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iTunes Purchased but greyed out.

M

MaulRx

Suspended
Original poster
Aug 27, 2012
578
646
Trying to download an album I previously purchased on to my iPhone but it was missing from my purchased history. A manual search showed me that the album was indeed purchased but it is greyed out. Anyway to fix this without a computer, I'm away from home for awhile.

Thanks.
 
It might be something that they no longer sell at the iTunes store. I was just reading about this when I setup iCloud: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12519?viewlocale=en_US

Previous purchases may be unavailable if they have been refunded or are no longer in the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBookstore.
Click to expand...

You could go to the iTunes store and check to see if the album is still available. If not, then I guess you would need to restore from a backup on your computer.
 
The album is still on store but it simply says purchased and won't let me download from cloud. Pity I need a computer to fix, sort of defeats the purpose of cloud in the first place.
 
MaulRx said:
Trying to download an album I previously purchased on to my iPhone but it was missing from my purchased history. A manual search showed me that the album was indeed purchased but it is greyed out. Anyway to fix this without a computer, I'm away from home for awhile.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Had this same issue about a week ago with TV Shows, solved by itself a while later. I would suggest restarting the phone and logging in and out of your iTunes Account.

Pietro
 
Yep, I had the same when tracks were missing from a Chase & Status album I purchased in Feb this year. Here is what I sent to Apple for investigation:

I was sorting through my iTunes albums using my MacBook Pro yesterday, and noticed that an album I had purchased in February had tracks missing.

I went to the Purchases tab and the album was not showing in my purchases, so I went to the iTunes Store, but the album was (and still is) showing as 'purchased' and the button is greyed out (you can normally re-download purchases this way but not this time!).

I also turned Match off and went to my account via the Store tab to check for available hidden downloads in the Cloud, but it said there were no available downloads.

I thought I may as well delete the tracks of the album that were still showing in my library, in case the greyed out 'purchased' in the store will then let me re-download the album once all traces were removed, but sadly there was no change.

I then decided that as the full album was still on my iPhone, I will transfer the album back to my iTunes library by using the transferring purchases option.

This worked, but there are several anomalies, which are:

1. The album is still not showing in my purchases
2. If I accidentally delete the album, I cannot see how I will get the album back, especially if I decided not to renew my Match subscription!
3. When I right click any track from this particular album, and go to the Summary tab, it states that I purchased the album yesterday (29 Aug 2013), when I purchased it back in February, as per the order number I have provided!

If anyone here at MR Forums knows any fixes, then it will be much appreciated - ever since iTunes 11 was released, it just seems to be glitch after glitch :(
 
Apple had no ideas what was going on. They pretty much told me oh well.
 
Not happy, received an email response basically stating what I already tried:

Please make sure that your computer will show iTunes in the Cloud purchases. Please follow these steps:

Sign into your Apple ID, Select Preferences from the File Menu>Store> Show iTune sin thus Cloud purchases

The album should show up.

Another email fired back to Apple explaining that I had already tried the above!

One big niggle I have, is that since transferring the songs from my device back on to my iTunes, the metadata now shows a new purchase date (the date I moved the tracks back on to iTunes).

I have a feeling that this will now conflict with the purchase being greyed out in the iTunes Store, and I will now never be able to see the album
in my purchases.

What do you guys think? Seriously pissed with Apple.
 
iBrody said:
...
What do you guys think? Seriously pissed with Apple.
Click to expand...
I think you need to make sure your computer is backed up regularly so you don't lose anything.

Yes, Apple has issues if your purchase did disappear from your purchase history. However, if Apple loses the right to sell an Album, you may not be able to re-download it again. So backing up your computer is your only way to prevent lose of files if something happens.
 
I don't think it's because they have lost the right to sell a particular album. It's still listed there for sale and I can repurchase it on a different i-account however on mine which has already purchased it, that's all it says is purchased with no other options(I can still gift it though!)

Apple has pretty much told me they have no idea what is causing it and oh well, wait for a resolution that may never come.

I agree though, backing up your stuff is the number 1 thing you can do to prevent losing purchases. When this came a problem for me I was away from home and just wanted to listen to that album on the plane. Like I said earlier, it kind of defeats the purchase of a cloud when it doesn't work 100 percent of the time for 100 percent of your content as advertised but that's life...
 
The missing album I purchased is still available in the iTunes Store and is greyed out as purchased, so it's definitely not the case that it is no longer available.

If Apple don't have a work around for the album to remain available in the cloud then I just hope this is a one off and no other albums that I have purchased have missing tracks also.
 
Have you checked if the album is "hidden" (Account -> Manage hidden purchases)? In my account some TV shows and movies were suddenly hidden recently, even though I did not actively hide them.
 
Resolved!!!

I am happy to report that my issue has been resolved by the Apple representative, and when I logged into iTunes today, the album automatically re-downoaded into my purchases folder.

Good luck everyone else who's experienced the same problem as me, just keep persevering with Apple Support to have your missing purchases reinstated.

Well done to Apple for not dismissing my query (even though this should never have happened in the first place!).

Here's the reply I received from Apple today:

Hello xxxx,

First, I would like to apologize for the delay in our response. This is certainly not the customary wait time for a reply from iTunes Store Customer Support. We have been experiencing higher than expected volumes of email, and your patience is greatly appreciated.

I posted the missing items back to your account. To download the item with your iPhone, follow these steps:

1) On the Home screen, tap iTunes.

2) At the bottom of the iTunes app screen, tap Downloads. If you don't see a Downloads option, tap More and then tap Downloads.

3) Enter your password.

The item should begin downloading. If the download is interrupted for any reason, see this article:

iTunes: How to resume interrupted iTunes Store downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1725

If you can't find the item on your download queue, please download the album on your computer then sync your device.

Please also note that syncing items from a device doesn't change your purchase date.

To resolve the issue, please sign out of the store, go to iTunes Preferences, Advanced, click "Reset Caches" and "Reset Warnings". Quit iTunes, relaunch, sign back in.

On you iPhone, please sign out of the account, do a full restart of the device (press and hold the Home and Sleep buttons simultaneously and don't release them when it brings up the Turn Off screen; keep holding them until the Apple logo appears) and then sign back in.

If you have any further questions related to this request, please feel free to reply to this email.




Sincerely,

Angel
iTunes Store Customer Support
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww/
 
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