Can't connect to iTunes store? "Network connection refused..." FIXED!!!

Question

I think I’ve fixed it! After trying a bunch of stuff this is what worked for me!
From: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2605647?
(I just copied and pasted the text so the formatting looks goofy...)
life4living2
Posts: 12
From: Great Central Valley of California
Registered: Jun 19, 2006
Re: cant connect to itunes music store
Posted: Jun 19, 2006 7:39 PM in response to: evily
See if this helps in your situation:
OK, all you people all over the world who have been having the same problem as me for weeks, months, a lifetime, here it is! If your warning/error reads "iTunes could not connect to the Music Store. The network connection was refused" and then the BS about checking to make sure your connection is active, well I found something on a forum at Digg.com that with one click WORKED LIKE MAGIC and I'm a happy camper now, rockin to stuff I finally got from the store.
Now before I print the fix, my previous situation was: I could connect to the Apple store site for products, etc. and could check my account, but I could not connect to the music store at all. In every other way, my internet connectivity was flawless. I tried to solve the problem, shut down every firewall or antivirus program I had, searched forums, fiddled with the registry (and THAT was a stupid move!), reinstalled itunes like HOW MANY TIMES, and even finally got a written email reply from iTunes support when I waah.., waah..., waah..ed long enough and they gave an answer that was WORSE than useless. Months passed. So if the above in total or in part describes you, her it is. It's safe and if it doesn't work, you can put things back the way they were without any problem.
This is the quote from the forum at Digg.com that did it for me:
"figured out the problem thanks to Peter on the badapple forums, in his great assistance:
"In your windows\system32\drivers\etc directory there is a file called hosts. Open it in notepad. You will see a line
127.0.0.1 phobos.apple.com
place a # in front of that line so that it looks like this:
#127.0.0.1 phobos.apple.com
and save the file. your problem should be resolved!"
That's it guys and gals. Also you might be sure that the phobos.apple.com domain is specifically allowed by your firewall/A-V software. Let me know if it helped!
ASUS P4 mothervboard Windows XP A screamer machine
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evily
Posts: 2
From: georgia
Registered: Jun 14, 2006
Re: cant connect to itunes music store
Posted: Jun 24, 2006 6:45 PM in response to: life4living2
I followed the changes you suggested exectly but its still not working. I tried adjusting the Firewall again and even turned it completely off, but still it gives me the same message and wont open.
insignia Windows XP
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life4living2
Posts: 12
From: Great Central Valley of California
Registered: Jun 19, 2006
Re: cant connect to itunes music store
Posted: Jun 25, 2006 11:37 PM in response to: evily
Evily,
Here's a variation that was on another thread on this topic. See if it helps any:
Posts: 1
From: Seattle
Registered: Jun 23, 2006
Re: "iTunes could not connect to the Music Store"
Posted: Jun 23, 2006 3:48 PM in response to: life4living2 Reply Email
SUCCESS!!! I tried many variations on this and it finally worked. Yes, as life4living says, you have to open the "hosts" file that you can find in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc
... use NotePad ...
At the bottom of the file, I found
127.0.0.1 localhost
and nothing about phobos.
AFter many attempts, I changed the end of the HOSTS file to this:
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# 127.0.0.1 phobos.apple.com
and now iTunes music store and podcasts open up just fine.
Strange. The # character means "this is a comment" - so it's basically the same as removing the line completely.
The address 127.0.0.1 means "my machine" and this address is used by other apps such as Google Desktop. Hatching it out, however, does not adversely affect Google Desktop. So basically you have to hatch out any 127.0.0.1 address in the HOSTS file and then iTunes will work!
Try it...
(I did, also, add phobos.apple.com to my "trusted sites" in Internet Explorer settings, but I don't think this was essential.)
After performing the above I found it only worked once after rebooting. I uninstalled Spybot Search and Destroy because it wouldn’t maintain some of the start up settings and cookies were getting nuked by another program I have in start up (Windows Washer).
Some other threads said to check firewall settings. I have free AVG. I went in and okay’d anything to do with iTunes. I also added the iTunes program to the list of approved processes in the AVG list and it seems iTunes is now working! Hope this helps!

Answer 1

It's for windows.
1. Press the Start Button in the (default) bottom
left hand corner.
2. Click on "My Computer".
3. Click on (Default) C:.
4. Find "WINDOWS" and open.
5. Find "system 32" and open.
6. Find "drivers" and open.
7. Find "ect" and open.
8. Find "hosts" and open.
9. For a XP, a popup will open and show options to
open it in.
10. Select "Notepad" or "Word" or what ever you use
for writing a document.
11. At the bottom, if it says "127.0.0.1 localhost"
C&P This Over the 127.0.0.1 localhost:
#127.0.0.1 localhost
#127.0.0.1 phobos.apple.com
If it only has 127.0.0.1 phobos.apple.com, add a "#"
at the beginning.
12. Restart your computer.
Hope that helps!
-Pirate Munkeh
This helped my error! Thanx!