iTunes 10.6.3 will never die!

[Ryan Bremer]

iTunes 10.6.3 still works great as of now.

• iTunes Store works
  
• Previews of music videos work
  
• iTunes Radio works
  
• You can browse podcasts
  
• You can also browse movies
  
• Same with apps
  
• iTunes U works too
  

Buying movies/songs on iTunes doesn't work however, it says that you need to upgrade your iTunes version.

 

[Ryan Bremer]

Oddly enough, iTunes 10.6.3 returns an error if you're trying to enable Home Sharing, code is -9836, a security issue. It can probably be fixed with new root certificates and/or the Squid proxy

 

[netsrot39]

You can browse podcasts

That's really the only reason I am iTunes using for in this day and age on PowerPC or should I rather say I'd be using for because while you can browse podcasts on iTunes 10.6.3, there is no way to retrieve any episodes. I don't know what's going on but it always states error (-9836) "unknown error". I suppose it has to do with outdated certificates.

 

[B S Magnet]

iTunes 10.6.3 still works great as of now.

• iTunes Store worksView attachment 2227069
• Previews of music videos workView attachment 2227063
• iTunes Radio works View attachment 2227059
• You can browse podcastsView attachment 2227083
• You can also browse moviesView attachment 2227084
• Same with appsView attachment 2227085
• iTunes U works too View attachment 2227086

Buying movies/songs on iTunes doesn't work however, it says that you need to upgrade your iTunes version.

For what I use iTunes 10.6.3 (music and music video archival of a local library), it still works like a champion on High Sierra. I wasn’t Apple’s target market when they rolled out their iTunes Music Store (or their App Store), and podcasts have only ever been, at most, an ancillary thing in my life.

Even if there may be expired security certificates preventing downloads from the above (something which deserves a community-based patching workaround), the magic of iTunes 10.6.3 is its profound latitude of functionality — able to run on everything from a hacked-to-run 10.5.8 Sawtooth G4/400 (though painfully glacial, as I can attest from doing similar on a PowerBook G4/400), to any 2018 Mac to have shipped with High Sierra (which still boots into High Sierra).

That covers, frankly, almost 20 years of hardware-unmodified models. That’s impressive. There aren’t many pieces of major Apple software which have that breadth of latitude in functionality.

 

[mectojic]

That covers, frankly, almost 20 years of hardware-unmodified models. That’s impressive. There aren’t many pieces of major Apple software which have that breadth of latitude in functionality.

A sheer accident allowed Apple to approach VLC levels of compatibility... 😂 must be hard being a trillion dollar company.

 

[B S Magnet]

A sheer accident allowed Apple to approach VLC levels of compatibility... 😂 must be hard being a trillion dollar company.

:cough: Three trillion…

 

[eyoungren]

I don't really use music apps much, except to play my music or stream internet radio. So, if I'm going to use iTunes it's going to be version 4.0. Because that is the only version Apple made that allows streaming your music over the internet. And internet radio still works with it.

However, I much prefer another solution that works between PowerPC and my Intel Macs. That's Songbird on my PowerPC Macs and Nightingale on my Intel Macs.

My primary reason is that I can store my music on my NAS and have one central library. I know you can do that with iTunes, but the thing you CAN'T do with iTunes is have it monitor that library folder location and update whenever new music is dropped in.

With Songbird/Nightingale all I have to do to add music is drop it into my library in one location. On all my Macs the apps will pick up that the folder changed and update. I'm not running around manually adding music to every installation of iTunes.

 

[ww2_1943]

I found that NPR podcast work but I haven't found any others that do. I had no idea you could still view previews of music videos. I will try that later.

I looked up every work around I could to get iTunes to work. If you inspect the package contents of the most recent version of iTunes and compare it to this version, there are a lot of similarities. I wish I knew enough to see if there was a way to use a newer version of iTunes to backport compatibility to this version of iTunes.

 

[Ryan Bremer]

I think you can change the version number reported to Mac OS X by:
1. right-clicking (or control clicking) the iTunes application in the Applications folder
2. clicking on "Show Package Contents"
3. opening the folder "Contents"
4. opening info.plist on TextEdit, TextWrangler, or similar text editor
5. change all mentions of 10.6.3 to 12.8.2
6. see if it works

 

[davisdelo]

One more thing that still works great with iTunes, the iOS Remote app from Apple. I just tried it out, I used the manual setup option over the HomeSharing option and it worked without a hitch. I can choose songs from playlists/libraries, control volume, see album art; it "Just Works"

 

[davisdelo]

Anyone else getting this when starting iTunes 10.6.3 now? I don't even have the store enabled.

 

[theMarble]

Anyone else getting this when starting iTunes 10.6.3 now? I don't even have the store enabled.View attachment 2234801

I have it when I try to log in to the iTunes Store. iCloud/Apple ID works fine elsewhere, still copying Notes and Calendars, but the iTunes Store doesn't seem to work anymore. Pretty annoying as I was logging in to try and pull album artwork.

 

[Ryan Bremer]

Yes, i can confirm they shut down the iTunes 10.6.3 store. Was a good run tho'

 

[B S Magnet]

View attachment 2234920
Yes, i can confirm they shut down the iTunes 10.6.3 store. Was a good run tho'

It’s peculiar how, despite deactivating access to the iTunes store (using Parental Controls), iTunes still tries to poll the iTunes store.

Related: this change, along with, seemingly, a recent change in recovery mode for High Sierra having trouble, suggests Apple may be doing their periodic re-tooling of what stays and what goes on their public-facing file and service portals.

 

[Ryan Bremer]

By the way: they didn't shut it down, it's an 403 error (wireshark package capture below)

 

[B S Magnet]

By the way: they didn't shut it down, it's an 403 error (wireshark package capture below)
View attachment 2234954

A 403 would suggest “forbidden” — suggesting they’ve changed access permissions to the iTunes store servers, which (internally) may be inactivated for specified versions of iTunes.

I wonder whether there’s a way to spoof the server to think a much later version of iTunes/Music is trying to call in. My guess is probably not, in that later versions might require security-related protocols absent entirely with iTunes 10.x.

 

[Ryan Bremer]

there's an method to change the version reported in info.plist, and it has worked for skype and dropbox. can't we then change the version on info.plist to an compatible one? i have an os x yosemite setup so we gotta check that

 

[B S Magnet]

there's an method to change the version reported in info.plist, and it has worked for skype and dropbox. can't we then change the version on info.plist to an compatible one? i have an os x yosemite setup so we gotta check that

Sidebar question: how early a version of Skype have you managed to spoof successfully, especially of late?

 

[Ryan Bremer]

if you have observed the forums between 2014 - 2018, you'll discover lots of methods to spoof early skype versions to bypass the server's version check. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/skype-2-8-ppc-fix.1850545/?post=29889940#post-29889940 is an example of such an post

 

[B S Magnet]

if you have observed the forums between 2014 - 2018, you'll discover lots of methods to spoof early skype versions to bypass the server's version check. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/skype-2-8-ppc-fix.1850545/?post=29889940#post-29889940 is an example of such an post

This is kind of why I asked: I wasn’t sure the Skype 2.x workaround from 2018 still worked in 2023.

 

[Ryan Bremer]

Nope, this method doesn't work anymore, but we can also change the version on iTunes on the version.plist and see if it works...

 

[davisdelo]

Nope, this method doesn't work anymore, but we can also change the version on iTunes on the version.plist and see if it works...

Good idea, but it didn't seem to work for me. I changed the version.plist and the info.plist entries.

It seems like the error is defined in the Localizable.strings file, line 9388 for US/English, "7000.016" = "iTunes could not connect to the iTunes Store."; I tried removing the line to see if it killed the dialog box but it just removed the text in it:

 

[Ryan Bremer]

Then itunes 10.6.3 is officially dead. maybe someone more knowledgeable can make a fix to make it again, just like @Czo did with dropbox on ppc.

 

[B S Magnet]

Then itunes 10.6.3 is officially dead

Nonsense… hogwash… balderdash! I’m using 10.6.3 right now and it’s working as it always does. I can even listen to Internet streaming radio on it.

maybe someone more knowledgeable can make a fix to make it again, just like @Czo did with dropbox on ppc.

Oh. You’re talking about the iTunes Music service portal on Apple’s end.

Well, that was always an add-on feature of iTunes’s original remit.

 

[davisdelo]

Oh. You’re talking about the iTunes Music service portal on Apple’s end.

Yes, the store seems to be dead. My only issue is the error it pops up, even when the store is disabled in the iTunes preferences. If anyone can find a way to kill the call out to Apple or simply disable the annoying error I'd be pleased as peas.