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watchOS 6.1: Music on iPhone “Cannot Play This Item”

Hi folks,


Wondering if anyone else experiencing this issue when attempting to play music that is on the iPhone and not on the iWatch (Series 5).


The album details (tracks, artist, etc) appears and are selectable; however, choosing and tracks returns an the above noted error.


Standard reset & repairing performed; still no luck ... was working as expected pre-watchOS 6.1.


Cheers

Apple Watch

Posted on Nov 3, 2019 8:25 AM

Reply
34 replies

Nov 3, 2019 9:32 AM in response to H Gagne

Typos ...


”The album details (tracks, artist, etc) appears and are selectable; however, choosing and tracks returns an the above noted error.”


Should have been ...


”The album details (tracks, artist, etc) appears and are selectable on iWatch; however, choosing a track returns the above noted error.”


Post-watchOS 6.1 update and pre-reset/pair, selecting an album/track would play a track from a different album/artist.

Dec 10, 2019 3:29 PM in response to H Gagne

I'm glad you have mentioned this, as I have the exact same issue, and also found it began with watchOS 6.1.

After what you mentioned here I too can confirm it seems to be when navigating via Artist or Album, but doesn't affect navigating by Song.


I'm installing watchOS 6.1.1 tonight, and will see if I get the same result as you did with it..

Dec 10, 2019 3:35 PM in response to H Gagne

iPhone Xs Max with iWatch 4...

I have 1000 CD's that I have ripped thru iTunes to my phone. I also own a few albums thru thru apple store.

The rips of my CD's give me the error on my watch like everyone else, but the apple store albums play fine.

Being able to pick an "Album" and play it from beginning to end in order is important to me.

I'm tired of having to "Shuffle" the "Artist" to get my music to play.

And with 1000 CD's I'm not going to thumb thru the very long list of "Songs"...

Dec 10, 2019 3:59 PM in response to Automatox

@automatox:


If you can spare a minute, can you post screen captures of the SONG INFO tabs from one of the tracks of an Apple Store Album that plays correctly? All of my MP3 audio files are properly tagged so I'd be curious to match up what I see in iTunes against an actual "working" file as you see it in your iTunes.


... might shed some light as to what could be going on; could be Apple changed how they're handling tags (album artist, etc.) or file format (LAME, ID3Tag version, etc.).

Dec 11, 2019 3:00 AM in response to H Gagne

Here is an example of an album I purchased due to it not being available on physical CD.

It plays from the watch when selected as an "Album", but note that I did change the tag a while back so that it would bunch Soundtracks under z-soundtracks putting soundtracks at the end of my collection where I wanted them to be.

What you suggested about tagging has crossed my mind. I do go in and edit some of my tags for various reasons sometimes (like deleting "The" from "The Cars" for instance). I also use an older program called iCoverArt to embed album art when I add a lot of CD's at once. When Apple cant find the albums artwork I will embed from the Amazon website CD cover pic.

Please let me know if you discover anything...


Dec 11, 2019 6:44 AM in response to Automatox

Hmmm ... does that mean that the audio files *are never* downloaded to your device? If you right-click on a file in Windows iTunes, is there a menu option to locate the file(s) on your device?


If you run a metadata viewer/editor (ex: TagScanner, etc.) what audio file details are reported? Would be interesting to know the audio File tab information (bitrate, channels, encoder, etc.)


What's your process to get the files onto your iPhone; I typically select the album(s) and drag-and-drop to the connected iDevice in iTunes.

Dec 11, 2019 7:04 AM in response to Automatox

Thanks!


When you can spare a moment, use an metadata viewer/editor (ex: TagScanner, etc.) to view all of the .M4A file metadata ... assuming the file isn't DRM'ed by Apple.


Since the problem is reproducible on macOS, Windows, and the latest iTunes on either platform, I suspect the .MP3 metadata libraries were either revised (or broken) on iOS and/or watchOS.

watchOS 6.1: Music on iPhone “Cannot Play This Item”

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