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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

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56 replies

Jan 31, 2011 11:01 AM in response to varjak paw

Just curious, does this work for you? It didn't work for me. Do songs released in late 2010 or 2011 work when you try to create a genius playlist with them? i have been having this problem for months now. Updating, resetting, unchecking have all not worked. Others have tried deleting cookies, deleting genius itdb files, but I don't think anyone has solved this issue.

Mar 11, 2011 2:12 PM in response to JoannKB11

Definitely having the same problem. I added a bunch of CDs from the 90's recently (last two/three months) and they will Genius, but I've found it's the songs released in 2010 and 2011 that won't Genius. I've tried all of the "solutions" I've found on the internet and none have worked. BUMMER!!
We can hope Apple reviews these discussions and act on them.

Cheers!

Mar 11, 2011 11:32 PM in response to Brumley

This happens to me with newer songs as well. I couldn't put a timeframe on it if I tried, but songs that are brand new will pretty much always have this happen. I imagine this to be normal, simply because of the fact that there has not been enough data sent from our libraries to the Genius "cloud" to determine what goes with it. Either that, or information is tagged incorrectly.

However, if you have a brand new 2011 song, I wouldn't expect it to work, since there isn't enough data yet to make an accurate genius relationship yet. Not saying that it can't be improved in the future, but thats just where its at now.

Mar 12, 2011 11:18 AM in response to AHXtreme42

Yeah, maybe so, but the bizarre thing is that the for some of my new songs Genius Sidebar will recommend songs the iTunes Store, but won't make mixes or playlist (i.e. 1983 by Neon Trees and Eminem's new album will Genius Sidebar, but won't make playlist.) Hmmm, oh well. Got spoiled with the Genius. Back to old way of putting them together myself. I'm sure it'll work itself out.

Mar 12, 2011 11:35 AM in response to Brumley

Genius doesn't seem to be working for me for any newly released songs after about May of 2010. Old songs bought after May still work. For example, the latest LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A, Belle and Sebastian, Robert Plant Mavis Staples don't work.

Very frustrating.

By the way, is anybody running MP3gain or anything on their purchases? I wonder if because I'm messing with them, Genius isn't recognizing them for some reason. Of course, I've MP3gained my entire library and everything works fine expect the stuff purchased from iTunes released after May of 2010.

Mar 13, 2011 12:30 PM in response to JoannKB11

I was wondering if anyone ever figured this out. I am having the exact same problem and I'm finding it very frustrating (especially as Genius is one of the much-hyped features Apple pushes, and I recently upgraded to an iPod touch from my old iPod classic specifically to use this feature).

The cutoff for me also seems to be any songs that I added to my library after October of last year. The strange thing is that I have even rebuilt my library and these same songs STILL won't "genius" for me (and they aren't rare tracks - Eminem's Love The Way You Lie, Katy Perry's Firework).

If anyone has been able to fix this, I'd love to hear what you did.

Thanks.

Mar 13, 2011 10:59 PM in response to Brumley

Brumley wrote:
Yeah, maybe so, but the bizarre thing is that the for some of my new songs Genius Sidebar will recommend songs the iTunes Store, but won't make mixes or playlist (i.e. 1983 by Neon Trees and Eminem's new album will Genius Sidebar, but won't make playlist.) Hmmm, oh well. Got spoiled with the Genius. Back to old way of putting them together myself. I'm sure it'll work itself out.


It is probably able to do iTunes Store suggestions by using other data like "Other Artists Like This" or "Users Who Bought This Song Also Bought...". For Genius Playlists, I am not sure if they use this data to make a playlist. Instead, I think it relies solely on (or more heavily on) Genius databases, and other users library's cumulatively, which takes some time as people slowly add the song to their libraries.

Apr 15, 2011 1:46 PM in response to roames

I just got a person on the phone from Apple following the Express Lane procedure, but they told me I had to send an email via an online form instead -- walking me through a work-around to get to the form on the website since the Support page points us to Express Lane. Argh! I'm sure I'm not the first one to try this, and I have little hope it will be resolved. I have a shred of hope since Apple still cites Genius as a 'feature' of iTunes, so they must have some expectation that it is useful...

Apr 27, 2011 8:21 AM in response to JoannKB11

I bought 3 songs a few weeks ago and none are yet available for Genius. I have manually updated Genius, turned Genius off and back none, so far nothing is working.


It's ridiclious that music bought in the iTunes store is not already available for Genius when it's bought- the music is coming from Apple for pete's sake! 😠

Genius not available for songs

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