Cannot Sign-in to Music and TV App after Catalina 10.15.1

Hi all

Finally found solution without deleting your account. Thanks to Serge Rosenthaler for his reply on another post.

1) sign out of iCloud on your Mac

2) Open Terminal & use the following commands:

sudo -v

***Enter Your Mac Password***

killall -9 accountsd com.apple.iCloudHelper

rm -rf ~/Library/Accounts

killall -9 accountsd com.apple.iCloudHelper

3) restart your Mac

4) Open Music App & sign in to your account (You should sign in to your account)

5) Check your TV & Podcast Apps (You should sign in to your account)

6) Open System Preferences & go to iCloud (You should sign in to your account) just activate iCloud Drive

The post contain solution

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250828009

Solution Found

• >System Preferences>Users & Groups
• Unlock Padlock
• Then click on the + Symbol above the Padlock and a New Account Window opens
• Select Administrator in drop-down
• Use a name similar to your own (I used a shortened version of my first name + my surname)
• enter a new password and note it down
• Press 'Create User'
• Close Padlock and Log Off your original account
• Log back into Catalina 10.15.1. with the new Admin Account
• You will then see a window setting up Mac OS for you as the new Administrator
• Follow through with the setting up during which you will be asked to enter your Apple ID
• Enter your current Apple ID
• You should be able to then sign-in to Apple Music
• Check that all your music is there and I am certain it will be.
• If it is and you are happy with it then you can go back to System Preferences>Users & Groups
• Then delete your old Admin Account, but remember to make sure all the correct permissions are ticked in your new Admin Account before you delete
• Once the old Admin Account has deleted you can then change your new Admin Account password back to the one you prefer

It has worked for me and I can now use Apple Music as it was intended on 10.15.1.

Will be interested to hear how it works for you

I had this problem too. I spent 2.5 hours on the phone with apple and they could not solve it. The 'helpful' solution that involved signing out of icloud, removing the ~/library/accounts folder, rebooting and signing into iCloud again worked like a charm and took all of 5 minutes. Wish I saw this article earlier.

Dear Joey and 'ehabjadalla',

I can confirm this indeed works!

I tried this before but the big mistake I made then was that I first logged into my iCloud (via settings) and only then tried to sign into my services accounts for Apple Music and Apple TV+ - that didn't work.

First signing in on the services and only then into my iCloud (via the System Preferences) did the trick.

Thank you so much for this ....

@Apple: Get this problem sorted out please! This is not the way it should be.

I think I need to clarify a couple of points that I think some of you are having with this issue and with my solution.

You have no need to change your Apple ID, because all of your music is linked to that. 

The problem relates solely to the device user account in 

System Preferences > Users & Groups.

I found that when I had this issue with Apple Music when logged-in on my iMac; that my wife could sign-in to her Apple Music account on my iMac even though she was not logged-in to the iMac. This indicated to me that the problem was not related to Catalina 10.15.1.  

It indicated to me that the problem was related to my Log-in on the device. 

By adding a new Admin Account using my Nick-Name + Surname (instead of First-Name + Surname) and using my same Apple ID on this new account, the issue was gone.

Once you have made another User/Admin Account to log-in to the device/machine; de-authorise Apple Music and then log-out of the device on the old User/Admin Account. 

Then log-in to the device/machine using your new User/Admin Account. Open Apple Music and re-authorise the device/machine. Close Apple Music and re-open it and you should see in the bottom left-hand that it is updating artwork. Let it complete this. When it has finished then you will be able to sign-in to Apple Music and you are set to go. Once Apple Music is working then you can get rid of your old User/Admin Account by going back to System Preferences > Users & Groups and deleting the old User/Admin Account.

To me it doesn’t matter that I am using ‘Fred Bloggs’ instead of ‘Frederick Bloggs’ when I log-in to my device/machine as all my data is still there under my same Apple ID.

Hope this helps!

I have been having the same issue with my iMac and MacBook Pro and after reading a few of the suggestions was inspired....

I just opened 'Music', clicked on accounts on the tool bar, and from the drop down menu selected Authorisations. I de-authorised and then re-authorised both computer and now my Apple Music is working again on both of them.

If it makes any difference, I was able to use my Apple ID to sign into my account, that has never been an issue, it just wouldn't acknowledge i already had an Apple Music subscription or play anything.

Hope it works for others and wasn't just an isolated fluke!

Hello again,

Finally, found a solution for my problem and I don't know if it will work for every one here. It's been mentioned before here by Tom-Bola https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250813754?answerId=251581611022#251581611022

Solution #2: via Terminal commands that reset iCloud. After that sign in to the apps (Music, tv, Podcasts, Books) what should happen without an issue. Then connect to iCloud via system settings.

1- sudo -v

2- Killall -9 accountsd com.apple.iCloudHelper

3- defaults delete MobileMeAccounts

4- rm -rf ~/Libarary/Accounts

5- Killall -9 accountsd com.apple.iCloudHelper

I was experiencing a similar issue (kept getting the repeated request to log into my AppleID in Apple TV app.) What I did that seem to make it happy was the following:

1 - Going to System Preferences

2 - Click on AppleID in the upper right hand

3 - Click on Media & Purchases

4 - Click on "Use TouchID for purchases"

5 - Authorize the request by entering your AppleID.

6 - Go back to the AppleTV app and see if the issue persists.

I have spent hours with apple support (both chat and phone). No-one could help. What did help was:

clean install of Catalina (I have erased my hard drive) and after instal sign in to Apple Music/Podcasts/TV first and after this sign in to iCloud. If you sign to iCloud first, you may have a problem again.

BTW, I think that it's better to try this solution marked as Solved first. To create new admin user, sign in to Music and later delete old user. But if this fails, you can try to clean install. I had all my data on iCloud, so later they all downloaded. But I just lost 2 days to fix this problem.

hi harmoniousAZ,

did you try the other solution:

• signout from iCloud
• kill the accountsd
• remove ~/Library/Accounts
• reboot system
• important step: sign in into Apple Music and Apple TV services
• and then: sign in into your iCloud (preferences —> iCloud)

for me and a lot of other people this really works without the need to create a new account (that is really not a solution).

Please scroll up a bit in this thread and look for the details on the steps, I quickly described here, posted by ehabjadalla

It is very important to first sign in into the services which cause problems (Apple Music and Apple TV) and only then into your iCloud account again!

@Hunter_I, here you go.

sudo -v

***Enter Your Mac Password***

killall -9 accountsd com.apple.iCloudHelper

defaults delete MobileMeAccounts

rm -rf ~/Library/Accounts

killall -9 accountsd com.apple.iCloudHelper

***Should tell you at this point no matching processes found, after that reboot your Mac***

Dear all

I had the same problem. I suspect that you also have two different Apple IDs. One access for Apple, a second one for the store. When I logged in with my second Apple ID for the store, everything works fine now.

Greetings from Switzerland!

I had the same issue after updating with Catalina. I have been on the phone with apple engineers and no-one has fixed the issue. I did find a work around though not ideal. Create a new admin account on your computer. Log into iCloud, install all your programs, update how you want your Mac etc. Go back and erase your previous admin account and ensure it is 100% deleted and nothing stored on your computer. Now you will be able to log into Apple Music and Apple TV....Like I said not ideal, took about 3 hours of reinstalling software on the new user account, uploading everything from iCloud, putting setting back like I wanted but it works....

Additional informations :

I was finally successfully using this method, but for it to work i needed to restart my mac under recovery mode (cmd + R at reboot) and choose "reinstall my mac" (the 2nd item). It didn't erase your data but repair the installation.

Then you can follow the "new account" procedure :

• Create an admin
• Log in, fill you apple account
• ... etc...

Without the reinstallation, the method can fail (that was my case with an apple advisor trying to help me by phone).

It's a long way (very long) but you should be able to log correctly then.

The biggest problem is to get your data back. If you're not easy with this you will have some pain doing it. (specially cause of the files and folder permissions.)

Good luck everyone

I had success today after having this issue. Not sure if it's coincidence but this is what I did after going through the new Apple ID test admin, etc. My set up is Mac, iPhone, company supplied iPhone, iPad and Apple TV.

• signed out of iCloud on all devices but Mac
• changed my Apple ID from 3rd party email to iCloud alias email address (which I forgot you could do)
• went through the process on my Mac, made sure all apps were signed in to iCloud except but left Music, TV and Podcasts sit (didn't sign in).
• Then signed one device at a time and got everything running before moving to the next device (including music, books, TV and Podcast apps)
• Came back to the Mac, deleted the test, alternative Apple ID I had as a test (which was still tied to the third party email)
• Then, signed into the books app (took a second try to sing in) and then Music.
• Everything began synching at that point and Music, TV and Podcasts are up and running.

I never dove in to the terminal for the workaround that worked for others. I played a hunch by using an Apple alias email address, signed out of each device and went one by one, and it worked. Again, maybe pure luck and Apple already did a fix behind the scenes and I got lucky with my timing. Regardless, thought it was worth a share.