Q: Apple Music will not play My Music when wifi is off or airplane mode is on

While I had the same case as you did, I unfortunately as of today Nov 1st lost all of my music on my iPhone 6. I spoke with Apple support and they said I have to click the 3 dots on each album (I have 782 albums) and make them all 'available offline' THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!! So now I have to download all of my 782 albums that I have had in my iTunes for 10 years AGAIN?!? A lot of these albums are my own music that should have nothing to do with having wi-fi or internet connection. Music that I have made on my own and uploaded to my phone through iTunes now I have to download again by making it available offline.

Apple, this is so ridiculous, I hope you read this and make an effort to fix it. Why should I download 782 albums again after we all know how time consuming uploading 10 years of music can be. I am so frustrated. I hope someone reads this and can help me out if there is a better, easier way of fixing it.

Good luck y'all.

CIVICZCBOY wrote:

 

While I had the same case as you did, I unfortunately as of today Nov 1st lost all of my music on my iPhone 6. I spoke with Apple support and they said I have to click the 3 dots on each album (I have 782 albums) and make them all 'available offline' THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!! So now I have to download all of my 782 albums that I have had in my iTunes for 10 years AGAIN?!? A lot of these albums are my own music that should have nothing to do with having wi-fi or internet connection. Music that I have made on my own and uploaded to my phone through iTunes now I have to download again by making it available offline.

 

Apple, this is so ridiculous, I hope you read this and make an effort to fix it. Why should I download 782 albums again after we all know how time consuming uploading 10 years of music can be. I am so frustrated. I hope someone reads this and can help me out if there is a better, easier way of fixing it.

 

Good luck y'all.

(1) While Apple probably has some of their support people reading these forums, they cannot respond. Consider sending Apple feedback, which they do read all the time. http://www.apple.com/feedback/

(2) If you wish to do your syncing to your iPhone the old way - via USB cable from iTunes directly - simply turn off iCloud Music Library on the iPhone. Otherwise Apple Music/ICML thinks you prefer just streaming your music to your iPhone. That is why they give the option of downloading (or make available offline in Apple Talk) for those who don't wish to stream. Unfortunately you can't do an entire library, but you can (in iTunes on your computer) make a playlist of all the songs/albums. When that playlist syncs through iCloud Music Library to your iPhone, you can then make the entire playlist downloaded instead of doing each album individually.

I found a solution that worked.  This happened to me on a recent trip.  I put my phone on airplane mode and none of my music was available to play without wifi.  I have been researching it and have found something that will work.  If you go to Settings - Music- Playback & Downloads- turn ON Use Cellular Data.  I did this and ALL of my music played while in airplane mode and without wifi.  Hope this also works for some of you.

mayfieldpam wrote:

 

I found a solution that worked.  This happened to me on a recent trip.  I put my phone on airplane mode and none of my music was available to play without wifi.  I have been researching it and have found something that will work.  If you go to Settings - Music- Playback & Downloads- turn ON Use Cellular Data.  I did this and ALL of my music played while in airplane mode and without wifi.  Hope this also works for some of you.

That's interesting. I never turned that off, so I was always able to play my offline music even if I was testing Airplane mode for others here.

The funny thing is I was discussing AM with a friend (who happens to hate Apple and does not understand why people would want to pay for streaming anyway). I mentioned the business that I had seen a small amount of data used during a long drive from NYC to Boston over the summer even though I was only playing 4 playlists that I made available offline. I said my theory was that the iPhone still has to check to see if I had an active AM subscription - hence the very small data usage. His theory with airplane mode is that the iPhone is still able to send and receive those small data packets to confirm the subscription even in Airplane mode. So perhaps that is why I found I can play music - as you did - in Airplane Mode as long as the use Cellular Data was ON, but people have claimed that if they go into an area (like a rural area) that has absolutely no cell service cannot play anything.

Hello there I am new to this post and to posting in general but as I was having the same difficulty I thought I would share that I was experiencing the same problem and through much research so far the only solution I have found is by turning off iCloud music share. I know this is counterproductive to all the new technology but the system seems to have gone old school as to how to upload your old music.......

jenfinnott wrote:

 

Hello there I am new to this post and to posting in general but as I was having the same difficulty I thought I would share that I was experiencing the same problem and through much research so far the only solution I have found is by turning off iCloud music share. I know this is counterproductive to all the new technology but the system seems to have gone old school as to how to upload your old music.......

That is perfectly OK - to go "old school" - but then you lose the ability to at least have access to your entire library on all your devices (granted by streaming). I am still holding out hope that Apple will straighten out the issues with the download/available offline listening. Still having issues trying to get any playlist larger than around 200 songs to download completely and stay on my iPhone 6.

HI All,

i had this problem "go to settings and turn cellular playback on", but couldnt find it. Finally I discovered that for some reason my music was simply NOT DOWNLOADED and sync-ed  on my device anymore. It had been before but for some reason it had unsync-ed itself without my knowing it. You might want to check that. At least that solved the problem for me. Hope this helps some

I tested this myself and found this seems to solve the problem as well. This is a real hassle to figure out what has been downloaded previously, but at least I can download it again.

Your iTunes music Library will still, or should still, have the same checks on all your previous music choices as they were the last time you synced. Your just need to sync again, at least that's how it worked for me.

The above post is a pretty good description of my daily struggles with Apple Music. Ideally, I think people want the app to function like an iPod when we're not connected.  Apple Music simply does not. The music that lives on device, either downloaded from iTunes Match or marked as 'make available offline' doesn't play reliably.  There are a variety of connectivity conditions when this occurs. However, if the song is download to the device, the user should have access at all times. Example - I didn't have access to much of my "downloaded" music in airplane mode as well as during LTE signal issues and WiFi issues. Users want the downloaded songs (the ones that are taking up space on the the device to be available under any condition of connectivity or lack of. All of these issues started after I started using apple music. ITunes match, before apple music, was a little better in terms of "offline listening". As a music lover all of this has been frustrating- however there are other features of Apple music that I enjoy very much so I stick with it. It would be great if Apple separated their streaming services and have the old music app so a user could play the music we own under any circumstances.

I figured this out.  I had the same problem and was angry because I PAID for this music and wanted to listen to it without needing internet.  (Otherwise, why buy it?)   Try this, it worked for me: 

1.  Plug your phone into your macbook, open iTunes and click the phone icon near the upper left.

2.  Choose 'music' from the list on the left.

3.  In the box that comes up on the right, click to sync all music to phone.

4.  Click sync in the lower right corner.

I don't know why, but that puts it onto your phone and after I did that, I ejected my phone then put it on airplane mode in settings so it wasn't connected to internet or wifi, and all my music came back and I could play it without the internet.  Hope that works for you too. 

Rachel, do you have iCloud Music Library turned ON on your iPhone? Because I would assume it is NO, because otherwise you would not be able to sync music from iTunes via USB to your iPhone. This discussion is mainly about people who are using the iCloud Music Library part of Apple Music to show their entire library on all their devices. But the only way (if ICML is being used) is to use Apple's "Make Available Offline" download procedure, which apparently for a lot of people has issues when their iOS devices have no cellular/data connection.

Thank you! You heped me!

THank you!

I am having the same problem.  Bought a new Macbook and transfered my music over which worked fine. My PURCHASED music works great when connected to WiFi but not off line.  I fly a lot and very frustrating when I can't listen to music which I PURCHASED off line.  Apple please refund my money for music PURCHASED.