Level 1

28 points

macOS Catalina TV app not showing my iTunes library

I updated my MacBook Pro to 10.15 (Catalina) today and the new TV app isn't showing me my iTunes library, which includes a very large number of movies and TV shows. The Library tab shows empty placeholders for the 18 movies that I had downloaded, but no actual movie thumbnails, just the movie names and an empty box for each one. Oddly, the Watch Now tab shows my recently played and purchased movies and TV shows, and if I search for a movie that I own I get a movie page with a Play button, so it knows I own the movie. I tried signing out and back in to iCloud and rebooting, but nothing helps.

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Oct 8, 2019 8:04 AM

Top-ranking reply

Mark Rudow

Level 1

49 points

Posted on Nov 2, 2019 3:17 PM

I had similar problems and found a solution via apple support call The problem was with my login items. I shutdown and restarted in safe mode. (Hold shift key while restarting until login screen appears) After opening the TV app, all the thumbnails appeared. I then removed my 4 login items (AdGuard, Dropbox, Clean-myMac, and Audio Hijack Scheduler) and restarted in regular mode. All the thumbnails were populated in the TV app. I'll be adding back the startup items one at a time to see which one it is.

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142 replies

Njordy

Level 1

8 points

Feb 7, 2020 4:50 AM in response to earl164

earl164 wrote:

I did not even update to the newest update!

Because it was a OSX TV.app server issue, not exactly OS problem.

bkfoster wrote:

I have 3500 purchased films

I think it might be to do with the size of the library. Thee bigger you got, the longer the wait time.

TadMarshall Author

Level 1

28 points

Feb 8, 2020 5:44 AM in response to joeshong

No progress for me on tvOS (Apple TV 4K) ... I left it sitting on the Library tab in the TV app for a long time, several times, and it continues to say that I haven't purchased anything. It seems to me that this was always a bit flaky ... it would display "You haven't purchased any TV Shows or Movies" for a few seconds and then fill in the library, even before the problems started in macOS. I restarted the Apple TV 4K a few times and logged back in and still nothing.

Feb 10, 2020 1:53 PM in response to TadMarshall

My Apple TV 4K's TV app Library just hangs and spins endlessly. I've left it running for long periods.

In the meantime, TV app Library in macOS Catalina seems to be (mostly) working well. Only problem I've noticed so far is when I try to play certain random episodes of Star Trek:TNG it hangs on the player screen and the logs show a server side error.

bkfoster

Level 1

9 points

Feb 14, 2020 7:08 PM in response to JPQ45

And now some bad news. I updated one Mac to 10.15.4 beta and now NONE of my Macs or PCs can connect to my library again. So either it somehow screws up the fix, or their servers are fritzing again.

Annoying. Anyone else who was able to get to their library now suddenly unable?

bkfoster

Level 1

9 points

Feb 18, 2020 4:48 AM in response to bkfoster

Been a few days and the fix is definitely no longer working. None of my Macs or PCs are able to connect to the library (I see them all greyed out and get the "unable to connect you to your library" message.) Like before, music is unaffected.

Anyone else having this issue?

TadMarshall Author

Level 1

28 points

Feb 18, 2020 5:54 AM in response to bkfoster

The fixes for macOS and iTunes on Windows 10 are still functioning for me ... no reversion so far. My Apple TV 4K continues to be broken (Library tab in TV app says that I haven't purchased anything). So, no change since my last report.

TadMarshall Author

Level 1

28 points

Mar 16, 2020 5:19 PM in response to TadMarshall

iTunes on Windows is broken again. Same as before, it says that it cannot access the iTunes Store. It was continuing to show me cached info, until I signed out of iTunes and signed back in, now it is again showing me only my downloads. It's been about six months since I first reported this.

bkfoster

Level 1

9 points

Mar 17, 2020 1:49 AM in response to TadMarshall

The fix for mine only lasted a week or so, then everything went back to "unable to connect you to your library." Been that way for the last month for me, so whatever they did on the server level, they need to do it again (or revert back to it.) As you all know, this is incredibly frustrating.

Apr 11, 2020 5:47 AM in response to bkfoster

Working on all my Macs now too but when I purchase new content it doesn't show up in the library until the next day. I don't know if its because I need to shut down and restart the Music and TV apps for it to refresh my content or if its just taking that long to sync. Is anyone else experiencing this?

Btw... still not working on Apple TV for me.

Apr 12, 2020 7:32 AM in response to Kerry Holley

I updated to iOS 13.4.1 and iPadOS 13.4.1. That update seems to have broken my library on iPad. It now shows the same as Apple TV. I can see only my Family Sharing and Home Sharing links. No longer shows my Movies and TV content. To try to resolve, I wiped my iPad Pro and started again. Signed out and in a few times. Turned Music 'Sync Library' on and off a few times. I also just let it try to sync overnight thinking it might just be taking a long time. Still nothing. Frustrated that I went a step forward on my Macs but a huge step backwards on my iPad.

Is anyone else experiencing this yet?

UNXADM

Level 1

4 points

Apr 12, 2020 6:54 PM in response to Kerry Holley

I can see my Family Sharing libraries on my iPad but my own library still doesn't load there. It used to load nothing library wise. The TV app on Catalina or any of my Apple TVs still show no libraries. I'm running the latest software releases on all my devices.

On a side note, if I use the Apple TV app on Roku my library and family shared libraries load just fine.

I've had a ticket with Apple open on this since 06/2018 and it was escalated in 2019 to Apples executive team. It's still not resolved for me. I've kind of given up and just use my Roku if I need access to my library.

May 13, 2020 3:53 PM in response to bkfoster

Just in case this helps if you are talking with Apple... Mine luckily is still working. MacOS, iOS, iPadOS but not on tvOS. New purchases annoyingly take a day to show up in my library and still not working on Apple TV box but at least I’m still seeing my full library again many of my devices. I’ll let you know if it also stops working for me.

Oct 8, 2019 8:28 AM in response to TadMarshall

I as well am having the same issue. It's been escalated to the engineers. So if I do hear anything back I'll post here.

Njordy

Level 1

8 points

Oct 23, 2019 8:00 AM in response to Mabaxx

Tried all those methods, nothing worked so far...

P.S. The Music app is fine, and I am able to watch purchased movies if I find it via store.

Oct 23, 2019 9:26 AM in response to Mabaxx

I tried re-authenticating several times and it did not work for me. This is a different issue.

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macOS Catalina TV app not showing my iTunes library