Why do songs become unavailable on Apple Music?

Hi all


Having some issues with Apple Music. I get the message "This song is not currently available in your country or region" when it's added to a playlist. However, searching for the song in Apple Music allows me to play it.


The playlist is fine on iTunes on MacOS, don't have any issues playing from there. I haven't changed region, but I have just re-subscribed to Apple Music after having about a year off from it.


Any ideas?


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone XR, iOS 12

Posted on Apr 5, 2019 5:06 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 20, 2019 9:22 AM

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.

163 replies

Jul 4, 2019 3:08 PM in response to lloyd_634

Why on earth is this happening to music that I HAVE IMPORTED FROM MY OWN CDs? I can physically take the CD to any country in the world that I like and play it on a CD player, but iTunes deems that I cannot play it when I am on holiday. STOP YOUR DICTATORIAL methods Apple. You DO NOT have authority to say where I can or cannot play MY OWN MUSIC!!!!!

Jul 5, 2019 8:35 AM in response to paulsp1

Well with the total lack of response from Apple, then I will take the obvious route. Stop using iTunes and buy a dedicated (non-Apple) MP3 player. Problem solved and I’ll make sure that I buy all future music elsewhere!!!!

Jul 8, 2019 2:19 AM in response to greenmind

Well, I got fed up waiting for them to fix it. I also have an Android phone, so I simply copied my entire music directory structure from my PC to a micro-SD card. Guess what? Everything plays perfectly. Easy fix, but no thanks to Apple!!!!

Jul 21, 2019 3:15 AM in response to anthony271

Change every song title? You must be joking. I have over 8000 imported from CDs! I did it the easy way. Copied my music library to my Android phone. (I use an iPhone XR for personal use, and an Android phone for business) I just left it copying overnight to a micro SD card and by the morning everything played fine when I put the card into my Galaxy. Apple are shooting themselves in the foot with their attitude. When I change my personal phone, it certainly won’t be an Apple device!

May 1, 2019 5:46 PM in response to annalisk

Anna, this problem was driving me nuts, because I always listen to iTunes at the gym. I'm also not an iCloud subscriber, and the day they make it mandatory (I think that's where there headed, I'm switching to Spotify. I already have an account, so the switch won't be difficult. This problem seems to affect some users, but not everybody, and I don't know why. Everyday less and less of my music was playable. This morning my phone had the out of region message for over 1000 of my songs. I truly believe that the April phone update was responsible, because the problem emerged soon after. It might have something to do wt icloud, or maybe the Meta Text, or data was changed on Apple Music. Honestly I don't know know much about them a do not care, but I wish Apple were more careful wt updates.


The solution I came up with was an accident. I took a chance and deselected every album in iTunes, synched, reselected the music, and synched again. There were still a few problems, so I deselected only the problems, and resynched again, and now it's all good. I think you can just select the artists or albums wt problems, but since it was 75% of my library, it was quicker just to select and get rid of them all. I don't know how long this solution will last, but it might be worth giving it a try.

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Why do songs become unavailable on Apple Music?

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