Why do songs become unavailable on Apple Music?

OP and everyone else having this problem, I think I may have fixed it. I was having the same issue. The song is having an issue in how it saved to your library for some reason. I fixed it by doing the following:

Go to the Songs section of your Library.

Find the problem song and delete it from the library.

Re-add it to your library/any playlist.

It should now be playable.

I don't know why this happened, or how this song came to be saved in my library because I'd never actually added it. But lo and behold, it was there and causing the problem.

Tracks on an older playlist may have been edited (possibly only the meta data or lyrics text) to a new version on Apple Music, thereby invalidating the old version. You can delete the old track from the list and add the new version from Search to update your playlist.

Tracks that were once available, may have been retracted by the artist or their record company, temporarily or permanently, for all regions or for selected regions. The availability of tracks can change over time.

It helped my problem when I went into my iPhone Settings/Music. Make sure most things at the top are enabled. But what really screwed me up was at the bottom Home Sharing was set to an old appleid I haven’t used for a couple years. (Have been accessing my personal iTunes library all the time no problem). I corrected this and Apple Music seems to be working ok. Kinda regret being such a dick about it in my first post!

I had the same issue, and after talking to Apple support the way it was resolved was to select 'Manually manage music and videos' on the PC where the library is hosted (On your PC in Itunes connect your ipad and then in the settings summary select Options - Manually manage music and videos.)

Malcolm

I did not have to repurchase anything, this was just an irritation. The songs came back after re-syncing itunes with the computer. What has not been answered by Apple is why everyone is having the problem at all.

I fixed it by resynching my music library. If that doesn't work deselect every album that synchs, then synch your phone. Then reselect the albums and synch again. Question, is this problem now new for you? I first had this issue, last year. Still I think that Apple isn't the same anymore. Them don't test updates anymore, and release them, making us the test subjects.

I deleted the album where half were greyed out on my iPhone by removing from library. Then searched for the album again from iTunes and added it and all tracks downloaded. Done it on various albums now and all sorted

I noticed a large assortment of my albums had this problem. All of which were marked as Compilations. I went in and unchecked them as Compilation Albums and poof. Fixed. Not a perfect fix, cause I can’t use Compilations. But at least I can listen to the tracks.

Had this same issue since getting a replacement iPhone. The easy fix for me was signing into Home iCloud at bottom of Settings screen for Music on my iPhone.

[Edited by Moderator]

No. The problem was on the iphone, after re-syncing with itunes on the computer all was OK... at least the last time I checked.

I agree, this is an unacceptable customer experience. I’ve never had this issue before from music purchased through iTunes or CDs. Bought music today off iTunes and synched to my iPhone and only music from 2 of the 8 artists I had purchased played. Received the same error message as on this thread. I went into my iTunes settings on my phone and turned off automatic downloads for everything including music and then re-synched my phone with iTunes. Issue was resolved after this and was finally able to play the music on my phone.

This appears to be a bug with iTunes and Apple should be more forthcoming about at least providing resolution info for this known issue instead of directing users (customers) to figure it out for themselves through this support community.

Not an Amazon problem, they played fine on the (windows) computer they just suddenly stopped playing on the iPhone. Have not contacted Apple, I'm not the only one reporting the problem and when I originally tried to contact Apple their site referred me to this site, so no help from them. As said once I resync'd with iTunes on the computer they started working again. Totally an Apple issue.

Yes it's not a rights issue & probably does does have something to do with Apples Software. This might be a way to push there online music service ... IDK. Although music limits space, playing directly off my phones storage is okay for me. It saves me data, & paying for a music service. So this isn't going to suddenly make *me* want to pay for a music service.

Question for those of you posting recently, have you been facing this problem since April of 2016, or is it just new for you. This the so called *solution* to this problem.

"Tracks on an older playlist may have been edited (possibly only the meta data or lyrics text) to a new version on Apple Music, thereby invalidating the old version. You can delete the old track from the list and add the new version from Search to update your playlist.

Tracks that were once available, may have been retracted by the artist or their record company, temporarily or permanently, for all regions or for selected regions. The availability of tracks can change over time. "

About the 2nd part of this answer, that's why I absolutely hate listening to music on my phone nowadays. I listen to some fairly obscure music, and it's not all on iCloud. A great line from the Movie High Fidelity sums it up. when Rob Gordon says “I get by because of the people who make a special effort to shop here, mostly young men, who spend all their time looking for deleted Smith singles and original, not rereleased underlined Frank Zappa's albums. Fetish properties are not unlike porn. I'd feel guilty taking their money, if I wasn't... well... kinda one of them.” Still I don't play any obscure tracks on my phone. I already know they won't play.

The first part of the answer did solve the problem for me though. It isn't worded very clear though. Apple did edit a large chunk of my music library (80 plus %). I simply connected my phone, went into iTunes, deselected every album that had previously worked, and synched. This deleted every song from my phone. I then reselected my music, and viola, problem was solved.

Still since the problem occurred after an update, why hasn't Apple figured out a way to fix this data problem, in the 3 years since.

I’ve had this issue twice now with the albums I imported from Japan. Try deleting the songs from your phone’s library and re download them from your computer. They worked for me after that.

This works: On your Mac, go to iTunes > Preferences > Advanced > and click the 'Reset Warnings' button. For good measure, also Reset Cache and Reset Identifier (which you should do every so often anyway).

Now, connect your device to your Mac and re-sync it with iTunes

It was puzzling - This "not available" error message happened even for AIFF and MP3 files of my digitized 1970s vinyl records. And I have never joined Apple Music

This is an Apple error, not ours. The burden should not be on us to devise painful work-arounds to fix them.