New Thread -- Genius is Unavailable for the Song ... (New songs bought ITS)

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Level 1

9 points

New Thread -- Genius is Unavailable for the Song ... (New songs bought ITS)

Hello,
I am on iTunes 10.1.2(17). I have noticed for at least a couple months now that when I buy new songs from iTunes Music Store and try to get a genius list from them, I get the message "Genius is Not available for the song..." I have looked at all earlier posts, tried checking and unchecking all songs, and all previous fixes, but nothing works.

This is nothing off the beaten tracks. Top 20 hits. Example "Hold My Hand" Michael Jackson and Akon, and "Forget You" Cee Lo Green. So it strikes me that there should be lots of data to make Genius playlists. It seems to me that songs that are newly released are the ones having issues.

Any suggestions?

iMac Core Duo, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Feb 4, 2011 6:47 PM

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Answer 1

Feb 5, 2011 4:02 AM in response to roames

Genius works of iTunes reading other peoples playlists and playing habits to create recommendations.
If songs are new then they will not be in many playlists yet or not have been played as much as older tracks, also Genius is only updated once a week so the information will not have been collected about the new songs from other peoples iTunes libraries yet.

Every week your computer sends information about your playlist and music listening up to the iTunes store, this is then merged with everyone else's information and this is then used to provide Genius recommendations. With new music it takes a while for enough information to be compiled to provide the Genius recommendations. Just wait a week or so.

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Answer 2

Feb 8, 2011 1:30 PM in response to roames

From what I can tell Genius hasn't been working for songs that have been released since April of last year. For example all Glee songs up to the episode ****-O work, but starting with The Power Of Madonna they no longer do. But it's not just Glee. It's every song released past that date, does not matter when I purchased it, just when it was actually released.

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Answer 3

Feb 16, 2011 7:20 PM in response to roames

I am having a similar issue. there is a song in my itunes library (released May 2009) that I was at one time able to make a genius playlist with. Now, when I attempt to make a playlist from it, it says "genius is unavailable", when just a couple weeks ago, it had no problem.

Also, I have this same song on my iPhone. The playlist gets created no problem. All the songs on the iPhone came from my computers iTunes library. So it seems odd that the iPhone, with only a fraction of the songs on it, would be able to do what the computer cannot. Not sure if the latest update is affecting this or not.

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Answer 4

Mar 4, 2011 6:09 AM in response to agingiss

I have the exact same problem. I have had minor issues with songs ripped from cds in the past, but these are songs that I have bought from the itunes store. After extensive googling I can't seem to find a solution.

Message was edited by: WickedShamrock

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Answer 5

carman11

Level 1

0 points

Apr 8, 2011 6:50 AM in response to Carms

I've had exactly the same problem. Most of my music from Sept 2010 onwards won't create any sort of Genius playlist. That includes new releases in 2011. I seem to have found it affects only Alternative genre stuff.
I've been in touch with Apple and all they say is that it must be a problem with my library content. Despite most of my content being the Alternative genre.
Anyone found any solutions?

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Answer 6

Apr 8, 2011 8:42 AM in response to WickedShamrock

You will only get Genius suggestions if other people have used the tracks you have bought in playlists on their computers.

Genius works like this:

1. People buy or RIP music from CDs into iTunes.

2. Every week iTunes passes the information about what is in your playlists (and millions of other users) up to the Apple iTunes Genius servers.

3. Apple's Genius servers then analyse the playlist data of these millions of users and look at what music people are putting together in playlists. If the music you have purchased has not been put into playlists by very many people Apple does not get enough info about it to make Genius suggestions for it.

4. Apple sends a file to your computer every week which contains links between music that it has determined from the playlist info it has collected from millions of other users (above), if your purchased track has not be used in many playlists of other users then you will find that you can't get a Genius suggestion for it.

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Answer 7

Carms

Level 1

10 points

Apr 8, 2011 10:41 AM in response to Ian Parkinson

Thank you. I am familiar with how the genius feature is supposed to work.

You did not answer my question, though. Have you tried this feature with some relatively current music?

I will readily admit that the music I listen to may be more obscure than some people. For example many had not heard of the Arcade Fire when they won an Emmy this year. But, that being said, I do believe that many people have bought, listened to, and sent this information to Apple since the release of their album, the Suburbs. This is just one example of songs that do not work with the genius feature as you have described. Other obscure albums such as the LCD Soundsystem's "This is Happening" do not work in this way.

Another obscure band named the Beatles finally made it into the iTunes Store in the latter half of 2010 and their albums (even though they were released some time ago, I think) do not seem to work with the genius feature. I would recommend trying it yourself. I just tried with a more well known title called "I Want to Hold your Hand" (hoping that a few more people using iTunes may have listened to this song) and it did not work. Perhaps another more popular tune (or one that people haven't tired of) would work better, as you suggest, but i don't think so.

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Answer 8

Apr 8, 2011 11:21 AM in response to Carms

Clearly you are not familiar with how it works.
The tracks you mention may be popular but UNLESS they have been placed in playlists created by users along side other tracks then they will NOT appear in Genius mixes.

Tracks I have purchased in the last month all work with Genius:

Eliza Dolittle - Skinny Genes
Adele - Chasing Pavements

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Answer 9

Carms

Level 1

10 points

Apr 8, 2011 12:01 PM in response to Ian Parkinson

Clearly, you cannot read. RECENTLY RELEASED.

Eliza Dolittle - Skinny Genes - Released April 11, 2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinny_Genes

Adele - Chasing Pavements - Released January 11, 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_Pavements

Try again.

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Answer 10

lunica77

Level 1

0 points

Apr 17, 2011 11:37 PM in response to roames

I have noticed the same thing. Genius has not worked for any songs released in the last year and I have purchased several albums. I think Apple has to look into changing the way they come up with Genius playlists. If it is off of other people's listening habits it isn't quite working. Maybe they should go off purchasing habits or like minded artist. I have Zune software on my computer too and when I want a "quick" way to make a playlist off a current song I use that instead but I rather not since I have an iphone and ipod.

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Answer 11

Apr 20, 2011 12:06 PM in response to roames

Same issue here. For me it's nothing that was newly released after April 2010. I don't believe this has anything to do with there being insufficient data. I believe the database simply hasn't updated. Not sure why this hasn't become a bigger deal - it's a feature that they tout in some iPhone ads.

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Answer 12

Apr 24, 2011 6:47 PM in response to roames

I had the same problem and have massive trouble believing that there are not enough playlists for some of these albums. For me the latest album to work is Swim, by Caribou (released 19 April 2010). Nothing released after April 2010 is working for me with genius.

I get the "Genius is unavailable for the song ..." message for all the following (all bought in iTunes - sometimes whole album, others just a few songs):

The National - High Velvet - released 10 May 2010

The Black Keys - Brothers - 17 May 2010

Dark Night of the Soul - Dangermouse and Sparklehorse - 9 July 2010

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs - 2 August 2010

Maximum Balloon - Maximum Balloon - 10 September 2010

Edwyn Collins - Losing Sleep - 20 September 2010

Mark Ronson & The Business International - Record Collection - 24 September 2010

Belle and Sebastian - Write About Love (Bonus Track Version) - 8 October 2010

Warpaint - The Fool - 22 October 2010

Take That - Progress - 15 November 2010

Lady GaGa - Born This Way (Single) - 11 February 2011

Before that, even obscure albums (eg The Ruby Suns, Fight Softly (1 March 2010)) work fine. Strangely, genius used to make a playlist for me with the song Bloodbuzz Ohio,

by The National, which I downloaded from the band's website shortly after release (24 March 2010). But after I bought the whole album High Violet, both the single and the album stopped working.

I called Apple Support about it and got escalated one step up the chain. The guy explained that genius works on a combination of local and global information, local being information from my computer, and it needs local information before it can make a playlist. I asked him if that meant that genius could work for someone else, but not for me, on the same song, and he said yes. He said I need to just keep playing the songs and updating genius. Well I bought the Arcade Fire and The National shortly after release and have played them close to 40 times each, and have now even made special playlists to try to train my iTunes to know what I think goes with these songs. I just can't believe there's not enough local or global information to make a genius playlist with these songs. It doesn't explain why a song used to work but no longer does. Plus the suggestion that I need local data before genius will work is not correct. I just bought Jailbird by Primal Scream (a 1994 release) and before playing it I updated genius. It then created a genius playlist just fine, despite it never having been played locally.

Genius has been a big reason I've bought off iTunes rather than going for some kind of subscription service, but I've been waiting for updates for such a long time now and it seems like some bug has frozen it for all songs over about the last year, or Apple has just stopped bothering to update it. It is frustrating getting unconvincing answers from Apple Support. If anyone has any of these working, or gets any decent information from Apple Support, please post here.

MacBook Pro 13 inch Oct 2009, iTunes 10.2.1(1), Mac OSX 10.6.7

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Answer 13

Apr 30, 2011 9:23 AM in response to schnackal

IMO - I think that the algorithm is broken and they don't have anyone paying attention to it working. They're so busy with world domination, that they don't care when an older feature stops working. I think I'll call Apple Support also to see if it can reach an engineer.

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Answer 14

Apr 14, 2012 6:40 PM in response to housemr

If I buy a new song (e.g., Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe) Genius data is unavailable, but if I buy an older song that released 18 months ago it works fine.

Have sent an iTunes support request. Will see what they say.

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Answer 15

housemr

Level 1

0 points

Apr 27, 2012 9:16 AM in response to housemr

"If I buy a new song (e.g., Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe) Genius data is unavailable, but if I buy an older song that released 18 months ago it works fine.

Have sent an iTunes support request. Will see what they say."

Plus it isnt like apple could say they dont have a lot of people with these songs on playlists.

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