Why is Siri unable to play music from my Apple Music library?

Can’t believe this still isn’t fixed.

iOS 17.5 update did the same for me, the first time I've encountered this problem on iPhone SE 2nd gen since purchase in 2020.

I note that it is only the "playlist" command that generates the error, not "play" artist or music.

Tried:

Hard boot.

Created new playlist on macOS and synced over.

Disabled Siri, hard boot, re-abled.

Deleted all music and app (General > iPhone Storage), added app again, tracks appeared though greyed out before syncing. Unable to sync from macOS, claims complete but not done. Hard boot. Same problem unable to sync. Greyed out tracks (all) when selected in app get song not in your library or not available in country. Removed all playlists from iPhone using macOS Finder. Then enabled and synced again this time sync completed. Problem remains only for playlist command.

Searching so far appears to reveal this problem is not widespread and no raft of solutions to try.

Emailed Apple.

Last contact with apple said it is with engineering and tell customer to keep latest updates current. I think it is part of moving shared music to a pay for iCloud function, but have no confirmation of this. Ironic that the iPhone is an evolution of the iPod, and all us old school users are being forsaken for those that want to subscribe to low fidelity streams. So maybe I’ll switch to Apple Music and just buy a phone with less storage?

Same problem here. Also, it seems the latest version of macOS (14.5) has the problem too, though slightly different. On macOS 14.5, none of the smart playlists work with Siri, but some random subset of the regular playlists work, while the rest do not.

On my old 2014 iMac, which runs macOS 11.7.10, all playlists still work perfectly with Siri!

I have the same issue. 17.6 fixed my personal playlists until I connect to CarPlay using a USB cable. But, I also am an Apple Music subscriber so I don’t think that’s the reason why it’s not working.

Great news. I have been suffering from this exact problem: Siri won’t play my iPhone playlists. “Looks like Apple Music can’t play that.“ I once could use CarPlay to play my music, but a few months ago it stopped working.

Well, for me at least as of mid August, 2024, it’s working again. I am on iOS version 17.6.1. I had just spent hours making VLC do what iTunes had been doing, and now it turns out all that effort was unnecessary. No complaints from Apple Music anymore. I just tell Siri to play my playlists, and everything works. I can hear my music through CarPlay and Apple Music in my car again. Yay.

Now Siri is recognizing some of my playlists, but not others. For example:

Listen to playlist Billy Joel 3-5 Stars

"Now playing Billy Joel 3-5 Stars"

Good! It found my playlist and is playing it!

But:

Listen to playlist Beach Boys 3-5 Stars

"Now playing the Beach Boys"

Bad! It didn't find my playlist, and it is playing all songs by the Beach Boys

And:

Listen to playlist Beatles 4-5 Stars

"Now playing the Beatles"

Again, it didn't find my playlist, and it is playing all songs by the Beatles

I’m running 17.6.1 and it doesn’t work at home on the phone either. It will play something, but not what I asked for: it replies “Maybe you wanted….”. and what it plays it maybe be related to the playlist, but it’s not actually the requested playlist.

I suspect this is because they’ve begun lobotomizing Siri in preparation for Apple Intelligence or whatever in iOS 18.0. I’m hopeful that all these problems go away when we get the shiny brand new Siri.

Me too on 17.6.1. Still not working. And in Australia it's illegal to touch your phone unless the car is parked, so can't just pick up my phone and manually select the playlist/ album. Incredibly frustrating to have an essential function inexplicably removed from Car Play.

We’ll add me to the list now. 17.6.1 and now I can no longer move songs from library either cloud or downloaded to a play list.

I created a “Delete” playlist for songs I no longer want/need.

I could simply say “Hey siri, add this song to delete playlist”. And it was done. (Because simply asking to delete from library does not work)

Now I get “Sorry, I can’t find what speaker you’re referring to”.

Oh the joy!

Well this is truly annoying. I am replying to my own post because as of today my “great news” has become invalid. Siri had been playing my playlist through CarPlay, but no more.

Elsewhere in this thread I saw someone has mentioned that Siri would play playlists as long as CarPlay was not involved. I nearly replied that that made no sense because CarPlay simply fed off the iPhone and if the iPhone was working with playlists, certainly CarPlay would as well.

Boy would I have been wrong. Today when I told Siri through CarPlay to play “favorites one“ she replied, “looks like Apple Music can’t do that right now.“ So I turned off the car (I was still parked) and tried again with just the iPhone. I said, “Siri, play favorites one,“ and she replied, “OK, here is Favorites Five.“ Then I started the car and the music stopped coming through the iPhone and began coming through my car speakers.

Bottom line: today Siri will play a playlist for me, but not through CarPlay and not necessarily the playlist I want to hear.

This is really weird.

Because fixing it doesn’t generate 9.99/month. I haven’t tried it, but I believe it is tied to removing playlist functionality from iCloud unless you pay for playlist storage in iCloud. Plus we are a minority. Quantity over quality. The millennials and gen z want everything at their disposal via streaming. 92kbps sample rate is all they’ve ever heard. Then they come to my house and ask why movies and music sound so good. Because it’s not compressed garbage. It’s source material with no compression.

Ok update on my situation.

I said the usual “Hey siri” but instead of saying “move this song to xxxx-playlist”.

I now say “move this song to playlist” then I wait for Siri to ask what playlist, then I say the playlist name. And it works perfectly.

This is the same for playing any of my playlists.

To summarize: I now have to complete an extra step by saying play or move to playlist, then wait for her to ask what playlist. Followed by the appropriate playlist name.

This is for both versions of CarPlay in my cars, one is wireless (BMW iDrive) and wired (Ford sync3).

Hope this helps

Bobulousprime wrote:

Besides not being able to play any playlist, I find that Siri cannot perform functions while any music is playing. 🙄

I find that Siri responds to "Siri, pause" when the Music app (or the Audible app) is playing, and "Siri, play" to resume the same tune (or audiobook).

iOS 17.6.1