Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Genius not available for songs

Whenever I click the Genius button for any song added to my iTunes in the last six months, I get the message that Genius is not available for that song. These are all songs that I've purchased from ITunes, and I have updated Genius several times.

Genius will still create a playlist based on an old songs in my iTunes, but it seems to not work for anything recently downloaded (i.e., within the last six months). Is this a known bug or is there a fix?

I moved my iTunes library to an external drive last year - I"m not sure if that might have anything to do with it.

Mac, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Jan 31, 2011 9:34 AM

Reply
56 replies

Apr 27, 2011 6:57 PM in response to JoannKB11

I'm having the same problem. I've selected, deselected, turned off/on genius - no luck.


Every song I added to iTunes since 11-Sep-2010, regardless of when it actually came out, will not create a Genius Playlist. I have 4000 songs in iTunes and several of the songs were purchased via iTunes. Of newer songs, they are songs that have been on the top of charts for 3+ months and I have 800+ songs in the same genre. Anybody have any other ideas?

Jul 6, 2011 3:21 AM in response to JoannKB11

I'm happy and sad about this discussion thread. Happy that I've found I am not the only one with this problem. Sad because there's no solution yet.


Apple, surely it's not just the user if all of us have the same problem. Please Help.


To reiterate, Genius playlists won't form after about Sep 10. Sidebar offers Genius suggestions strangley enough. Tried deleting database, installing new library, turning Genius off and on.


When you own 2 iPod Touches, an IPad, an iPhone, and numberous Nanos, it begins to hurt.


Thanks

Dec 10, 2011 12:45 PM in response to JoannKB11

I'm having this issue as well, with very mainstream artists, with music bought from the itunes store. Kanye West, Arcade Fire, etc. It's really, really annoying that there is no solution and no update that helps. It's still touted as one of itunes' biggest features, so to not work for any music in the last year at least is so ridiculous.

May 11, 2012 1:51 PM in response to overwilhelmed

I see your bump and raise it.


My ipod touch has genius playlists, and genius mixes. The songs, however, do not have a genius button on them.

I've updated the ipod software, selected the 'sync selected playlists, artists, albums' option, re-synced and nothing has helped over the last 3 syncs.


I will try turning off genius, turning it back on again and re-synching, again.

May 11, 2012 2:11 PM in response to sakinney

::sarcasm font::

Thanks to all the suggestions to turn off genius and turn it back on again.

Thanks also for the warning that doing so deletes all of your genius mixes and genius playlists in iTunes.

Thanks also for the warning that they don't come back when syncing the ipod touch.

::end sarcasm font::


Oh, and by the way, it didn't bring back the genius buttons on songs on the ipod touch.

Jun 1, 2012 1:12 PM in response to JoannKB11

Well, my system crashed and I moved all of my music to an external hard drive. Then reloaded it to the new computer. The only thing that comes up when using Genius is music I purchased from Itunes. NONE of my other music comes up in the Genius playlist. Totally *****. I think they want you to upload all of your music to ICloud for their $25 fee. It used to work beautifully, and now not at all, no matter how many times I update Genius. I think Apple is just getting too greedy.

Genius not available for songs

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.