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User profile for user: adr150
adr150 Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Music Playback Error: "This song is not currently available in your country or region."

The album art on m phone was displaying the artwork for a one podcast on every song that didn't have album art associated with it. So I deleted the app, per this thread's advice:


Album art displays incorrectly - Apple Community


That worked to fix the issue of album art displaying incorrectly, but when you delete the app you have to re-synch the music. In doing that, many of the songs that I'm synching - from files on my drive (not from the apple music service) - have become unplayable. It seems to be more recently added songs, but not entirely so.


I was having this same problem several years ago, but somehow they all eventually got synched properly to my phone.


I also noticed that it seems to be the case that all of the songs that are showing as backed up to icloud are playable and none of the ones that aren't will play. Not sure why that should matter - I just want to play the songs on my phone and don't care if they're backed up or not (for the purposes of playback).


Any advice is appreciated!


Using iphone 14 pro (ios 16.5.1), Macbook Air (M1, 2020; Ventura 13.3.1)

iPhone 14 Pro

Posted on Jul 10, 2023 6:03 AM

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User profile for user: adr150
adr150 Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Posted on Jul 11, 2023 12:00 PM

I seem to have figured it out:


When the song meta-data gets changed/updated, that seems to prompt it to be re-synched and actually get it onto the iphone so it can be played.


In the music app, I selected 'Songs' in the sidebar, clicked on a song and did command+a to select all. Then I right clicked and brought up the 'Get info' window and in the comments just added a space (could be any character or update to any field, but I don't have any use for comments so that seemed like the most innocuous change to make to every song in my library).


Then I connected my phone to my computer, opened the finder, selected my phone and hit 'sync'. It took about 20 minutes, but it completely fixed the issue and now I can play every song and don't get that ridiculous error message.


[it is ridiculous that apple hasn't fixed this issue after all these years of it cropping up. there are tons of support threads on this, youtube vids and sketchy 3rd party sites that purport to solve this, but none of them do. at the very least, the error message should actually describe the issue at hand - it isn't a regional issue. much of the advice out there is about disabling vpn or turning off cellular for auto app updates. the error message should contain actual actionable information!]


hopefully this helps someone else that is having the same issue!

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User profile for user: adr150
adr150 Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Jul 11, 2023 12:00 PM in response to adr150

I seem to have figured it out:


When the song meta-data gets changed/updated, that seems to prompt it to be re-synched and actually get it onto the iphone so it can be played.


In the music app, I selected 'Songs' in the sidebar, clicked on a song and did command+a to select all. Then I right clicked and brought up the 'Get info' window and in the comments just added a space (could be any character or update to any field, but I don't have any use for comments so that seemed like the most innocuous change to make to every song in my library).


Then I connected my phone to my computer, opened the finder, selected my phone and hit 'sync'. It took about 20 minutes, but it completely fixed the issue and now I can play every song and don't get that ridiculous error message.


[it is ridiculous that apple hasn't fixed this issue after all these years of it cropping up. there are tons of support threads on this, youtube vids and sketchy 3rd party sites that purport to solve this, but none of them do. at the very least, the error message should actually describe the issue at hand - it isn't a regional issue. much of the advice out there is about disabling vpn or turning off cellular for auto app updates. the error message should contain actual actionable information!]


hopefully this helps someone else that is having the same issue!

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User profile for user: LonesomeMac
LonesomeMac
User level: Level 1
8 points

Jul 12, 2023 1:34 PM in response to adr150

Thank you, I will try that for my own problem. I agree that it is a long-standing problem; for me, it has gone on for at least five years I can remember. I believe, but I am not certain, that my problem is related to iTunes Match, which I have kept using because I have such a large library of Purchased Music, and I don’t want to lose access to it as things progressively move to the cloud.

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Music Playback Error: "This song is not currently available in your country or region."

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