Music app not working on iPad / iPadOS 17

A work around… turn off connect Automatically and Ask in airplay and set it to never. Worked for me but when it stops a hard close on music fixes it again. It’s the auto connect that is hanging it I believe.

This started happening right after 17 and I noticed the pop up for HomePod connecting and everything freezes. Turning that off fixed it at least temporarily for me.

UPDATE 12-3-2023: Just an update since so many others are interested. After replying the first time to this thread I've been going back and forth with Apple support on this issue. Eventually they had a sr. advisor call and work with me. They had me screen-record what is happening and also generate and send to them some iPad system logs captured while the issue was occurring. I was told they would send these to a software engineering team to investigate. A few day later (today) I get a callback telling me that Apple acknowledges and is aware of the issue.

Now they are working to track down the root cause (possibly more than one), address the bug, and include in a future iPadOS update as soon as they can. That could be in update 17.1.3 or it could be in a later update, it all depends on how quickly they're able to get to the root, engineer a fix, test the fix.

The one positive here is they seemed to at least acknowledge that there is a bug related to iPadOS 17 combined with the iPad Music app. As noted by someone else on this thread, Music app for other apple device operating systems (iOS, MacOS) doesn't seem to be affected. Fingers crossed for a quick solve. 🙏🏽

The latest update to 17.2 seems to have fixed my music problem. Downloaded it last night and have only had a few chances to test it out. However, so far, no freezes or crashes.

After the factory reset did you immediately restore from a backup? You could try a factory reset and not restore from a backup and see if the Music app works properly.

Yup, I agree. It looks like the iPadOS 17.2 out just today resolved the problem for me. Woohoo...

Having similar issues with music app on iPad 17. Worked for a bit but then essentially broke. Downloaded music is mostly greyed out, cannot access other features such as the radio. Tried most of what has been mentioned here, no luck. Am having better luck with a third party music player app. It does everything I need for playing the downloads in my music library. Doesn’t solve the Music app but at least I can play my music.

I found loading it 3 times will make it work….but then as soon as it plays in the background, well it gets unstable. Tried offloading, resyncing library, restoring from backups. Setting “Automatically Airplay” to NEVER seems to work. I also disabled Handoff. Not sure if the later makes any difference. Bug has been in since IOS 17. Just installed the update last night to 17.1.2 and no difference

Without a doubt ipad OS new update broke apple music in a way i have not seen before. Im using iTunes Match exclusively and it’s a hangfest.

App starts and works, or works few seconds then freezes. Album cover and songs dissapear one moment and reappear another.

Reinstalling the app didnt help.

I have a 2nd-gen iPad, which just automatically updated iOS to 15.8 last night. When I tried to play my Apple Music Playlists in my car (no WiFi connection, Bluetooth to an FM radio adaptor), Music exhibited the same dysfunctional symptoms as described by most other posters in this thread: Music hangs for at least several minutes (or perpetually) at startup; plays anywhere from part of one song to several songs, before completely hanging up, and not playing any more songs until I reboot the iPad. I rebooted the iPad multiple times (and after one reboot, all my playlists completely disappeared from the iPad; Playlists reappeared after I signed back into Apple Music with my Apple ID, separately from signing back into the iPad with my Apple ID, AND after I then rebooted the iPad once more), and I tried signing out of my Apple login, and then signing back in again using App Store (since trying to sign in through the Settings app almost never works). On several occasions, Music displayed an error message to the effect that Music refused to play any of the songs stored on the iPad because the iPad was offline. Well, yes, it is offline when I am driving in my car, and that is the reason I pay $11/mo for Apple Music, so that I can play my downloaded music while I am driving in my 20-year-old car that does not have Apple's automobile client installed. I do not have an iPhone, and my iPad does not have a cell connection, and neither of these connections would be adequate to keep me online while I am driving between cities on a CA interstate highway. Plus, until the iOS automatic update last night, I had successfully played all of the songs in my Playlist sequentially for hours on end while driving with no Internet connection to the iPad whatsoever. It seems clear to me that the update broke the formerly happy configuration (or actual software).

And, yes, I know that my iPad is beyond the 5-year support period for its iOS, and that is probably why 15.8 is the latest iOS that Apple will install on my iPad. However, given that prior to installation of 15.8, Music ran as advertised and as expected on my iPad, I think I am justified in protesting Apple's decision to apply a demonstrably defective update to my iPad. I have now turned off auto updates on the iPad, since it seems like I shouldn't be getting any more at all, according to Apple's update policies.

I suppose it's worth a shot to delete the app and download it again.

Similar experience. 17.2 makes it work. But it’s unstable. It locks up occasionally and force quit and re starting seems to work. Which is better than before but not acceptable especially for Apple.

I'm having the same exact issue, and it's November 16, now. I have uninstalled and reinstalled Music twice. I've cleared the memory in the iPad. I've done a factory reset. I've adjusted every setting in Music, from crossfade to sound check to music quality. Have tried using it both with a wired audio cable and via Bluetooth. Nothing has fixed the issue.

If I'm lucky, I can play one or two songs before it totally craps out again. I just signed up for the Family plan so we could all listen to Music but am reconsidering if I should keep subscribing to Apple Music now. It's fine for my phone, laptop, and CarPlay, but our iPad is the main device we use to stream to our stereo. It's wall-mounted and everything!

I am having a near identical issue with my Daughters iPad, which is a 6th gen iPad running iPadOS 17.1.2 using Apple Music with a family plan.

We noticed that after updating to PadOS 17 that Apple Music would stop playing after 2 songs, if a playlist even load at all, see screenshot below with the playlist artwork greyed out.

I've tried so many things to get it to cooperate, including turning off: Sync library, content restrictions, downtime. I’ve also tried restarting multiple times, removing the Apple Music app, signing out and back in to iCloud.

What makes this even more frustrating is that no other device in the family suffers from this problem. To the point that if I sign into my daughter’s account on another device, it works perfectly.

I’m having the same problem, the app freezes and now ai can’t even play a song. I spoke to apple support and they told me that they are aware of the problem and they are working on it. It’s been several week now. Hopefully they’ll get it fix soon because it’s frustrating not to be able to play my musis.