News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

September 17, 2007

ipod

iTunes Plus songs not ringing in the new year

Posted Sep. 17, ’07, 11:31 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | iPod

iTunes ErorrMaking ringtones via iTunes isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. For one thing, the selection is about as appealing as a picked-over thrift store; for another, I don’t exactly relish the idea of shelling out another $0.99 just so that I can hear “Don’t Stop Believin’” every time my phone rings. But beyond that, it appears that some users are having technical difficulties with the process. And I should know, because I, yes, I am one of them.

I spent some time putting together a first look at iTunes 7.4 for our overlords at Macworld, and I noted rather diplomatically that “I did experience some errors when trying to purchase ringtones created from songs that I already owned, but purchasing new songs and creating ringtones from them worked fine.” To elaborate on that, I got a mysterious error -42160 every time I tried to buy a ringtone for a song I’d owned prior to upgrading to 7.4. Another twist: on the computer where I tried the operation, all those tracks just happened to be iTunes Plus songs. Coincidence? It seems not. I even double-checked by buying a brand new iTunes Plus track and trying to convert it to a ringtone: no dice.

I’ve been in touch with iTunes Support since first noticing the problem, and they assure me that they are “working toward a resolution of the issue.” Of course, I’m by no means alone in my plight of being unable to ring out to my Coldplay tracks (don’t judge me); several readers wrote that they were experiencing the same problem, albeit probably with better musical taste than yours truly. It seems kind of odd to me that the tracks without DRM are the troubling ones here, and it does raise at least one nagging question, namely: if I spend the extra money to buy a song that’s not encumbered with digital rights management, why do I have to spend another $0.99 to turn it back into a DRM file, just so I can use it as a ringtone on my phone? Get back to me, RIAA, would you?


1 Comments

jason said:

can anyone tell me (if they did get a ringtone to work) where in the music folder it is located?

September 17, 2007 11:46 AM

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