iTunes remote for iPhone dont work with Catalina

Steve Jobs is being missed more and more with every year that passes. He made sure that apple employees and contractors paid attention to the details and gave 100%, sadly the company has lost this value and it does not appear to be regaining it anytime soon :-( Catalina has killed the Remote app, so this function is dead for now, but thankfully i have 2 imacs and I will not be upgrading my second which is still operational!

I believe this is happening with everyone who has upgraded their mobile devices to iOS 13 and their MacOS to Catalina. From my experience, everything was working just fine with the mobile iOS 13 before I upgraded to Catalina. It sounds like there is a bug within Catalina. Hopefully Apple will have a fix with their next MacOS update. For the time being, I can still control all my music with my iMac going out to 3 Apple TV’s and 1 Home Pod. iTunes Remote is connected but has no control of the music.

Please ignore my previous post where I prematurely indicated “problem solved.” As pointed out by others, using the Music app on the iPhone to access the full Music library on the Mac via Home Sharing does NOT provide the functionality that we used to enjoy with the iTunes Remote app. Ugh!

That's great for downloading your music library from your Mac to your Phone and then sending it out to your speakers.

But, that's not the functionality that we are all lamenting losing. We want to *control* the Mac. Not download music from it.

Example:

I used to (pre-Catalina) be able to use Remote to start playing my music from the Mac throughout the house. Then I could walk outside, away from my WiFi, and the music would still be playing after I got back inside.

Now: (playing from the iPhone, in Catalina-times)

I can ONLY play music from my iPhone. Downloaded already, or downloading as playing (as you itemize). So when I walk out of WiFi range, the music stops. Whoever else was listening to it, loses their entertainment.

It's about Remote Control. Not download.

If you are willing to pay for a solution, Roon seems to work fine. After losing this functionality, I have been looking for a solution all week as I want to send lossless audio to my McIntosh DAC. I tested Roon, and it was able to send lossless audio to my Airport Express from my iTunes library without any issues. However, I ended up purchasing a Bluesound Node 2i. With Bluesound, it's actually a step up because it can act as an Airplay speaker, but it can also stream 24/192 bit audio. Bluos connects well to my iTunes library as well as to Amazon's new HD service with contains a lot of 24 bit tracks and lossless 16 bit tracks.

In an odd way, I am happy Remote was broken (if just temporary) as it forced me to look at new solutions and overall, its better since I can now stream hi res which is something Airplay can't do.

Lastly, I will mention that Roon's interface seems better than BluOS so some people use them together, but I didn't find it compelling enough to do both.

for those who might have been hopeful that macOS 10.15.1 update might have a fix...it does not. I also updated to iOS 13.2. No dice. this is both sad and frustrating. As noted in a couple other posts, the Apple Feedback page hasn't even been updated yet to replace iTunes with Music. Still highly encourage everyone who wants this functionality fixed to submit feedback. I submitted mine under macOS https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

Bit of progress...

It does appear to make AirPlay1 devices completely redundant unless you want to control via Mac directly...

Music App can control AppleTV (and other AirPlay2 devices) and not treat iPhone as Master...

Airplay to AppleTV from iPhone and it hands over to AppleTV and uses Music app on iPhone to control - you can kill Music app on iPhone and it’ll will still play on AppleTV and you can reconnect at any point...

Think this is Apple putting AppleTV at the centre and serving AirPlay2 protocol.

I can’t see MacMini from iPhone music app, but can still hand over to AppleTV from MacMini...

Quite annoying as I have 5x AirPlay1 protocol speakers that were controllable and great via iTunes Remote.... music app had rendered them next to useless now as have to manually control vi MacMini as Music App only appears to like AirPlay2 for multi room playback.

Just tried, using Add to Library, re adding a track that was ostensively already in my library. Lo and behold it played plus, curiously so did all the other tracks I'd tried to play earlier. No idea why that should be.

Also tested the remote and it too worked.

The only problem left is that almost all my artwork is no longer displayed. May try re adding the whole collection later, it is very large, will set it running just before I'm off elsewhere. Although just noticed the odd artwork reappearing so perhaps it is working in the background. We shall see.

As a couple of people have pointed out, the Music app on an iPhone can actually manage music playing on a remote system. Not streaming from the iPhone (although of course it can do this as well) or synching via home sharing, but selecting music on the iPhone and then truly handing it off to a server to play. You can drive to the shops and it will carry on playing. Unfortunately the only “servers” this currently works with are Apple TVs, not Mac’s running Catalina.

I’m only pointing this out to show that Apple have implemented the architecture you describe twice, and the Music app version is the shiny new way so it might well be where Apple go next i.e. fixing it to work with Catalina, rather than fixing the old remote app. I hope I’m wrong.

I spent ~two hours on the phone with Apple Tech Support about this. The first gentlemen, while very nice, had a hard time understanding what problem I/ we are having. He, and those seated near him, weren't familiar with the Remote App.

After ~90 minutes, he switched me to someone in their 'creative' department, who knew exactly what we're dealing with. He confirmed that the issue was flagged during Catalina beta testing and will likely get addressed, but couldn't project when. His advice was to be a little patient, but he seemed sincere.

The Remote app functionality is the main reason I purchased so many of the Apple products (e.g., AppleTVs, AirPort Expresses, HomePods) vs. Sonos. It feels like we're getting ripped off. I hope this gets resolved soon.

Someone on this thread commented earlier that the remote app works with music in the new beta upgrade for Catalina... so it is only a matter of time.. hopefully weeks until the public update is released with the fix for remote!

You are correct. Using Retroactive to run iTunes will only work on the iTunes version of a music database. I had to restore a prior iTunes database to run iTunes and Retroactive. The new Music database will not work with iTunes well. You cannot, as far as I can tell, use the same music database with both iTunes and Music without all sorts of issues. I'm continuing to hope that Apple fixes this SOON!.

Same here. When I checked the version history as well as the date of last update on Apple Store it shows that it is still the same version from a year ago and has not been updated. Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but don't waste the night trying to get this load of Apple stuff to work. They have been ignoring our requests for this for the past two months. AND they have removed the feature request/report a problem from the pull down menu. It used to to be there for iTunes but is no longer there for Music.

If anyone is aware of an alternative to Music/iTunes let me know. I am willing to pay as long as it is reasonable, will be and has been in existence for the apparent long haul, and can function side by side with an iPhone.

Having to go this route has irked me to no end. I am not willing to play the apologetics game or wait out in quiet frustration for our lord Apple, to fix it or come up with a solution. I've paid too much for their equipment as it is. I'm not a programmer and I shouldn't have to be just to get simple applications to function properly. I am more than willing to leave Apple Music subscription services as well if I need. I'm not all that jazzed on it these days either.

Thanks for any suggestions, and sorry about the information.

Yep, that's what I did too; including the delete of the Remote app and reinstall. I just disabled Home Sharing so there isn't a duplicate copy of my library in there. Just the manually added one now.

Well… I was able to get my Apple Watch also to work (temporarily)! Here are the steps that took...

1. Turned OFF Firewall on my Mac. YES, the Firewall as @aerosol indicated.
2. Open Remote on my Watch
3. Selected “+ Add Device”
4. Opened Music app on Mac
5. Entered 4-digit code
6. BAM
7. Turn on Firewall, Continued to work!

BUT - Once I went back into Remote on the Apple Watch and reselected the music Library

Calling Apple support now…