Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iTunes Error Message is Annoying

Keukasmallie

Keukasmallie

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 30, 2011
331
37
WNY
Whenever I have iTunes open I receive an error message saying that iTunes cannot connect to iTunes Store purchases. This is the message:

iTunes cannot connect to Store Purchases.
If you have any firewall software, make sure it has been set to allow communication on port 443.

I don't appear to have any problem, but I can't remedy the appearance of the error message. When I go to Firewall in the Security and Privacy Preference, I can't find any way to check communication ports, so I'm at a loss.

Suggestions, fixes, any help at all will be greatly appreciated.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rjalda100 and DJTaurus
Seems to be an error brought about by 10.11.1 update to iTunes 12.3.1.23. Only fix I have seen is to go to iTunes > Prefs > Advanced > Reset All Dialog Warnings. Looks like a bug in the latest update
 
Marky_Mark, thanks for the suggestion; I did as you recommended. We'll see if it resolves the issue. As djshack indicated, I was still receiving the message after OS update, so hopefully resetting the warnings will be the answer.

Thanks for responding!!
 
Marky_Mark said:
Seems to be an error brought about by 10.11.1 update to iTunes 12.3.1.23. Only fix I have seen is to go to iTunes > Prefs > Advanced > Reset All Dialog Warnings. Looks like a bug in the latest update
Click to expand...

Didnt work.... it is getting very annoyed.
 
I've been getting this too. Reseting the dialogue warnings didn't fix it, neither has the 10.11.2 update. I've no firewall and connections to other sites that use port 443 are fine. Nothing in the console logs either, looks like a Apple server side issue.
 
Rewind... I'm findiing that the suggestions didn't work for me either. I get the error message at times when iTunes is open and I open the cover to resume whatever I'm doing.

Curious because I seem to have no problem using iTunes store.

Long story short: I'm still lookiing for a resolution of the issue!
 
I'm in contact with Apple support about this now and they're passing it along to engineering to investigate. I'll you you know if anything comes of it.

It's starting to happen more often now too, looks like either a server side issue or a problem with my Apple ID. There are several movies showing in purchases as, not in my library, that definitely are.
 
I've been getting this annoying error message for a few days too, and now I'm finding that I can't play purchased videos (both movies and TV shows). Oddly enough I am having no problems yet playing music (both purchased, matched content ripped from CD's and Apple Music). This is really annoying! Is anyone else having trouble with playback?
 
boston04and07 said:
I've been getting this annoying error message for a few days too, and now I'm finding that I can't play purchased videos (both movies and TV shows). Oddly enough I am having no problems yet playing music (both purchased, matched content ripped from CD's and Apple Music). This is really annoying! Is anyone else having trouble with playback?
Click to expand...

No trouble with playback for me at the moment.

Edit: Scratch that, there are a couple of films that won't play back. All music is fine at the moment though, as far as I can tell.
 
Last edited:
Have you tried restarting your computer? Not being sarcastic, I was having this problem after updating to 10.11.2 and restarting the computer fixed it.
 
Warning reset worked for me. I wonder if it fixes iTunes holding files/drives captive after adding them to iTunes library (even when set to copy media to iTunes library).

Meh, never mind, next day the error has returned.
 
Last edited:
I've tried restarting, reinstalling, resetting warnings, different DNS settings nothings worked. Some things seem like they've fixed it but they haven't.
 
For me, restarting solved the problem, but I had to restart several times.
 
I started having this occur over the past few days. It' happens on 2 machines I have one Mac Pro with 10.7 and MBP 10.10.5. Worse than just the annoying message (which resetting dialog alerts fixes), is that all the purchased content I have won't play. The AppleTV (Gen 3 and Gen 4) work fine with playing back purchases. This is one of those moments that you think "I guess there is a reason committing all your online purchases to one company sucks". Anyway, this is obviously an Apple issue. Just hope they get it fixed soon.
 
No issues in the morning.... it got back in the afternoon. Lol... weird stuff.
 
On one of my machines I went into Security & Privacy>Firewall>Firewall Options> hit the + button and added iTunes to the list of Accepted Connections.

My other machine I removed and then re-added it.

Have not had the message since, not sure if it's a legit fix, but it worked for me.

I know this in only for Inbound Communications, but it still worked.
 
@FireWall0400, Ill give that a try. I've gotten iTunes to play video content but in order to do so, I have to quit and relaunch iTunes several times. Then, when the content is playing, it's totally unwatchable - it stops and starts every few seconds, almost as if it can't buffer, even though I'm trying to watch a movie that I previously downloaded from the cloud (so I know it's not actually buffering).

Worst of all, whenever I have iTunes running, even in the background, my entire system becomes incredibly sluggish. This has never happened before. Even just now, writing this all out, I got the beachball about 4 times. So odd.
 
So I realized that the movie I was trying to watch last night wasn't actually downloaded to my MBP - I had hit "download" earlier in the evening, but I guess whatever network issues are going on prevented it from fully downloading, so I must have been streaming it this whole time. Maybe Apple is having some type of issue on their end after all, although all my other devices are totally fine. I'm currently downloading the movie (and will check to make sure it completes!) I'll let you guys know if trying to watch a purchased movie that's been downloaded makes any difference.
 
Still getting the message, still annoying, still waiting for some sort of response from Apple, still....

I just did the delete-then-add-iTunes-in-Accepted-Connections dance, hopefully that will prove to be the real work-around.
 
same here. overall itunes seems to have a bug. it says the annoying port 443 error message. but it also has problem when renting/buying shows. it says it couldn't connect to the store and can't access the bought content however the shows play fine. and quite often itunes does not update the store or unwatched shows window. there seem to be a timeout when trying to connect to the itunes store although my internet is fine and fast.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back