Music App - Search error: "Something went wrong. Please try again later."

As of October 17, 2024, this is what Apple Support terms an "emerging issue" that they are aware of. I have always raised this issue with Apple Support, gotten the issue escalated and a specialist is now assigned to this case. I will hear back from them later on today as to the results.

Some people are noting that this is resolved with an upgrade to Sequoia, which I also have seen on another of my Macs. However, being able to search on more than one keyword is a very basic feature of any search engine, so this really does need to be fixed on Sonoma as well. I've already expressed this to Apple Support, so they are aware of the matter. Let's hope we see some action on the part of the engineers.

An upgrade is not a fix. Why should we have to take the time and go to the trouble of upgrading the entire OS just to patch this oversight, a bug on the part of Apple engineers?

As a side note, the tier 1 Apple Support staff were sadly pretty useless. I had three people ask me whether I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Apple Music. They should know better... Apple Music is integrated with macOS and cannot be deleted easily like many other apps.

Reporting back on October 26, 2024 and confirming—as others have—that the problem appears to be resolved. 👍🏻 🎉

I used the same test cases as before, and it's working now. So this tells us that it was indeed a backend issue, since no Music app or macOS update was required.

I will update (and close, if I can) my Feedback report with Apple.

Relieved that this super important issue has been fixed, and it only needed to be fixed on Apple's server end!

Yes, finally working for me.

I had to quit and launch the Music app for it to take effect but searching is back!

By chance that a friend shared some music with me, I started using https://music.apple.com/ and no problem. I find it almost more practical 😅 than the Lourds client, the only problem being that there's no equaliser

Hi. This sounds like the same problem I've been having.

I have noticed that the search function WILL work if it's restricted to one word.

For instance the artist Zachary Williams doesn't appear as a preview but if you search for 'Zachary' search will work and bring up a whole bunch of artists with Zachary in their name of which the above is one.

It's not ideal but at least you can access music and artists that don't appear as previews in search.

I have this issue also - but I found it happens when you search for less well known artists. Could be a coincidence, but that is when I find it happens for me.

This certainly seems to be the case. If I search for "the Beatles" or "Taylor Swift" I get search results, however if I search for "black asteroid" I get the error.

This suggests to me that there may be some kind of caching that is happening in front of the request (maybe even in the app itself to save it a round trip?), because the majority of users search for more common artists.

The less frequent searches for lesser known artists get past on to the search service, and that service fails, is broken, or maybe just doesn't exist.

Update: I just added this to my Feedback Assistant report just to provide more clues. Not that anyone is reading it, but at least it's there. 😉

Interesting thoughts about the caching of the single-word searches. I hadn't imagined that they would do that, but it seems to make sense, as the search function in the Apple Music desktop app does do a "live search" as you're typing, which indicates that JavaScript is likely at play (would this be AJAX?). As you mentioned, the Web app and desktop app may be passing common or popular searches on to an Apple Music Web server that handles such, but less common searches are perhaps passed on to a different service. The query to the latter service is apparently failing on Sonoma. This suggests that they changed the server-side code from Sequoia, but failed to update the client-side query in Sonoma to match the new server-side code.

Maybe.

I also confirmed today that it's not just multiple keywords searches, but also uncommon single keyword searches that throw the generic "Something went wrong. Please try again later." error.

Also, about Feedback Assistant, I used that for several cases, but it seems that Apple never updates the status on anything there, even though internally they may be referring to user feedback. They probably just designed the tool thinking it was a good idea (or based on complaints from users around the world and a request from upper management to get their act together), but the devs likely don't have the time to update the feedback themselves. I surmise this based on my own experience in the software development sector. With larger firms and projects, the devs themselves don't usually take on the role of client-facing dialogue and responding personally to feedback—they just don't have the time. Apple doesn't seem to have linked their own support organization with the Feedback Assistant tool, which is why customers like us see the disconnect and experience the defunctness of it all.

Anyway, it's nothing we can do anything about, except to complain using the Product Feedback and Support channels, and assume that Apple will eventually post a fix in an upcoming update for Sonoma... unless we want to go all the way and upgrade to Sequoia, of course.

jchapper wrote:

Apple is likely not reading this, as it's a user forum. Please contact Apple Support or send feedback via the Product Feedback form to add your voice to the case.

OK, so I have submitted my own description of the problem as feedback and linked to this thread in the comment; it only took a couple of minutes. We all ought to be letting Apple know about this if we're paying subscribers to Apple Music.

Also, thanks to others in this thread for the temporary workaround advice to use the web interface to search and then click 'Open in Music'.

I have the same issue on macOS 14.6.1. One temp workaround I've found is to use music.apple.com to search for specific albums and then open them in the app for higher-quality playback.

Hi,

Can you update to MacOs 15 Sequoia. This may solve your problem. I don't have search problems noted in the various post which seem to be affecting users on Sonoma.

Jim

Same issue, started today, but only on MacBook Air, not my iPhone which is fine.

Just yesterday signed up for Apple Music+ and search was fine. Weird.

Tried the one word search and it worked, but worthless when first and last name are common w/hundreds of results.

Frustrating, hoping Apple is working on a fix.

In the meantime, I'll try updating system from Sonoma 14.4.1 to Sequoia 15.0.1 to see if that helps. If so, I'll post results.

I have the same problem on my iMac macOS 14.7 and Mac mini macOS 14.7. It doesn't appear on my MacBook Air M1 with macOS 15.0.1.

One word searching is a workaround for me since I use the Mac mini as a streamer connected via USB to my Hegel amplifier. I hope this gets fixed.

I'm having this issue as well on my macOS, started a few days ago. Works fine on the web app and on my iphone ios. I've tried sign out and in and restart my mac, but no luck. I guess installing the new Sequoia OS will probably fix it.

Same here, on 14.6.1 (Sonoma). Just to note that the typical "fixes" (reboot your computer; log out of Apple Music and log back in) don't do anything to solve the problem, they'll just waste your time and bandwidth when you log out and log back in.

i am having the same issues, i'm running sonoma (14.2.1) on my M1Pro macbook pro and i cant use the seacrh bar on apple music at all. i can play music on recommended tabs, or go to artist's page from players. i'm gonna try to update my os to seqouia and see what happens