Issues with purchased songs (iTunes Store) on macOS Big Sur (wrong format, can't burn, can't play)

Hi,

I put some purchased songs (downloaded to my MacBook) in a playlist in order to burn them to disc - this however fails because according to AM (some of) the songs are "Apple Music" content and can't be burned!

Looking closer at what really happened when downloading those purchased songs, I notice that they are not downloaded to the ".../Media/Music" folder as (which is where per default your local music library and bought songs should end up in) but instead they are stored in the ".../Media/Apple Music" folder, which is where songs from the AM service are stored (for offline listening).

So even though I bought the songs in the iTunes Store I still get the copy from the AM streaming service which has DRM on it ... the reason I cannot burn it to disc. Furthermore, looking at the extension of the downloaded song I notice it is "movpkg" (and not "m4a" which I would have expected when downloading from the store). This movpkg file is a so called package, containing the song itself along with extra "metadata"), more proof that I get the wrong copy of the purchased song(s).

As I needed this CD to be burned that day (funeral service) I headed over to my 2013 iMac, stuck at macOS Catalina, downloaded the playlist I created on my MacBook, downloaded the songs as well, attached the CD-Rom drive with a blank CD in it and gave it another try: It worked!!! The songs I bought got burned on a music CD. Thus the short-term, high priority issue solved, but why doesn't it work on my MBP (16", running Big Sur)? Why do I get the DRM version instead of the "free to burn" copy?

I contacted Apple support which resulted in a 2 hour session in which I shared my screen with the expert on the other side. He confirmed that it should work but that, for whatever reason (os update, music app update, ...) things might have gotten messed up on my system. We therefore removed content at various locations on my system (caches and some other "temporary stuff"), double checked whether nothing suspicious was running, rebooted in safe mode to have the OS rebuild some databases and started AM again. After disabling "syncing" and turning of "Apple Music" inside AM's preferences and then creating a new "Music" library, we finally got as far that the purchased songs were retrieved from the store and not from the streaming service - they got downloaded to the "Music" subfolder and had the m4a-extension and could be burned to CD as well. 

Problem solved ...... well, not really: 

Whilst sorting this out, my original "Music" library got trashed and a new one got created in a folder "Music 1". After the session I decided to once more start all over again, trash this "Music 1" library and repeat the last steps in order to create the default directory structure ("Music") and have that populated with content from the correct sources now:

disabling "Apple Music" and "syncing" so no Apple Music streaming content could end up in my local library, 

downloading all my purchased songs from the store

enabling the streaming service again to sync with my music cloud again.

When downloading the purchased songs I noticed that some of them again were in the wrong format (movpkg) at the wrong location (subdirectory "Apple Music"),  other purchased content however did end up in the correct location ("Music") in the correct format ("m4a"). Why?

I tried all kind of "cleaning" up but can't get it to download the correct content. Probably I have forgotten one (or more) of the steps the support guy executed (it was not that trivial). To be honest: this is not what a normal user should be doing in order to get this solved.

I decided to let it rest (hoping it will get fixed sometime) and continued re-enabling the "Apple Music" service and "sync" settings in AM's preferences. All seemed to be OK (except that I knew that I couldn't burn some of my purchased songs - which I do not need to be able to do that often).

I started playing these downloaded songs and noticed that some (but not all!) of them inside the "Apple Music"-tree (movpkg format) would not play at all. The player is stuck at 0 seconds and remains put there. Removing the download solves the problem! Somehow it refuses to play the downloaded song. 

I think Music on Mac ("Apple Music") currently is a real mess - or I must be doing something completely wrong here. It really messed up my bought content with streaming content badly and it is absolutely not easy to get this sorted out.

If somebody else has run into the same kind of problems and/or has a suggestion on how to get it sorted out, please respond to this (much too long) message.

KR,

Jan.