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TV shows purchased in iTunes missing episode descriptions

DarkHeraldMage

DarkHeraldMage

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 5, 2007
878
0
Fort Worth, TX
I noticed a few days ago that when I purchased a TV show in the iTunes store the files were downloading just fine, but missing the description of the episodes. I have a friend who noticed the same thing on a couple different TV shows he's bought in the past week. Is anyone else seeing this problem? I contacted iTunes support and their solution was to have me delete the files and redownload them (which I'd already done). I tried it again to humor them, and after redownloading the whole season again the problem was still there. I sent another email stating their solution didn't do anything and haven't heard back yet.
 

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I can only narrow it down to after Monday the 8th. I downloaded an episode via season pass and everything came through normally. A couple days later another episode from a different show downloaded with no description. I have tried as recently as a few hours ago to remove the file and redownload, but still no description present.
 
All 4 shows I downloaded on Wednesday morning were normal. But Thursday's episodes of Modern Family were both missing the descriptions.

Redownloading didn't fix anything for me either.
 
I have spent the past couple days emailing iTunes support for assistance, only to be ultimately told that the problem isn't with Apple or iTunes, but the publishers of the shows that the description is blank for. Completely useless support person. I sent numerous screenshots showing different shows from different networks, all downloaded recently, but they didn't understand.

They eventually provided a link to a more Apple technical support group, so I forwarded my issue to them and hopefully will get a response. As many people as have viewed this thread, I'm still very surprised that only one other person on MR has noticed this problem over the past week. Nobody else downloads content through the iTunes store and has noticed the missing information? :confused:
 
It also affected The Walking Dead episodes yesterday morning.

People on here don't buy many videos on iTunes. Or don't really care much about it. Every time I post a story about the video part of the store it get's almost no responses.

I tried redownloading videos from last week and the info is still missing.

So far networks that I have seen affected.

ABC
AMC
NBC

I also tried emailing Apple but support is worthless.
 
Other networks affected are CBS, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, etc. The list goes on and on. I even showed them proof that it's not new episodes that are the problem; shows in my iMac's iTunes library that have descriptions were redownloaded on my Macbook Pro and the descriptions are blank. They won't listen or even attempt to troubleshoot. If they'd simply download an episode or two there at tech support they would see. This is insane that it's been a week and nobody's noticed and nothing's been admitted or acknowledged.
 
Agreed, I tested last night and still had the problem, and I have received no response from Apple either (on the second ticket I opened, the first was completely unhelpful). I seriously don't understand how they don't seem aware of this problem. Very frustrated.
 
Okay, after talking to five different people at Apple's various support departments, I FINALLY got confirmation that Apple is aware of the problem and working on it. The first two people I spoke with had no idea what I was talking about, the third said she couldn't duplicate it, the fourth kept putting me on hold to "check into it" and then eventually disconnected without calling me back, but the fifth finally found some information on this issue and explained it to me. I'm hoping it won't be much longer before it's fixed now. This hasn't exactly been the best experience I've had with Apple support. :rolleyes:
 
Please let us know what you find out. I'm not sure if this is the same problem, but over the past few days I've downloaded some episodes from Season 6 of Dexter onto my iPad via iCloud and the descriptions are missing. However, they still appear in iTunes.
 
this has been a problem for years. they would give me refunds for that particular episode out of the season pass, which causes HUGE problems with iCloud now as i have to repurchase those episodes again. the quality / consistency of descriptions and ID tags for iTunes purchased videos is so pissed poor its embarrassing.
 
benh911f said:
Please let us know what you find out. I'm not sure if this is the same problem, but over the past few days I've downloaded some episodes from Season 6 of Dexter onto my iPad via iCloud and the descriptions are missing. However, they still appear in iTunes.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is the same problem. The files you already had in your library are fine, but by downloading them from the iTunes store again via iCloud, you're pulling a new copy of the file and right now the files don't include descriptions for some reason.

analogue said:
this has been a problem for years. they would give me refunds for that particular episode out of the season pass, which causes HUGE problems with iCloud now as i have to repurchase those episodes again. the quality / consistency of descriptions and ID tags for iTunes purchased videos is so pissed poor its embarrassing.
Click to expand...

I've never seen it before, but truly hope they get it fixed soon. With all their focus on integration and "it works" for all your devices syncing together, the shows without descriptions in Apple TV are just ugly to look at and you never know what episode you're about to watch.
 
It is still happening today.

8 days since this started, and I have received no response from Apple.

I wonder if this has anything to do with iTunes 11 changes they are making to the store.
 
Cynicalone said:
It is still happening today.

8 days since this started, and I have received no response from Apple.

I wonder if this has anything to do with iTunes 11 changes they are making to the store.
Click to expand...

I'm really surprised MacRumors hasn't posted anything about this since it seems so widespread. Like you said, it seems a lot of users here don't buy content through iTunes since there's practically no response on this thread and I've found no other threads discussing it. I'm shocked by how little this has been reported considering it seems to be across the board. I've yet to have someone test it for me that didn't have the same problem. I've used 2 different iTunes accounts and four different computers (iMac, MBP, and 2 Windows PCs) and had the same problem everywhere. This is kinda ridiculous.
 
Has Anybody Else Noticed....

On 10/4/2012 Apple released a "supplemental update" for those using 10.7 and 10.8 (of course I auto-updated, silly). I don't know it to be the cause, but on my system THAT is the only change that occurred. Anything before is fine, anything after - missing descriptions.

OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 Supplemental Update
OS X Lion 10.7.5 Supplemental Update

It's Apple's fault; we know and THEY know it. I too reported the problem and have since been abandoned by support.

If anybody gets a fix, please report it. My season passes are a mess.

Many thanks.
 
I too have the same problem

I also have the same problem with my tv shows. I just got a new laptop with better video so started downloading old shows to get the 1080p versions of the downloads and now half of my tv library is missing the descriptions. :mad: I usually don't check with iTunes because they don't seem to provide reliable support. Hope they get this fix in a way where I won't have to redownload everything again.
 
Problem still persisted through yesterday and I haven't checked yet this morning, but I'm assuming it's still ongoing. The longer and longer this continues, the more frustrating it is. It's been almost 2 weeks now and still nothing has been fixed. I'd think they would want to get the content fixed for people who are actually purchasing items from them, but it doesn't seem a priority really.
 
I'm glad I found this thread.

I was about to purchase a few seasons/season passes. Once I saw that Apple was having problems, and was admitting/denying they existed, I figured I'd wait to buy. This sucks, but I can wait a little longer for iTunes to work correctly.
 
NightStorm said:
I'm noticing the same thing on some purchased movies that I am re-downloading via iTunes as well.
Click to expand...

I hadn't tested movies yet since I buy TV shows much more frequently, but I had a feeling the same would be true there. Can't say I'm glad to have that confirmed, but at least we know. Thanks for the heads up.
 
Cynicalone said:
It is still happening today.

5 downloads today, and none of them have the info.
Click to expand...

So glad to see that two weeks later there is still no resolution or communication to people spending money in the store. I've yet to hear back on my ticket through their support team, so I guess I'll call back today and hope for the best; it took 5 calls last time to get someone to admit it's a problem, hopefully that's not the case this time around.
 
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