iTUNES MATCH ERROR 4001 SOLUTION

Since iTunes Match became available on Monday, America has gone bonkers uploading music to iCloud. Many people have had messages from the servers asking them to wait a while and try again as it became clear that Apple was being overwhelmed.

Some of my friends across the pond that have managed to upload their music have experienced other problems. After turning iTunes Match on and trying to access their music library they have had error messages they can’t get past. Very frustrating.

The most common errors have apparently been ‘4001’ and ‘4002’. Many complaints have been made to Apple and their engineers are said to be working on it.

In the meantime, though, here’s a possible solution to the problem that’s apparently worked for a lot of people. If you are experiencing these problems, I hope it will work for you, too.

Open iTunes and click the Store tab on the menu bar.

Hold down the Option Key (⌥) and at the same time click ‘Turn Off iTunes Match’.

Click Store on the menu again, then click ‘Turn on iTunes Match’ (but don’t hold down anything this time, just click it).

This might not work for everyone but it’s worth a try. Bonne chance.

Let me know if it works for you.

Comments

[Brett]

Just wanted to let you know that this fixed my 4001 error and say thanks. Although I'm using a PC, so I held down shift while I clicked on "Turn Off iTunes Match". Also, as a bit of background, iTunes is running on a computer that my wife and I share with about 1700 songs ripped from CD's. Originally I had enabled iTunes match on my account and everything transferred over fine. When we tried to enable it on her account it went throught the "Gathering information about your iTunes library" step almost instantly, then quickly came back with error 4001. After turning it off while holding down shift it took much longer in that first step, then it was able to sucessfully add all of the songs to her iCloud. I suspect that originally it was trying to use cached information and something in that cache was associated with my account, so apple rejected it. Holding down shift (or option) and turning off iTunes match probably deletes the cache, so it was able to rescan everything properly.

[kp]

It worked for me too but took way longer as i have 20,000 songs :)

[JANE DE MORATTI]

Thanks for taking the time to post a detailed response, Brett. I'm sure it will help people having troubles with iTunes Match on their PCs, too. And I'm glad Master Your Mac was some sort of a help! :-) I'm sure you're right about the cache.

There are often glitches with new stuff... When I first moved from MobileMe to iCloud I suddenly found my iMac, iPhone and iPad all had my husband's contacts and Safari bookmarks on them, instead of mine! He has a Mac, too, which sits next to mine. I removed them and did another sync and it then behaved itself and synced my stuff rather than his.

Sometimes weird stuff happens...

[JANE DE MORATTI]

KP - I'm glad it worked for you and thanks for letting me know. It feels good to be of help!

Wow, 20,000 is a lot. (iTunes Match allows you to upload 25,000, so you haven't got far to go!). I hear it can be a bit slow if you've got a lot of music. But at least you got rid of the 4001 error and you're now up and running.

[London Genius]

Thank you, problem solved!!

I'm a Genius at a London Apple store, and this has been an issue perplexing me personally since the move from Beta... I had no issues before and then when it became official with iTunes 10.5.1 it just wasn't happening for me.

[Savannah Idiot]

London Genius, I'm not sure what these error codes are, but my iTunes Match keeps saying:
"iTunes Match has encountered an error. Please choose Sign Out and then Sign In from the iTunes Store Menu". Is there a solution for this that you know of?

[mn11]

Thank you. It worked! Upload proceeding,but very slowly

[JANE DE MORATTI]

Hi mn11. Glad it worked for you. And thanks for posting to let me know. Yes uploading IS horribly slow at the moment, by all accounts. Which is a bore...

Savannah Idiot - I imagine you've tried the trick I posted and it didn't work for you?

A few people have told me they had the same error message as you and they tried holding down the ⌥ (option key) as suggested and it worked. But mainly it seems to work on the 4001 error code. Not for everyone, though. It's one of those things. Apple has said several times that they are working on it, and other error codes like 4010.

A few people I've spoken to have solved the problem by reinstalling iTunes (I assume you've got the latest version). Again, this sometimes helps and sometimes does not.

If I come up with anything else that helps I will, of course, post it.

Thanks again for your responses. I love the fact that Savannah Idiot was responding to London Genius! :-)

[Matthias]

Thank you, problem solved.
Matthias
Greeting from Braunschweig, Germany

[Pedro]

Hey Jane,
thank you, it also worked for me.
Kind regards from Bielefeld, also Germany

Pedro

[JANE DE MORATTI]

Guten tag Matthias and Pedro! (Or perhaps I should say 'buenos días' to you, Pedro).

I'm very glad to have been of help. It feels so good to be able to help people all over the world! :-)

Have a great day everyone - wherever you are.

[Peter]

Dear Jane,

it works slowly - but it works! Thank you very much indeed for your support.

Happy New Year from Germany

Peter

[JANE DE MORATTI]

Thanks for your comment, Peter! So glad it worked for you. Yes, it can be very s-l-o-w... Hopefully Apple will get this hugely annoying problem sorted out very soon because there are a lot of frustrated people out there. I hope some will Google 4001 and end up at Master Your Mac and then this little tip might help them, too.

A happy, healthy 2012 to you, too.

[stefano bodrato]

Thank you!

[george]

Worked for me too. Thank you !

[mukuk]

Hi Jane,

works for me too!
Thx for this simple and useful solution!

mukuk
from Munich, Germany

[Randolph]

Thank you for the remedy to the Error 4001! It Worked!

[JANE DE MORATTI]

I'm very happy that it sorted the problem for you, Randolf! It's good to know that Master Your Mac is doing what I hoped - that is, helping people. So thanks for taking time to comment and making me smile on a damp, dull English spring morning. :-)

[JANE DE MORATTI]

Sorry, Randolph, for spelling your name wrong above!

[Stu Johnson]

Jane it work beautifully!! ...close to you but your pretty face surpasses such things as this ..


...many thanks!

God bless you in all ways...Spirit on forever...


Stu Johnson - Tennessee

[Victor Gonzalez]

Thank You very much, I've solved the problem finally!

Gracias resolví el problema!

[JANE DE MORATTI]

Que bueno, Victor. Estoy muy contento que puedo ayudarte.

Always a pleasure to help. :-)

[Chris Hayman]

Hi.. I am getting the 4001 error but it occurs when I am awaiting iTunes GENIUS to complete its activation. We dont seem to have "match" here in South Africa, in fact I had never heard of it until I researched this error. I have 73 000 tracks could this be overloading the iTunes "server" and if so is there anyway to activate Genius with this volume of information?
Regards Chris.

[Bas]

Thx for the post, helped fix the issue here!!

Great blog!

Love from Holland!

[James W]

It is now September 2012, iOS 6 has just rolled out, and the same problem exists. While trying to sync my Macbook Pro to iCloud - my main computer is a new iMac - I consistently receive a 4002 error right at the end of Step 1, while ITunes Match is "Sending information to Apple..." I have tried the recommended "shut off turn on" process to no avail. In fact, it does not work on either of my two Apple machines. The process restarts several times before giving the error message.

In an effort to get information from the Apple Community, I found an entry that linked here and said follow the instructions exactly. I was hoping for more, but only got the same.

Is there any update to fix this frustrating error message?

[RC-n-NC]

Thanks for taking the time to post tips like this ... working for me with lastest OSX and iTunes. Much less frustrating to find a GREAT tip at the TOP of a google search! :-)

[Glen]

Worked for me on Mountain Lion, latest version of iTunes, and almost a year after your initial post. Thanks. I was getting the error every time I'd plug in my iPhone, or any of the other devices.

[JANE DE MORATTI]

James, I'm so sorry it's not working for you. I honestly don't know why it does work for some and not for others. I just got a comment saying it worked for someone else using Lion and iOS 6. Maybe it's the amount of music you've got stashed in iTunes. I've never had the problem myself on any of my 4 Macs. Again, sorry not to have solved it for you. Hope you get it sorted soon.

[JANE DE MORATTI]

Glad it worked for you RC-n-NC! And that my fix was at the top of Google. I know from experience how frustrating and annoying it is to spend hours on a virtual wild goose chase and end up none the wiser. I started MYM to try to help with clear, accurate advice. I'm very glad to be of help.

[JANE DE MORATTI]

Hi Glen! Thanks for the feedback. Glad to know the fix is still working on Lion etc. and that it's now sorted for you