Apple Music will not play My Music when wifi is off or airplane mode is on

Hi Swandy,

After our last exchange I played around some more. One thing I noticed is that iPhones and iPads act differently with these issues.

FIrst, I was able to listen to synced from iTunes content in airplane mode on my iPad Air2 just as I have been able to do since I bought it. Enabling Apple Music makes no difference. It still works. However this iPad has absolutely no purchased content. When I say purchased I mean either content from the iTunes app on the device, paid for with my credit card associated with my appleid or "free" content that I saved by downloading via Apple Music. I have not had any issues with my content disappearing like others have. I have never set up iCloud music on this device or on a computer. If I am streaming and want to save something on this iPad I get an error saying I must turn on iCloud music in settings.

So we have basically the same experience.

My husband's iPhone 6 he has never enabled Apple Music. He can play anything we synced to that device from his personal itl file on my computer. This is via cellular when out of the house or via wifi at home and in airplane mode. He also does not purchase music from the iTunes Store. He uses our ripped music.

My iPhone is another animal. I am going to connect it to iTunes and remove the 20 or so synced albums on it and sync to it a half dozen or so free Starbucks tracks which I hate and could care less if they disappear forever. Then I am going to download some Apple Music content and try again.

With all that said however, I think it was the abrupt cutting off of cellular signal while streaming that upset the app. When you listened to your music you had downloaded you still had cell coverage. When I tried to do it I had no cell coverage. Nor did I have wifi out in the middle of nowhere. We have established that a cellular connection must exist for downloaded content to play, necessitated by Apple needing to verify an active subscription. I am not able to replicate the exact circumstances of no signal while at home. But I think I know what happened. I had Apple Music on. I had iCloud music on. The cellular connection was abruptly terminated as a result of driving out of coverage. The app, to use the vernacular here, freaked out and refused to do anything at all, including playing synced content. My music was all still there, it just was not accessible, because the app totally crashed. I checked the error logs and I could not make heads or tails of most of it but it was clear the app crashed dozens of times in rapid succession.

I do have one question and that is that you said you downloaded all those tracks through iCloud music library. How did they get there in the first place? Is this music you saved to your device by using the plus sign next to the album track or playlist name, or did you do this via a computer?

One correction - when I listened to my downloaded music (testing for the purpose of this discussion) I had turned on Airplane Mode, and my understanding of Airplane Mode is that it disables Cellular and Wifi signals from reaching the iPhone. (Just to make sure before enabling Airplane Mode, I went into Settings/Cellular and turned OFF using Cellular for the Music app also.) And among that downloaded music was music from my own library, music I added from Apple Music and music I purchased from iTunes.

So while I was always of the opinion that Apple Music (specifically iCloud Music Library) did need some sort of internet connection to assure you still had a subscription, perhaps airplane mode disables that checking. (Unfortunately I live in NYC and it is rather hard to find a spot with absolutely no cellular service - thank you Verizon.) I even just went into settings and instead of turning on Airplane Mode, I turned off Cellular Data and Wifi - and the downloaded songs still played.

For your last question - when you initially turn on Apple Music, and more specifically ICML - you are asked if you wish to have the library of the first device that you turn on ICML (in my case iTunes on my wife's iMac as it had a much smaller music library than mine) and AM/ICML will proceed to look at your library and either "match" the tracks to music that is in AM or upload any tracks it can't match. Additionally, any music you purchased from the iTunes Store is automatically added to your ICML and any music you add from Apple Music. The way the system is supposed to work - as once you turn on ICML on an iOS device you can no longer sync music from iTunes the old fashioned way - is you select a song/album/playlist on your iOS device, hit the three little dots and select Make Available Offline. Hitting the + sign on an iOS device (like iTunes on a computer) will only "add" the song/album to your library and make it available as part of your library for streaming but will not physically download the track. That is the purpose of the Make Available Offline.

Great explanation. I think but am not certain, that the iPhone is smart enough to figure out what is happening so when you turned off cellular or when you selected airplane mode, the device understood a command. Not the same as when you abruptly and unexpectedly drop signal. It had no idea what to do so it froze.

I think the library thing confused me because the synced from iTunes content on both devices is identical. So I never really had to select a library that had more content which would be then available to other devices. And I never updated iTunes to support Apple Music so I never saw those three dots. I don't use iTunes for anything other than syncing. In fact I rarely even sign in to Store. So a huge bit of this was alien.

I have to wipe my phone when I get my new 6s soon so I'm going to just leave all this behind. Only have a few more days on my trial anyway.

This has been interesting though!

It is strange because I would think that Apple Music needs some sort of cellular/internet connection for it's streaming and confirmations, but if all your music is synced from iTunes, I don't see why turning on or off Apple Music would effect your playing the music. Very strange.

This is Apple's lack of regard for the consumer, and overprotection to record companies. As soon as you turn on Apple Music, you WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE to listen to your own music. Tracks that you have ripped from your own CD's. This is a feature not aimed to make the experience better but rather to keep you tethered to Apple Music. It is a bad business decision. And no solution from Apple so far.

Amaru wrote:

This is Apple's lack of regard for the consumer, and overprotection to record companies. As soon as you turn on Apple Music, you WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE to listen to your own music. Tracks that you have ripped from your own CD's. This is a feature not aimed to make the experience better but rather to keep you tethered to Apple Music. It is a bad business decision. And no solution from Apple so far.

Nonsense. I have 17,000 + tracks, 90% of which is music I ripped from CDs. I have no problems listening to any of it with Apple Music ON.

I would not go as far as call nonsense your experience. But I would be curious if you can still listen to your music if you are not connected to the internet, and logged out of Apple Music.

Amaru wrote:

I would not go as far as call nonsense your experience. But I would be curious if you can still listen to your music if you are not connected to the internet, and logged out of Apple Music.

Are you talking about music that you have synced from iTunes directly to your iPhone or other iOS device via USB (meaning that you have iCloud Music Library disabled on that iPhone)? Or do you mean music that you downloaded to your iPhone for offline listening from iCloud Music Library?

Also, when you say "logged out of Apple Music", I assume you just mean that you went into the iOS settings and turned OFF "Show Apple Music", or did you actually log out of your Apple ID?

Please be a bit clearer because on my iPhone 6 I have approximately 215 songs that I downloaded via ICML. And if I go into the settings and switch off "Show Apple Music" and then put the phone in Airplane Mode (no cellular or Wifi), I can still play any of those 215 songs without any issues.

Amaru wrote:

I would not go as far as call nonsense your experience. But I would be curious if you can still listen to your music if you are not connected to the internet, and logged out of Apple Music.

Yes

I did that yesterday, completely new factory reset via iTunes (prior to that i back up everything to Cloud). When i go it working back, all of music was gray again. I checked iTunes if there is any downloads still active, but it's all good. I just turn off my iCloud music on iPhone, and Music automatically loaded music that i previously bought on iTunes (my phone is connected to computer), and still they cannot play when i am on LTE. For some strange reason, it all started going bad after i upgraded iTunes to 12 version. songs won't play unless, its on Wi-fi!!! what happened to "it just works"...

Not doubting what you are seeing - have seen many strange things with computers and electronic devices over the years - but what is the difference between (1) trying to start the Music App in Airplane Mode, (2) running the Music app and then turning on Airplane Mode, (3) running the Music app and then switching OFF Cellular Data - either for Music or for the iPhone entirely after turning off Wifi and what you are seeing when you lose cellular signal on the road? Because I just tried all three (not driving - my desk does not move that fast) and at no time did the Music app stop playing the music I had downloaded to my iPhone.

And my iPad Mini 2 does not have any cellular, but it has no issues playing the downloaded music, even if I turn off Wifi (or go into Airplane mode) in the middle of a song.

On a recent trip, I had the exact same problem described by several of you in these posts. When my phone was in airplane mode, I had no music at all, even though I had an entire library of music only two months ago, before I subscribed to Apple Music. In trying to solve it, I came across these posts. Not sure if you have figured this out yet, but after reviewing this string of posts, I experimented, and found a solution that worked for me. First, I went to my iPhone settings, went to "music" and turned off iCloud music library. I then connected my phone to my desktop (where my music library is), opened iTunes, and followed the instructions I found here: Sync your iPhone, iPad, and iPod with iTunes using USB - Apple Support

(By the way, the sync option was not available unless I turned off the iCloud music library option on the phone). I was then able to choose which music from my iTunes library I wanted to transfer to my phone. My phone is now in airplane mode, and the music I chose to sync is now available. After you do this, if you turn Apple Music back on, choose the "merge" rather than "replace" option with regard to how it handles your music library.

I've been having this same annoying issue for months as well. There are a couple of issues, of which the previous reply only partially solves. Here are my issues:

1. Unable to listen to my iTunes music that I purchased/ripped over 10+ years. I have 300GB of audio books and purchased CD's. Yes, in the steps listed above you CAN listen to purchased music if you a) turn off apple music cloud library on phone, then sync music to phone from iTunes, and then turn iCloud music library back on and select "merge" (as listed above).

Issue: If you want to ever make changes (e.g. add additional music from your iTunes) you have to repeat the steps completely which is a real hassle. This is because you can't access the playlists, etc... in Tunes when the Music Library is turned on. This is a major bug in my opinion.

2. When I have my phone in Airplane Mode, I am unable to listen to 90%+ of the Apple Music that I've selected and downloaded to the phone to listen to in "offline mode". It's odd that I get 15-20 songs, but the thousands of other songs I've downloaded from Apple Music doesn't display. I don't have an answer for this issue.

Any help for item #2 would be appreciated. Item #1 to me is a bug, but at least I can work around it however clumsily. Very disappointed in Apple in how they rolled this all out. They should have known that we've relied on Apple iTunes for 10 years and now they make it very difficult to operate seamlessly with purchased music and Apple Music. The iCloud Library Music Match is a non-starter for me (e.g. audio books).

#1 - don't know if it is a "bug" but the idea behind iCloud Music Library is that you do your "syncing" through the iCloud library, not by attaching your device to your computer via USB. Aside from the issue of mis-matching many live tracks, I have not had an issues (at least since iOS 9) of creating or making available offline larger playlists. (Granted the largest I have tried so far is only around 200 songs.) I agree that there should be a way to still sync songs via USB in addition to through iCloud - but I think that Apple's basic premise was that people would rather stream their entire library and just "make offline" only a small portion of it for those times they have no access to streaming or don't want to waste their cellular data. Not sure if applies to everyone - especially people who are used to having large libraries on their iOS devices.

#2 - I have read in several threads this issue with Airplane Mode and have tried several times to duplicate it. But for the life of me, when I turn Airplane Mode on on my iPhone 6, the 200 song playlist that I made "available offline" are still there and play fine. Same as if I switched the view mode in the Music app to "only show offline" music. Someone in another thread discussing "airplane mode" suggested that because I live in NYC and there is great cellular all over the place (not exactly true) that even though during my tests I have the iPhone in Airplane Mode, the iPhone is still able to check on my AM subscription and allow me to play my music.

While I had the same case as you did, I unfortunately as of today Nov 1st lost all of my music on my iPhone 6. I spoke with Apple support and they said I have to click the 3 dots on each album (I have 782 albums) and make them all 'available offline' THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!! So now I have to download all of my 782 albums that I have had in my iTunes for 10 years AGAIN?!? A lot of these albums are my own music that should have nothing to do with having wi-fi or internet connection. Music that I have made on my own and uploaded to my phone through iTunes now I have to download again by making it available offline.

Apple, this is so ridiculous, I hope you read this and make an effort to fix it. Why should I download 782 albums again after we all know how time consuming uploading 10 years of music can be. I am so frustrated. I hope someone reads this and can help me out if there is a better, easier way of fixing it.

Good luck y'all.