Apple Temporarily Halts New iTunes Match Subscriptions in New International Markets

With Apple launching a broad international roll-out of iTunes Match yesterday to well over a dozen new countries, it appears that the expansion has come with some growing pains for the cloud-based music service. The service had started to prematurely go live for some users the day before, and several hours after the international expansion users around the world reported temporary problems accessing iTunes Store and iCloud services due to usernames and passwords being rejected.

itunes match subscriptions down
While those technical issues appear to have been resolved, demand appears to still remain high for new iTunes Match subscriptions, and we've been hearing word that Apple has temporarily shut down new subscription signups in some of the new countries. Customers attempting to subscribe to the service are reportedly being met with the following message:

New subscriptions are currently unavailable.

iTunes Match is temporarily not accepting new subscribers. Check back later.

So far we have heard of new subscriptions being halted in Canada and the UK, two of the countries that saw the service debut yesterday. Apple instituted a similar temporary pause in new subscription signups following the U.S. launch last month.

As noted in an extensive chart from setteB.IT, iTunes Match rolled out in a total of sixteen new countries yesterday: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK. The new countries join the United States and Brazil in offering the service.

Popular Stories

M5 MacBook Pro

Apple Announces New 14-Inch MacBook Pro With M5 Chip

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models. In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB. Like...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

Apple Debuts New iPad Pro With M5 Chip, Faster Charging, and More

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips. The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
maxresdefault

Here's Everything Apple Announced Today

Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below. MacBook Pro M5...
iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
Vision Pro M5 Announcement

Apple Updates Vision Pro With M5 Chip, Dual Knit Band, and 120Hz Support

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:14 am PDT by
Apple today updated the Vision Pro headset with its next-generation M5 chip for faster performance, and a more comfortable Dual Knit Band. The M5 chip has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a 16-core Neural Engine, and we have confirmed the Vision Pro still has 16GB of RAM. With the M5 chip, the Vision Pro offers faster performance and longer battery life compared...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

New 14-Inch MacBook Pro Has Two Key Upgrades Beyond the M5 Chip

Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump. First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
MacBook Pro M5 Screen

New MacBook Pro Does Not Include a Charger in the Box in Europe

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:59 am PDT by
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip does not include a charger in the box in European countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, and others, according to Apple's online store. In the U.S. and all other countries outside of Europe, the new MacBook Pro comes with Apple's 70W USB-C Power Adapter, but European customers miss out....
airpods max 2024 colors

AirPods Max 2: Everything We Know So Far

Tuesday October 14, 2025 8:43 am PDT by
Apple's AirPods Max have now been available for almost five years, so what do we know about the second-generation version? According to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new AirPods Max will be lighter than the current ones, but exactly how much is as yet known. The current AirPods Max weigh 0.85 pounds (386.2 grams), excluding the charging case, making it one of the heavier...
macbook pro blue

Apple's M5 MacBook Pro Imminent: What to Expect

Tuesday October 14, 2025 4:35 pm PDT by
Apple is going to launch a new version of the MacBook Pro as soon as tomorrow, so we thought we'd go over what to expect from Apple's upcoming Mac. M5 Chip The MacBook Pro will be one of the first new devices to use the next-generation M5 chip, which will replace the M4 chip. The M5 is built on TSMC's more advanced 3-nanometer process, and it will bring speed and efficiency improvements. ...

Top Rated Comments

rmwebs Avatar
181 months ago
Ahh the Apple (fake) Cloud continues to fail.

----------

This is the opposite of a screw-up. Apple is taking charge in ensuring that quality of use is not degraded for people who have already purchased the service. Demand is greater than what Apple expected so they'll be opening the gates slowly to allow them to meet demand without crashing the whole thing.
Explain how its not a screw up?

- 2 days ago they prematurely open Match across the world, charge people and are then forced to refund them because they forgot to update the TOS.

- Yesterday they launch, resulting in the iTunes servers being very slow for most of the day.

- Last night the authentication system completely died and was down for the pest part of the night, intermittently coming back online.

- Then they finally release Match, and have to close it within a day as their tiny server farm (NOT A CLOUD) cant handle the load.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ipedro Avatar
181 months ago
What a screw up.

This is the opposite of a screw-up. Apple is taking charge in ensuring that quality of use is not degraded for people who have already purchased the service. Demand is greater than what Apple expected so they'll be opening the gates slowly to allow them to meet demand without crashing the whole thing.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
joelovesapple Avatar
181 months ago
This is just so damn stupid. What sounds like a great product cannot be used by me because according to Apple, I shouldn't be so interested in music. I have so many songs because I absolutely love music. I don't see why I should be punished like this.

I've spent about £8500 on iTunes over the past 6 years (call me stupid if you want) and then this in return?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
daneoni Avatar
181 months ago
Quick question, what happens if I rip another CD after "Match" has finished it's original scan on signing up? Is what is matched on first run what you get for 12 months, or can you add to your Library as normal and those tracks are matched also?
You can update the existing Match DB. Store> Update iTunes Match...or just right click on the songs and select Add to iCloud
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dmblue Avatar
181 months ago
signed up last night in canada.. other than it taking some time to upload and a handful duplicate tracks.. it is working GREAT.

this just made my iTunes experience 20x better.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Apple Knowledge Navigator Avatar
181 months ago
My guess is that, in at least 18-months time, iTunes Match will become a free feature and an integral catalyst for Apple reducing onboard memory on their iOS devices.

It's ridiculously obvious. Make a tidy profit while some initial press/hype exists, then make it a "killer feature" by the time OS 10.8 comes out.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)