For a month or more, I haven’t blogged much about iTunes, because I was having a frustrating issue with iTunes, ecto, and oddly enough, AOL.
A long time ago, about a million Intarwebs years or so, I had an AOL account. When I got my iPod and set up iTunes last year, I stupidly allowed the default set up to use my old AOL account name and password – hey, it asked, and the credit card was still valid. Then I came to my senses after the first month or two, created a new iTunes ID and used the same credit card for payment. Much listening, and with ecto and a little plugin called WMPTunes, much bloggage ensued.
Then recently, I updated ecto with a new beta. I had done this before, no big deal, but the little plugin stopped working. So I messed around trying to reinstall it, and inadvertently deleted a file that told iTunes how those old tracks were all paid for, and telling it that this computer was authorized.
Oops. Then I mislaid the card, which is not lost so much as somewhere in the house, but nowhere to be found. That’s when I realized that a number of my favorite music tracks would not play, and nothing I did would correct the problem with iTunes not authorising them to be played. I could not find the card, so I could not re-enter it as part of the “confirm your identity” process.
Emails back and forth. It appeared that I had it licked – got the form of payment changed on my iTunes store account, but still couldn’t authorized those oldest tracks until a helpful support email advised me to attempt to log in on my old AOL account 3 times in a row, and then it would redirect me to assign my old iTunes tracks to the new form of payment on my new ID. Dandy!
Except that it would not work. It would appear to authorize, and then when I clicked play, the same tired old frustrating dialog came up! What?!!
If I had bothered to read the support email all the way through, I would have seen this bit:
If the credit card for your AOL wallet has expired, or if you have canceled it, the transition from AOL to Apple ID won’t work. In that case, please include your billing address in your response to this email and your account will be converted manually.When AOL accounts expire, you can convert your AOL account to an Apple ID account. Please note: now that your purchases will no longer be charged to your AOL account, a credit card is required to make additional purchases. To convert your old account be sure and
use the same credit card you used on your AOL account.If you’re having trouble converting your AOL ID to an Apple ID iTunes Store account after following these steps, I can convert your account for you.Before I can do this, however, Apple requires that you provide the following for security reasons:
– Your permission to reset the password
– The billing address listed on the account
Upon receiving your response, the iTunes Store will verify your billing address, reset your password, convert your account, and send you an email with your new password.
OHHHhhhhh. Okay.
In the meantime, the latest version of ecto isn’t downloading right, so I’m still using the beta, but I got the little plugin do hickey to work, finally. Which is only fair – it’s the cause of this whole mess.
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