This computer already associated with apple id

Question: Q: What does this mean? «This computer is already associated with an apple ID»

I just subscribed to Music Match on my laptop.

Now I am trying to add my main computer that has the majority of my music to Music Match as well but I get an error:

«This computer is already associated with an apple ID»

What does that even mean? Of course it is associated with an apple ID. Isn’t the whole point that I can add up to 10 devices under the same ID?

Posted on Nov 19, 2011 8:47 AM

Helpful answers

It must have been associated with another id at some point in time. This isn’t the association for playing content that’s been around for years to protect music and videos. When Apple introduced the ability to download past purchases, this started, For autodownload o fpurchases, download of past purchases and now itunes match, each device for those functions can only be associated with one Apple ID and you have to wait 90 days to change it. Our household has 3 or 4 id’s and multiple computers and we were hit with this. Even on one machine with multiple OS level login accounts, only one id per machine was allowed for autodownloads. So two kids sharing a machine with two apple id’s are stuck. Only one could activate automatic downloads and past purchase downloads. My hunch is this came about as part of the licensing for iCloud and iTunes match to prevent piracy.

Do you have another id that you use? You can sign in to itunes with that and check the account. It has a section that lists the devices associated with an id for auto downloads and itunes match.

Nov 19, 2011 9:59 AM

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It must have been associated with another id at some point in time. This isn’t the association for playing content that’s been around for years to protect music and videos. When Apple introduced the ability to download past purchases, this started, For autodownload o fpurchases, download of past purchases and now itunes match, each device for those functions can only be associated with one Apple ID and you have to wait 90 days to change it. Our household has 3 or 4 id’s and multiple computers and we were hit with this. Even on one machine with multiple OS level login accounts, only one id per machine was allowed for autodownloads. So two kids sharing a machine with two apple id’s are stuck. Only one could activate automatic downloads and past purchase downloads. My hunch is this came about as part of the licensing for iCloud and iTunes match to prevent piracy.

Do you have another id that you use? You can sign in to itunes with that and check the account. It has a section that lists the devices associated with an id for auto downloads and itunes match.

Nov 19, 2011 9:59 AM

I think I know what happened.

I fault iCloud for confusing me with Apple IDs. I now have an apple ID for iCloud and one for iTunes and then there’s the kids’ devices and my wife’s Apple ID. I remember a notice like that popping up somewhere in the process but didn’t undestand what it meant — I thought it referred to the iPhone I was trying to sync, not my computer.

It would be nice if Apple were a little more forgiving — particularly now that with iCloud and the inability to merge IDs ID management is more confusing — particularly for families.

Nov 19, 2011 5:31 PM

I did indeed have it under my roomates id at one point, but he doesn’t use match and I do. I tryed restoring and resetting and neither worked. Do I really have to wait 3 months now before I can use my match on the atv2? Seems ********.

Nov 21, 2011 7:18 AM

Unfortunately, for itunes in the cloud which includes auto download purchases from the store itunes and itunes match, they restrict it to one appleid and per device/computer with a time limit of 3 month until you can change it on the computer. I presume your roomate probably activated auto downloads. One of my kids did the same and we have to wait on that machine to activate match.

My hunch is this is for music licensing. If there was not the restriction, one could potentially share their account by posting their id/password to others around the world and have them log in to match, download the songs, log out, and deauthorize their computer giving a slot back to be shared again. 3 months slows that down alot. However, this harms the legit users with multiple machines and multiple appleid’s in a household. The appleid thing needs some rework. I’d like it for my setup to have one master appleid and perhaps 5 id’s that could be ‘owned’ by that appleid where we could use iMatch and autodownloads together but still have the separate id’s to manage purchases etc. Almost like a ‘family’ of id’s. You could still have the same 3 month restrictions but do it to a group of id’s and not one single id. One woud have to assume Apple’s own engineers run into this same problem in the real world and will one day address it but id management systems that are entrenched are hard to rewrite without disrupting the working systems.

Nov 21, 2011 9:35 AM

Same situation on my Apple TV 2. I logged into my iCloud Music, the system loaded. Everything worked great. The next day I received the error. My boyfriend uses his ID when he wants to access his content. I’ve tried the TRANSFER, that does nothing. I emailed iTunes support they had me reset all the devices. Nothing has worked.

Nov 21, 2011 2:15 PM

I think that’s the key issue here:

OS X understands the concept of allowing mutliple users to use one device. Each user can have their own login and any user data is completely separate (photos, music, contacts, etc.)

With Music Match suddenly the differentiation is per device. It doesn’t make sense at all. Apple is generally good at anticipating how people will use their products / services but with iCloud/Music Match they failed.

Nov 21, 2011 3:51 PM

I’ve seen a few mentions of problems on the Apple TV 2. I have one too and haven’t had an issue. I also have not yet tried to sign in to the Apple TV 2 with another AppleID. I could test it but I don’t want to loose match on the AppleTV. What’s the issue? After your boyfriend used it, did you go back and enter your ID into the iTunes store settings and then try to load match?

Nov 21, 2011 4:07 PM

tmksnyder: if you try a different Appe ID it will ask you «are you sure you want to do this because if you do we will lock any other ID out for 90 days».. well, not word for word but in that sense.

When you try entering your original ID you get the message I posted as screen shot of above.

I basically have to wait another 58 days before I can restore the state I originally intended.

Nov 21, 2011 4:17 PM

We use the Apple TV2 with his Apple ID in the store normally, because we use his Apple ID for the Computer Sharing. It just made since that way. When iCloud was an Option I signed in to try it because I have have a larger Music library and wanted the service. His ID remained as the Shared Computer ID and I used my Apple iTunes store ID. The Music Match Service worked great after I logged in, I browsed my collection, watched music videos etc. (didn’t seem much different than just using it thru shared but could be handy when my laptop is off) The next day I wanted to play a playlist of music and went to listen. I then received the error. I asked my boyfriend if he changed anything. He said «No». There was never any mention of a «lock out period».

Nov 21, 2011 4:30 PM

I received a response from Apple. I must have missed this message in the excitement of working with the ATV2 and iClould Music. I don’t think that I will use it on my ATV2 because we often switch between our 2 ids.

Gary, I investigated this issue with the concerned department again and I’m sorry to inform you that once a device or computer is associated with your Apple ID, you cannot associate that device or computer with another Apple ID for 90 days

Nov 22, 2011 8:59 AM

Hi, I have the same problem and it started after I set up a different user account on my MacBook Pro — one that doesn’t even use Match.

Now I’m supposed to wait 89 days to use it again?

I emailed Apple and will argue until I get a satisfactory response; otherwise if there are alternate means around this, I hope somebody posts them here.

Dec 19, 2011 4:16 PM

I set up a call with Apple Support to talk to a live person.

It was a terrible experience but I got it fixed.

Set it up to call me at a specific time.

First call — After explaining about 5 times and transfered the same amount of times, the final person I talked to got very combative and hung up.

Setup another call back and being transfered around 3-4 times, I got to Audrey, who I was told was a «Senior Advisor». All I can say is. it’s the support employee I wish I got first. She wasn’t with the iTunes team, but chatted them, tried some stuff.

Finally it came down to that there was «another ID» attached to my mac. I have multiple User Accounts on my mac, but they said it shouldn’t matter. I had never used another account within iTunes (though my iCloud account is separate, it has never been used in iTunes).

She said they removed that account, and told me to wait 15 minutes. She setup a callback. I waited 15 minutes, and it worked.

Audrey called me back, gave me her email address and callback number in case further issues come up with this.

The first 7-8 people I talked to made me feel like I was calling just about every other support line (and I expect more from Apple), but Audrey, singlehandedly, restored my faith that support means helping the customer (and not simply saying they are sorry over and over without doing a thing).

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Question: Q: This Computer is Already Associated with an Apple ID

I signed out of iTunes Match. When I went to sign in to iTunes Match, it displayed a message » This Computer is Already Associated with an Apple ID». I haven’t seen a solution anywhere in the forums.

Thanks for your help.

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Aug 15, 2012 8:09 PM

Helpful answers

I have the same problem — at some point my Mac decided that it’s already associated with another Apple ID. I have one Apple ID, it’s the one I subscribed to Match with.

I have multiple Mac accounts (for the kids) and they have their own Apple IDs, but not iTunes Match accounts and they can’t use my Apple ID, so it’s impossible that they’ve activated iTunes Match (and I’ve checked that they haven’t as well.)

The impression I get is that iTunes Match just won’t work on a machine with multiple users who all use iTunes with different Apple IDs, so I’m abandoning it as a bad idea unless I can find that I’m wrong. Nothing on this forum suggests anythign else so far.

Unfortunately I can’t find anyone who actually understands how it works, or how I can find out WHAT Apple ID iTunes thinks is associated with Match — this information isn’t available anywhere in my account.

Aug 18, 2012 3:53 AM

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Signed out of where? Did someone else sign in with their iTunes Store ID?

Aug 15, 2012 9:39 PM

I have four accounts on my iMac where I’m getting this message. (I signed out of iTunes and signed back in with the same result).

I will check with the other three users in my household to make sure they aren’t signed in on that account.

Aug 16, 2012 7:25 AM

This could be the root of the problem. If another user is signed into the iTunes Store, and has actived iTunes Match this could cause this error to be thrown. iTM can not be activated in more than one OS X user account on the same machine.

Aug 16, 2012 10:03 AM

I have the same problem — at some point my Mac decided that it’s already associated with another Apple ID. I have one Apple ID, it’s the one I subscribed to Match with.

I have multiple Mac accounts (for the kids) and they have their own Apple IDs, but not iTunes Match accounts and they can’t use my Apple ID, so it’s impossible that they’ve activated iTunes Match (and I’ve checked that they haven’t as well.)

The impression I get is that iTunes Match just won’t work on a machine with multiple users who all use iTunes with different Apple IDs, so I’m abandoning it as a bad idea unless I can find that I’m wrong. Nothing on this forum suggests anythign else so far.

Unfortunately I can’t find anyone who actually understands how it works, or how I can find out WHAT Apple ID iTunes thinks is associated with Match — this information isn’t available anywhere in my account.

Aug 18, 2012 3:53 AM

I have got to the bottom of this.

In short, any one device can only be associated with one AppleID if any of the following are used:

• iTunes Match
• Automatic Downloads
• Prior Purchase Downloads

In my case my daughter activated Automatic Downloads on the Mac and suddenly the Mac is linked to her account for a minimum of 90 days!

This is obviously not good, and is totally impractical in real life.

I will winge at Apple and see what happens.

Aug 21, 2012 4:50 AM

Just hit this problem too. My wife already signed up to Match on our iMac under her account. Now I can’t sync my (far larger) library with Match either. Google’s looking good these days.

Sep 8, 2012 7:41 AM

I too had this problem when purchasing a 2nd hand mac — trying to get auto downloads working, and trying to re-dlownload my parters purchased musc from itunes on her own account. Pretty big bug and a real pain in the ***!

Sep 15, 2012 6:32 AM

+1 with a similar problem here.

Visiting family for XMas, and have an account on their multi-user iMac (Apple, you made a big thing of the Unix heritage, didn’t you? Well guess what — that means multiple users on each machine).

Was given a CD for XMas. Have an iPhone5, and had previously signed up to iTunes Match on my home machine (Mac Mini). Sudden brainwave: import CD into my account on the iMac, then use iTunes Match (already paid for) to get songs onto iPhone without any faffing about.

Ran straight into «This computer is already associated with an Apple ID» nonsense. It is simply outrageous that Apple are locking iTunes Match to a machine rather than an account ON each machine — they really don’t seem to grok «cloud» at all, do they?

Needless to say, I am pretty disgusted. As a poster above notes, Google are starting to look more attractive by the day — Apple are clearly headed for disaster with the path they’ve chosen.

Direct impact: I am switching off the auto-renewal on iTunes Match, because there is no way I’m paying another year for this level of «Service».

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Question: Q: Apple ID Problem

When I select «Match» in iTunes I get the following message:

«This computer is already associated with an Apple ID.

«If you use iTunes Match with your Apple ID, you cannot use iTunes Match, auto-download or download past purchases with a different Apple ID for 90 days.»

I only have one Apple ID so I don’t understand the message. My MacBook Pro was purchased as an «open case» so is it possible that it was associated with another Apple ID? What is the best way for me to move forward?

Posted on Apr 4, 2013 12:46 PM

Helpful answers

Since you only have the one Apple ID, you will be fine. If you were to log in you’ll have access to all the features available, but you won’t be able to sign in with a second Apple ID (besides the one you have) for another 90 days. I think the 90 day wait time is there to prevent music piracy that could happen if your friends came over and simply logged into their iTunes and downloaded all prior music purchases from iTunes in the Cloud to your computer, then you turned around and signed in with your account to upload them to iTunes Match.

Your Apple ID can have up to 10 devices and computers (combined) associated with it. Each computer must also be authorized using the same Apple ID. Once a device or computer is associated with your Apple ID, you cannot associate that device or computer with another Apple ID for 90 days. You can view which devices or computers are currently associated, remove unused devices or computers, and see how long before they can be associated with a different Apple ID from the Account Information page in iTunes on your computer:

1. Open iTunes.
2. Sign in to your Apple ID by choosing Store >Sign In from the iTunes menu.
3. Choose Store >View My Account from the iTunes menu.
4. From the Account Information screen, click Manage Devices.

Next to each device or computer name, you will be able to see when each was associated to your Apple ID. You will also be able to track how many days are remaining before your associated devices or computers can be associated to a different Apple ID.

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