Help with iCloud, but really with Apple

[auburn84]

Hey, all:

Very frustrated here, and I don't know if anyone will have an answer, but ...

I signed up for iCloud, and then decided to put my iTunes library in the cloud. As I did that Apple made me choose another user name (it was an email address; my original username was not).

All seemed to go well, but now the songs purchased under that old username are deemed "ineligible" for my iCloud.

I've tried to get APple to help me, and it's impossible. I tried to go to the official Apple forum, and I signed in. But it won't let me in the forums because there's already a username associated with my email address (Yes, it's my old username). I try to create a new username, and it says the same thing. Bottom line is I can't get into the help forums using the old or new usernames.

Very, very frustrating. Is Apple customer service always this hard to "get to"?

Thanks.

[kornchild2002]

The service that they offer for most of their hardware and software is really top notch. You can normally walk into an Apple Store and get everything solved professionally in a timely manner. However, when it comes to support for common items (iTunes, iTunes Store, and iPods), they are pretty bad. Essentially anything that they don't handle in-person can be problematic since it is all handled by various, outsourced companies that are contracted by Apple.

I take it that you have a bunch of old, 128kbps DRMed AAC files and they aren't being matched or uploaded to iCloud. I know that iTunes Match will match non-DRM songs purchased under a different e-mail but won't for older ones with DRM unless they were purchased under the same account.

The first thing to do is make sure your computer is authorized to play those songs. You will have to enter your older e-mail and password (your iTunes Store account doesn't have a username, it is just your e-mail and your e-mail and username used on Apple's support forums has nothing to do with the iTunes Store). The next step after authorizing your computer to playback the files (and they still aren't being matched), is to burn them to an audio CD, rip that audio CD, and match those newer files. Although this does involve lossy-to-lossy transcoding, you will be fine if the files are matched as you can replace them with non-transcoded 256kbps AAC versions.

[auburn84]

THanks, Kornchild. That appears to be working, although the ICloud seems to be starting over with indexing my music. Again, very frustrating. I ripped the CD, and all of the iCloud indicators disappeared from my library. So I just added the computer again. We'll see what happens.

In any case, I have a CD of those ineligible tunes, and it looks like that will work.

Thanks!

[Jesse Hollington]

Note that iTunes Match should actually upload any DRM-protected tracks that were purchased with a different account, as long as you have authorized your computer to play them back. You will, however, also need to be sure any other devices that you wish to use the iTunes Match account on are also authorized for that other account in order to play these tracks on those devices. This normally happens automatically when syncing an iPod or iOS device to your iTunes library.

[Jesse Hollington]

More importantly, however, the problem here is that you technically have two Apple IDs. Note that you don't need to use your new iCloud account to sign up for iTunes Match. In fact, it sounds like in your case your probably shouldn't be doing this, since your entire music library is under your old iTunes Store account.

Simply sign into iTunes with the old iTunes Store account and use that to subscribe to iTunes Match and you should be fine. Of course, if you've already paid the $25 subscription to iTunes Match under the new account you may need to contact Apple and try to get a refund for it. If you start at Apple - Support - iTunes and dig down from there you should eventually find a way to contact somebody -- I'd recommend the "Accounting & Billing" section in this case.

In fact, unless you have a compelling reason to use a separate account for iCloud, you could probably just ignore your "new" iCloud account entirely and turn your original iTunes Store account into an iCloud account. You'll have to change the old username into an e-mail address -- you can do this at http://appleid.apple.com, but once you've done that you can use the existing Apple ID as an iCloud and iTunes Match account, as well as for things like iMessage, FaceTime and Game Center.