version."

What was happening was that he had a 5 year old operating system, and the version of iTunes was the most current that would run on that OS. At the moment I'm helping him upgrade his operating system so he can run the newest iTunes.

If you're using Vista or Windows 7 or Mac OS 10.7 (and thus able to run iTunes 10.5.x) then you can rule this out.

[drone on]

Thanks Mike, I think I've solved the problem!  I'm using Windows XP.  Time for an upgrade. 

[jdh]

I have never had a problem with iTunes over many years. Usually it is an outdated iTunes software/ computer match.