Why do songs become unavailable on Apple Music?

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Tracks that were once available, may have been retracted by the artist or their record company, temporarily or permanently, for all regions or for selected regions.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.

Wish I could tell you when it occured or if the problem recurred. Don't use the phone for listening to my library but only a back up for my PC library and occasional listening in the car. Only found out when I tried to play a song for someone that was curious about the artist. It did recover (that song) when I re-sync'd with the PC, so I blame the phone software. I have 1700+ songs on the phone so checking the entire library is not feasible, 5 days of listening 24/7. If tracks can be retracted by the artist, record company or from a region that makes a great case against digital music you've "paid" for which seems counterintuitive to the industry. Get the CD then then can't take it back. And has been said some here had their own original music on their phone which was retracted.

And yes, Apple created the problem and hasn't uttered a word (to me) as to why. In my case it wasn't a retraction or regional because the PC worked fine and phone restored after a re-sync. I buy all of my music from Amazon and don't have a cloud account.

When I purchase a song from iTunes after I have made the purchase, I am receiving a message that “this song is not available in your country or region. This has occurred with the last 2 songs I have tried to buy. Please help.

I have the same issue. I loaded new music for my vacation into my phone and cannot access it. What’s weird is there will be 1 or 2 tracks out of say a dozen that are playable. It’s pure crap if you ask me. More of Apple trying to train us to use their subscription services.

I only buy cds and almost never buy streaming or iTunes products, and it blocked me from playing tracks I just recently loaded into iTunes and then on to my phone. With each upgrade I think more and more about getting rid of iOS and Apple, but I’m in so deep with so many devices for both business and personal use. There will be a tipping point if Apple keeps up this crap.

If the message “song not available in your region or country” can be “tricked,” then it would seem it’s a software problem. Apple, are you addressing the hundreds of posts from multiple sites about this issue? Seems like it’s still occurring. That is, unless you expect all of us to ditch all our music and repurchase everything from iTunes...

Agree with the other comments. Apple music has basically destroyed my OWNED music library. Once I synced my device, almost all of my music won't play and comes up as not available in my region. But it's my music that I purchased and loaded or purchased through iTunes. Songs play fine on my computer. Not on the device

100% of my music has been purchased in the US so there is a problem with the app. My device is also a fairly new iPhone. all updates are current. My issue is not with a few songs either. It seems to be a significant % of my music library.

How do you fix this?

I don't think Apple is taking the problem seriously since its been going on now for a long time. I only lost a couple of songs that reappeared when I re-synced (never lost them in iTunes on the PC) but my library is 1400 songs deep, don't have time to verify on the phone that they're working. Not a problem we should have to be worrying about. And yes all my songs came from CDs except for probably 2 dozen or so from Amazon digital download. Of which one of those is one that failed.

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.

Answers stating this is due to songs being updated or withdrawn from Apple music by the artists are incorrect. I am a composer who has uploaded numerous original works to iTunes and then placed them physically on the iPhone, along with other artists work from purchased CDs. Apple does not let me listen to many of my own compositions on the iPhone, giving me this absurd error message. This is a bug, pure and simple, that Apple needs to fix immediately.

Its a bug, you're not the only person to have their own compositions come up with the error. I spoke to Apple support about it, they responded with a bunch of gobbledegook that made no sense to me and since I'd been on the phone with them for over an hour for another problem I wasn't willing to ask for clarification. As said before my problem cleared itself after syncing with iTunes but what it does say is Apple knows of the issue and best I could understand they're blaming it on the record industry. It may be true that the record industry placed some new mandate on them but they clearly haven't implemented the mandate properly.

So, in my case I actually own the physical CDs and it’s telling me this... so I need to reload those songs even though I own the physical copy that I loaded into iTunes originally? That’s absolutely ridiculous

I would certainly agree, but then again... Who T* F* edited it? I have to say, I did not see this issue before I "tried" Apple Music... and I say tried because even with a free trial subscription, the service was abysmal and the most difficult to navigate resource I had ever see (I may as well have been navigating through Unix with command line). And I have thousands and thousands of songs that I LEGALLY purchased, but now that I am travelling in Europe, I cannot modify or add playlists to my iPad. So, the basis of your complaint is totally understood. After all, for songs I purchased via iTunes, and those uploaded from my own CDs, should be available to me to transfer to the iPad or iPhone that I OWN and have registered as authorized devices.

The bottom line is that Apple needs to get its act together and stop implementing "solutions" to problems that never existed. After all, this is not material that I am purchasing individual use licenses for and subsequently trying to use for Public Performances, which negates the issue of International Copyright laws being at play. The company has gone from a tech eco-system that worked seamlessly together, to one of a thousand hiccups and hindrances to law abiding customers. In full honesty, what this feels like is a backdoor attempt, by Apple, to force people into its Music and TV subscription services.

I never, EVER got anywhere near Apple Music.

The vast majority of my library (22K+ songs) is comprised mostly of ripped songs from my own CDS.

Even so, my iPhone has THOUSANDS of greyed out songs with this stupid error.

Add to that the complete messing of album artworks since iOS 13.

Also, the duplication of thousands of my personal photos every time I sync the ****** phone.

Three decades of Mac using later and here I am, seriously considering Windows / Android as the lesser of two evils.

It’s sometimes about music being retracted, but often this seems to be a database issue - a track will be available on Apple Music, playable on my Mac and won’t be available on my phone. Same account, same music, same everything. Libraries just don’t sync well, sometimes. It’s a real shame and apple seems to have done little about this in several years.