Missing iTunes Purchases After Installing iOS 18
In the past, when I deleted a purchased album from my Library, it would automatically appear under Hidden Purchases across all of my devices. If I selected Unhide, that album would appear in the Purchased menu, and I could redownload it to my Library. Alternatively, on my phone, I could redownload a hidden album directly from the Hidden Purchases menu by tapping on the cloud icon.
After installing iOS 18, I noticed that a significantly large number of my Hidden Albums and Songs were missing from Hidden Purchases. Either entire albums or large portions of the albums (i.e. several songs) were simply gone. I looked in Purchased and they were not there either, nor were they in my Library. Looking an affected album up in the iTunes Store confirmed that the album was still available for purchase in my region, and the iTunes Store clearly indicates that I purchased the album and all of the songs on it.
I have tried the following steps to resolve this and make these impacted albums appear again but they do not:
- Sign out/sign in to my Apple Account.
- Sign out/sign in to Media and Services.
- Disable/re-enable Sync Library.
- Disable/re-enable Music in the iCloud menu.
- Power on/off device.
- Force close Music and Settings app.
Nothing is working. I spent 4 hours with an Apple Sr. Advisor who helped troubleshoot this and she confirmed that the 250 songs I had hidden were significantly less than what she saw hidden on her end (closer to 2,000). She tried unhiding the songs, but they did not appear for me when she did this. She wasn't sure what to do.
The issue hasn't been resolved and I am so frustrated with Apple and Apple Support, especially since the Sr. Advisor I just spoke with tonight continued to hint to me that purchasing music was an antiquated practice and that I should just download music from Apple Music instead. "iTunes Store" and "iTunes Match" are "dinosaurs."
Is anyone else experiencing this issue? Is it really just me? It seems to me like something got busted with iTunes Match or syncing in general with iOS 18.
Extremely upset. Worst part is, some "Community Specialist" is going to come here and ask me to try the steps located here: If songs are missing from your music library after you turn on Sync Library - Apple Support or they are going to ask me to do some nonsense troubleshooting steps that I've already done, when the issue is clearly on Apple's end.
For the price I pay for the phone, the music, etc., I can't help but feel this is unacceptable. So frustrating! Please upvote if you are experiencing something like this!
iPhone 16 Pro