[wallinbl]

After a little analysis of my Shuffle's poor shuffling, I figured out that it's not playing songs that were purchased from iTMS. To check, I put only iTMS purchased songs on it, and sure enough, you get nothing at all when you hit play. The songs play fine from within iTunes. I have restored the Shuffle, but that didn't work. I have deauthorized and reauthorized the computer that I used to update the Shuffle, but that didn't work. The Shuffle has the 2006-03-23 update on it, which as far as I can tell is the most recent.

I've done all the things that Apple's website suggests. Has anyone else had this problem? How do you fix it?

[Seattle]

Hello,
I had the same problem with some of the iTunes music I purchased. I had to burn to CD and then import back in to iTunes.

Another thread here too

http://forums.macnn.com/103/ipod-iphone-and-ipad/262816/itunes-purchased-song-locking-ipod-shuffle/

[wallinbl]

I'm sorry, but this just blows. My Shuffle still won't play the purchased music and there doesn't seem to be an answer.

I just got a new 30GB since my 10GB had a dead battery. The 30GB won't play the purchased music either. I'm guessing iTunes is failing to pass along some piece of information.

[icruise]

If both iPods fail to play the music, the it seems fairly clear that there's something odd about your iTunes installation. I don't suppose you have another computer that you can use just to test if iTMS files transferred from it will play properly? Or I suppose you could set up another user on your computer to see if it works with that user.

[imitchellg5]

Um the iPod shuffle does not support Apple Lossless encoding. Sez Playlist mag : "Unlike with other iPods, the iPod shuffle can’t play AIFF or Apple Lossless files—files that consume a lot of storage space (wav files, which consume the same 10MB per minute of stereo audio as AIFF files, can be played by the iPod shuffle, however)."

[icruise]

What the heck does that have to do with anything, imitchellg5?

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by wallinbl

After a little analysis of my Shuffle's poor shuffling, I figured out that it's not playing songs that were purchased from iTMS. To check, I put only iTMS purchased songs on it, and sure enough, you get nothing at all when you hit play. The songs play fine from within iTunes. I have restored the Shuffle, but that didn't work. I have deauthorized and reauthorized the computer that I used to update the Shuffle, but that didn't work. The Shuffle has the 2006-03-23 update on it, which as far as I can tell is the most recent.

I've done all the things that Apple's website suggests. Has anyone else had this problem? How do you fix it?

What I am saying is that the problem is that the shuffle can't play iTMS content because it is encoded in Lossless format.

[icruise]

iTMS content is far from lossless. It's encoded in 128kbps AAC format.

[imitchellg5]

Why do they call it Apple Lossless? All of my iTMS songs are encoded in Lossless.

[icruise]

No... They are not. If you get info on an iTMS file, it should say "protected AAC audio file."

[imitchellg5]

What is the difference between the two? I have always wanted to know.

[seanc]

Just a thought, but could it be that you have 5 computers or devices already authorized to play music and your shuffle makes it 6 and therefore is not allowed to?

[icruise]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5

What is the difference between the two? I have always wanted to know.

Well, Apple lossless is a format that compresses music without losing any of the information in it, so the quality should be the same as the original. However, the files sizes are still pretty large. AAC is similar to MP3, but it sounds better at lower bitrates. So 128kbps AAC sounds similar to 192kbps MP3. But both AAC and MP3 are lossy formats, which means that you're losing a lot of the information contained in the original CD (or whatever) and this can sometimes result in a noticeable loss in quality. Apple uses AAC basically because it offers a good balance between file size and quality. Obviously when you're downloading music over the Internet, it helps to keep the files sizes down.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by seanc

Just a thought, but could it be that you have 5 computers or devices already authorized to play music and your shuffle makes it 6 and therefore is not allowed to?

You are not limited in the number of "devices" you can use with the iTMS. You are only limited in the number of computers. You can have any number of iPods and they don't count toward your limit in any way.

However, there is a little-known limit about how many iTMS accounts are allowed to have music on one iPod. I don't recall what the limit is, but it's something like 5. So if the original poster had music from a bunch of other people's accounts on his iPod, it could be the cause, but that's a pretty unusual situation.