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Apple Music stopping after 15 seconds. Error code 16833

After the spatial Audio launch today, songs only play for 15 seconds and then cut off.

i got error code (-16833)


anyone help?

iPhone 12 Pro Max

Posted on Jun 8, 2021 1:48 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jun 16, 2021 2:00 AM

Even if i turn off dolby and reinstall my music it doesn't work...

this is pretty unacceptable of apple, people pay for this stuff...

idc about the spacial audio or losless audio, but if this problem isn't recognized any time soon, I might switch to spotify or deezer. Just want to listen to my songs offline

249 replies

Jul 14, 2021 3:39 PM in response to the_fury_2000

Been through a few hours of troubleshooting with Apple chat. Have the issue on three seperate devices (2 iphones, 1 iPad Pro). None of the steps suggested work (logging out and in of icloud, redownloading music, disabling atmos/lossless, reinstalling iOS from factory settings).


I am about to jump ship from apple to android, my S21 gives me less issues that the more recent software updates from Apple. Love apple stuff but this bug has been present for a few months now and still unable to use Apple music.


The problem mostly arises when actually offline in airplane mode. I rarely experience it when connected. Unfortunately my job keeps me offline many days. They have my issue with their level two tech support and he is reviewing my case and will respond via email so fingers crossed, its been a few days and they sent me a response stating they are still reviewing the issue.


I'm surprised there hasn't been any statement on the bug, it seems pretty widespread.

Jul 15, 2021 11:06 PM in response to raytsh

It is very interesting , at the beginning turning Dolby atmos off worked for me but yet it doesn’t. Even though songs downloaded it drains the mobile internet …..

My reason coming back to Apple Music After long time was the high losses music Dolby atmos was another plus. If it doesn’t fix soon I’m not sure that I will renew my subscription.

Jul 16, 2021 8:13 PM in response to the_fury_2000

Yep, this happens to me. The only way I can get it to work is to allow downloads in Dolby Atmos, add the track to my library, download it, and THEN listen to it. What a PIA. I was reasonably excited to try out Dolby Atmos but this bug makes the experience already too annoying. Hopefully it’s fixed or Atmos is not something I will be caring about and I’ll just leave it off, or worse comes to worse go back to Spotify. They have lossless coming soon too. (Connected to my home wireless network on an iPhone 12 btw)

Jul 17, 2021 10:48 AM in response to the_fury_2000

I’m cancelling my apple music subscription.


Logged out and in of apple ID (worked for 10 minutes), turned off Dolby Atmos, jumped the 15 second mark of songs (only works sometimes), logged on and off of wifi and cellular data, restarted the app, restarted my phone, disconnected bluetooth. Done, lmao.


Spotify is better at music suggestions than Apple Music anyways.

Jul 17, 2021 9:41 PM in response to conundrum-cutie

I feel your pain. I am so fing upset. Apple speaks of privacy but this bugs reveals they are as guilty of violation. Bring us high handed speeches and bravado but you are the same. Money trumps privacy. It is a matter of how sneaky you are. The 15 second bug clearly shows that we are being monitored. If the misic kept going then maybe we are okay. Now you are in Lawyer territory! Tim Cook should take this one as personal!



Jul 18, 2021 6:01 AM in response to the_fury_2000

Before anyone contacts, customer support about this problem, read this carefully.


I'm writing about my worst ever customer support experience. What was even more disappointing is that it came from Apple.


So a while ago, I decided to use the educational discount and switch from Spotify to Apple, so I began by moving my entire library from Spotify to Apple Music. After downloading 7.7GB of my 22GB library, all I wanted was to listen to music when I'm out.


The next day I was trying to do while I'm out and the music just keeps stopping and not playing, I noticed that it stops after 15 seconds, I googled around and found a question on you support community that had a bunch of solution that didn't work for me (not only me btw)


So I thought that the best thing was to contact a customer support member, and here comes Kavita, and she gave me the worst customer support experience I've ever had in my life.


My chat with Kavita was a never-ending loop of repeating ourselves. She never once took a moment to either understand the problem or what I was telling her, even though I asked her that multiple times throughout the conversation.



here's what happened: Kavita told me to "Remove and re-download the affected content." to which I said, "OH NO! that's 22 GB! No way I'm doing that :(" followed by "I live in Egypt, internet here is slow & expensive at the same time you know."



But Kavita told me that I don't have to delete my entire library. I can only delete a few songs, so I did what she told me. I deleted one of the affected songs, and then I turned off "Sync Library" based on what she asked me to do.

I turned the "Sync Library" option on again, following her steps, only to find out that my entire music library is gone! I checked "Downloaded Music," and it shows "Zero KB," and just to make sure, I checked "iPhone Storage," and I couldn't find any music there, and there shows up my 7.7 free space!



At this point, I knew that my entire library was deleted and I'll have to download it again, so I asked Kavita, and she kept reading herself so confidently that my music library will be back as normal. Even after asking her a simple yes/no question, she had no doubt about it.


Once I was 100% sure that this conversation wouldn't use anywhere, I politely asked her to transfer me to someone else.


And then she transferred me to Agatha. Following Agatha's steps really worked in getting back my music library to show up, but I would still have to download it all over again!


At this point, I was boiling! I wasted at least 2 hours organizing my library on Apple Music, then 7.7GB (that's around 8hours), and not only I couldn't listen to the music, but I also wasted a full hour having this conversation that resulted. In deleting my entire library!


Apple, is your customer's time a joke? Why would you hire such unqualified customer support agents that end up wasting your customer's time and making their problems worse! This is not acceptable at all, my entire day was ruined today, and I'm never leaving Spotify for Apple Music ever again.

Jul 18, 2021 6:21 AM in response to goldendel1

Indeed. It is an announced fix in 14.7. Can’t come soon enough. Apple really should have owned up to the issue though. They forwarded me to their high level get support who promised a solution via email in a few days. They never got back to me. Looks like they hole people just forgot about it until the update came out. Trying to save face I suppose. Here’s the link to the feature update. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.republicworld.com/amp/technology-news/mobile/apple-ios-14-dot-7-is-coming-soon-to-introduce-magsafe-battery-pack-support-for-iphone-12.html



Jul 19, 2021 3:47 PM in response to Philament23

Just updated to iOS 14.7 and so far Apple Music with lossless is rock solid. I tried airplane mode and no problems at all. Tried moving ahead in songs- this used to crash it sometimes- no problems. Tried jumping around from song to song, no problems. Etc. It seems they've addressed the issues. Of course, like everyone, I wish there were never issues to address, and they would have gotten this out faster, but then again I have no idea all the things they are dealing with. So thank you to Apple for addressing it and now we can get on and enjoy the music.

Apple Music stopping after 15 seconds. Error code 16833

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