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

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.

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.

Genius works fine for me for songs I have bought in the last few months.

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.

I am having the same issue with all of the songs from Katy Perry Teenage Dream (Deluxe Edition). Seems like a bug, particularly since I bought these songs from itunes. Hope they fix this soon.

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

You are probably buying old music. Have you bought anything released in 2011? Try it and see if it works to build a playlist.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.