iTunes Store no longer working on Mojave?

[Boyd01]

Still running iTunes 12.9.5.5 on Mojave on a 2014 Mini with homesharing to access over 2tb of media with a couple AppleTV's and other devices, everything works fine. But when I go to the iTunes store now, I get a blank screen. Tried re-booting, it asked me to sign into the store. Did that and got the same thing. Obviously signed in, because it shows the balance I have left from a gift card at the top right. Those "stripes" on the little cloud icon next to the amount are animated, like it's trying to access the store. The Account menu correctly shows my name and Apple ID, but nothing happens when I click "view my account"

It was working a month or so back, I bought some music. All my downloaded content still works fine on this Mac as well as via home sharing. But I suppose this is finally the end for using iTunes to make purchases on Mojave? Have been expecting that...

 

[Grumpus]

I'm not sure how helpful this is, but a few minutes ago I was able to launch iTunes 12.9.5.5 on Mojave and the store is displaying normally, both before and after logging in with my Apple-id. This is on a 2019 MBA. Maybe you're experiencing a transient glitch?

Note: I've never actually purchased anything from the store, aside from subscribing to podcasts, and the latter was well and truly broken the last time I looked (although there's a simple workaround for that).

 

[Boyd01]

Just a quick follow-up: now iTunes seems to be stuck in a loop, asking me to sign into the store. I sign in, the alert goes away and then pops back up after a short while, there are no error messages. So, iTunes is completely useless on that machine itself because the sign-in alert blocks you from doing anything. But home sharing still works fine and I can access my whole library from my AppleTV's.

Guess the time has finally come to replace that old Mini with a refurb Apple Silicon Mini and make the switch to Apple's new media sharing and apps.

 

[bogdanw]

So, iTunes is completely useless on that machine itself because the sign-in alert blocks you from doing anything.

iTunes - Settings - Restrictions - Disable iTunes Store.

 

[Boyd01]

Cool, will check that out, didn't realize that option existed. Might be a problem though, just had a quick look and all the menus are "greyed out" when that sign-in alert is being displayed, and it only goes away for a few seconds when I sign in.

 

[Grumpus]

The iTunes store continues to display properly for me, and I can log in and out with no apparent problems.

As a test, you could create a new user, log in as that user, run iTunes, and try logging in to the store. If that works correctly, it would point to a problem associated with your "real" user-id, perhaps a corrupted file.

 

[Boyd01]

Thanks, I should look into that. Twice during the past six months, I came home and the Mini had crashed for unknown reasons. That was unusual, it's been very stable for many years now. Maybe something got corrupted in those crashes? It's just a plain-vanilla Mojave system (my library is on a 4tb usb ssd) so I could reinstall MacOS or restore from an old, stable backup.

 

[Boyd01]

Just tried again, repeatedly clicking Cancel in the sign-in dialog doesn't work, so there's no escape. But I tried copy/pasting my password into the box reapeatedly and after several attempts, the dialog went away. Was able to turn off the store then - thanks @bogdanw - which seems like a temporary fix until I can spend more time on this.

But I have a nagging feeling all this stuff will break on Mojave before long. Then I'll need to move to a newer, supported Mini and just learn to live with the new media apps. Probably best to get ahead of the curve on that transition, rather than be forced to deal with it whenever Apple finally pulls the plug.

[edit]I see that B&H has a Black Friday sale on the base 8gb/256gb 16gb/256gb m4 Mini. Personally not a fan of that new design, but this is a server hidden inside a cabinet. And $529 is about the same cost as the previous 2012 and 2014 Mini's I've used as iTunes server since 2016. Hmm...

[edit2]That stupid store login dialog finally came back.... even when store access was disabled in the menu. 🤣

Ordered the m4 mini from B&H with free shipping, should arrive on Tuesday. Not so excited about having to set this up, will probably take my time. Funny, my newest, fastest Mac will be hidden in a cabinet as a media server.

 

[Boyd01]

Fedex just delivered the m4, three days before expected! I'm in the B&H expedited shipping area. This is more than I want to deal with now, but it looks like my Mojave days are nearing their end...

 

[Boyd01]

One final update here. Spent almost 4 frustrating hours getting everything working on the m4 Mini in the new Music and TV apps. Basically, I was having the same type of problem on the new m4 Mini after setting it up, I couldn't sign into iTunes. Everything else worked, no problem signing into iCloud. Spent an hour on an Apple Support chat which was a complete waste of time. Ended up reinstalling Sequoia and completely erasing the m4. Second time was the charm, was able to sign in finally and import my old iTunes library with all the playlists.

Will blame a lot of this on myself for not knowing better... the first time I used migration assitant, thinking that would be easier to move my settings, passwords, etc. It moved them too well, including whatever was corrupted in iTunes!

Will be curious to see if iTunes starts breaking for anyone else on Mojave or if it was just a problem on my Mac. This makes me think of a thread about the old Apple TV 3 last year. Some people reported they could no longer sign in and therefore couldn't access any of their media purchases. Others in that thread insisted it worked fine for them and made numerous suggestions but none seemed to work. Eventually, it stopped working for everyone though and if you logged out, you couldn't log back in.

I don't know if that day has come yet for iTunes on Mojave but suspect it's near...

 

[saudor]

Will be curious to see if iTunes starts breaking for anyone else on Mojave or if it was just a problem on my Mac.

I'm technically running the Mojave version of Itunes 12.9.5.5 on Big Sur 11.7.10 and it's so far working fine. Even itunes 12.6.5 worked fine on Windows a few days ago when I used it to downgrade an app