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

Mar 24, 2013 10:39 PM in response to mglythgoe

Genius is currently unavailable for the following artists in my library:
AC/DC


Alanis Morissette

The B-52's

Bush

Coldplay

Daughtry

Devo

The Dirty Heads

Elvis Presley

The Fray

Goo Goo Dolls

Jane's Addiction

Justin Bieber

Justin Timberlake

Kanye West
Katy Perry

Kelly Clarkson

The Miller Stain Limit

Mindless Self Indulgence

Pennywise

Poison

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

Silversun Pickups

The Smashing Pumpkins

The Strokes

Jun 17, 2013 7:27 AM in response to JoannKB11

Figured I'd just add to the chorus rather than starting a new thread. Genius has become extremely finicky since I updated to iTunes 11. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to what songs it will work with and what it will not; some songs that USED to work no longer do, some songs that work one day won't work after an update, the playlists seem to be selecting from an EXTREMELY limited pool of the music in my library, and there seems to be no corellation between age of the track in my library & working or not.


This is driving me nuts; I work in an environment where I need to have music on constantly but don't have much time to futz around with creating playlists, so genius has been a lifesaver. Has anyone had any sort of real response from apple, or found any method to get things working again?

Sep 7, 2013 6:27 PM in response to JoannKB11

I will add a ditto on this and 6 more for the friend I spent a week with on vacation. Also CJ, Craig, Jen, and Tina at work with the same problem. Songs that used to create lists no longer work and so few songs actually work any more that Genuis is now a worthless non-functional feature! Are you listening Apple support? (Yes a cross post, but hopefully to a more active thread.)

Sep 28, 2013 12:02 PM in response to Jeremy Banana

All the songs of Jeremy Banana's in my library also have this error. So clearly it's not user-specific. I'm discovering many, many other artists whose songs cannot be used for Genius playlists. This is really poor.


The extremely odd thing is that I HAVE been able to create a Genius playlist for AC/DC on my linked iPhone! So, same songs, same account, different behavior. But just to stay infuriating, synchronizing the iPhone does not result in that playlist being transferred back to my main iTunes library.


This is Microsoft-level incompetence.

Dec 14, 2013 8:14 AM in response to CleverGirlDC

So my woe with this.


I don't often need to call Apple, but probably a handful of times in ten years, but this has really irritated me. Genius used to work great. Now it doesn't. In my case it works as it always did for anything more than two years old, whether it came from CD or has been an iTunes purchase. After that, it is hit and miss, and anything from the past year it doesn't do. I made a call to Apple support a fortnight ago, and after we had turned the Genius on and off, de-authorised and re-authorised, they suggested reinstalling iTunes, and Genius then worked. It generated a playlist from a song from the AM by the Arctic Monkeys. I didn't try any others.


Now I came to generate another playlist today, and it doesn't work again. Except, get this, it does work for the specific song, and only that song from the AM album.


I then spent 2 hours on the phone to Apple Techs was escalated, twice, and diagnostics have now gone off. We tried it on different Macs, different users, same results. Tech said it must be either a bug in iTunes, or a server-side bug at Apple.


I get a report back in four days - so I will post if it is of any use. Really frustrating. If anyone has the solution to this please post it!

Jan 28, 2014 2:13 AM in response to JoannKB11

Ok so we're now into 2014 and the issue remains the same. I have tried switching of genius and turning it back on again and all the other reccommendations but still no joy for songs purchased from iTunes..........I'd understand it if it was albums that weren't purchased. Songs that haven't had enough plays? I don't think so.


I hope someone finds a solution soon as I'm starting to see the downside of my decision to choose apple.

Jan 28, 2014 6:41 AM in response to Triple-B

I agree. I have easily wasted 20-30 hrs going through and trying all the tips and fixes from Apple and others and still nothing.


None of us(those I listed in my past) have been able to Recover Genius and make it work. Any suggestions on whose service to switch that has a good Genius like function?


I have seen some stuff online that Android has a genius function that works...

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Genius not available for songs

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