The mysterious iTunes -100000 error: This file cannot be downloaded - Fixed

I think I need to sacrifice a goat to the spirit of the Nameless One. How else can I escape the curse of really weird Apple bugs?

This bug isn't quite as weird as the Apple ID vs. MobileMe verified forwarding email bug, or even the mysterious Image Capture Slowdown, but it's bad enough. 

The other day an iTunes track download failed. First time I'd seen that. So I tried with iTunes. It made 3 tries and failed there too; the download list showed an error code of "-100000" and iTunes told me:

There was a problem downloading ...

The file seems to be corrupted. To redownload the file, choose "Check for Available Downloads" from the Store Menu.

I tried several tricks including changing user accounts, trying it on another machine from my home network, trying it again from my iPhone, trying it on AT&T's network, etc. Of course I restarted my machine, different version of iTunes, etc etc.

Nothing worked. 

I tried downloading to my wife's phone. Everything downloaded ok except for that one Arcade Fire track: "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels".

So I went through Apple first tier support, then to 2nd tier. They reset my password so they could try downloading -- and it apparently worked for them. So they washed their hands of me.

Of course it doesn't work for me, no matter the device. The one track is bad.

So what's going on? Well, I'm not the only one. There's a clue in an iTune's Discussion:

...I  also tried all of the suggestions to no avail.  As an experiment this weekend I tried accessing the "corrupt" file from my daughter's  network in the Chicago area.  Logged in, downloaded, bam. Worked like charm. I have no security software on my home network, but by golly I worked from another network...

I bet this is a geography problem. The file is corrupt on a server that manages my geographic area.

One way to test this would be to travel and try it.

Another would be to connect via VPN to a different region and then retry.

It's late for me to try that tonight, but Dreamhost (California) does support SSH connections. Tomorrow I'll try that one ...

Update 5/23/12: VICTORY. I connected via SSH Tunnel to Dreamhost then downloaded again (clicked Buy). It worked instantly. This supports the theory that an instance of the tune was corrupted on the iTunes server for my geographic region (Minneapolis St Paul).