Q: Apple Music Error 'Unable to download songs'

It doesn't work for me because the problem appears even when I'm on 3G without WIFI..
Did anyone find another way , it's really annoying !!

I Have changed my DNS on my iPhone, and still no downloading. I have tried several DNS settings: google, norton, openDNS.... No luck.  Everything was fine yesterday morning. Then this started happening last night. Hasn't worked all day...

i Have scrupulously followed your instructions... Am I missing something if it is working for others? What else can I do?

This may be a long one...

For starters, I too have been experiencing the "unable to download to offline mode" feature as of around noon today. This happened only after I disabled "iCloud sharing" on my iMac and iPhone and then reenabled it. Why did I disable those features you ask? Funny story!

So, having switched to Apple Music from Beats, I realized how great the notion was. Now my old iTunes library is merged with new downloads and playlists transferred from Beats! No more switching! But wait...what's this? DRM huh? Can't listen to what Apple doesn't have what? But I paid for the music and ripped it to my Mac, so why can't I download it from the cloud? Why is it constantly greyed out? Ohhhhh...I see. Because songs aren't DRM free I can't listen to them. Okay, so what about music I created on Garage Band and uploaded to iTunes? Ohhhhh...that also can't be profited from via DRM whatever. So what do I do?

Here were my options:

1. Pay $25 for iTunes match. That way, I can download 25,000 songs that are DRM free! Hello Beatles, Prince, really obscure and underground music, etc. Well, at least 25,000 songs or so.

2. Disable "iCloud sharing" and manually put the music on my phone.

Obviously I went with the latter as it is, well, free. Plus, the Apple Store employee suggested that "iCloud sharing" is rather old school and being phased out slowly but surely, so I might as well just leave it off: leave off a main feature of Apple Music. So, I trusted him. Having done so, I lost everything I had ever downloaded for offline (or online) listen via Beats and Apple Music -- nearly a year of work. After a minor freak out, I turned "iCloud sharing" back on and (ONLY when I was connected to wifi) did all of the music show back up; however, all of it needed to be REdownloaded for offline listening. That brings me to this thread. Well, that and all the other issues (e.g., artwork, song titles, live versions, etc.).

I am completely unable to download anything for offline listening: sort of. Every now and then, one track here or there will work but about 70% or so just won't download. Apple Music is, somehow, singlehandedly making me loathe Apple as a whole. Just let me hear what I want to hear when I want to hear it. That's all I ask. And being able to follow friends and their playlists would be neat too (i.e. Beats).

Fingers crossed that these issues can be resolved without me having to change DNS codes, proxy settings, renaming iTunes file names, or any other seemingly absurd activity that involves knowledge and activities beyond simply using a well functioning app. Not saying I can't, just saying I'm not a fan of apps that have resolutions such as: "mine totally works now! just rewrite the coding of your malware while pinging silk road servers to undermine the dark web through linux! bing bang boom! i can finally use iTunes again!"

Didn't work for me..Sky Broadband seems to be causing the problems..see posts on sky web forum

Just for the sake of clarity... I fixed my problem with deskyop PC and iPhone by changing the DNS settings as suggested at the start of this thread, however... I am not with Sky Broadband. Never have been, so I'm suspicious of the blame being pinned on Sky. They do suck however, but still suspicious.

edit - i should also add that my issues only arose, like a previous poster said, after disabling icloud sharing. Something happened with icloud and it started requesting my password on each device and then said I couldn't download music until I authorised my payment method. After jumping through hoops for Apple, all was well - except i couldn't stream or download anything. Changed the DNS, all really is well now.

I've been having this issue since Friday. Whilst the DNS fix works to some extent, you shouldn't have to do it. I am on Sky Broadband in the UK at home. However, I don't believe this has anything to do with Sky. I'm currently sat in the office at work using an Enterprise WiFi network which is completely unrelated to Sky (which worked fine with Apple Music before Friday). Exactly the same issue, tracks skipping. If the issue was with Sky, I'd expect it to work fine on the office WiFi but it doesn't. This is an issue at Apple's end.

So, we're in to the 4th day without a resolution from Apple. Whilst I appreciate that we're currently within the 3 month trial, it still shouldn't take so long to be fixed. For a brand new service that they are expecting users to pay for, it's not a very good start. I was completely sold on it and had the intention of cancelling my Spotify subscription but the events of this weekend have changed that. I don't want to subscribe after the trial and spend money on something that takes an age to resolve when it stops working.

I'm not sure that Apple are even looking in to it. Their System Status web page shows Apple Music as working fine with no reported issues.

i am in Ireland. Not on Sky. And have changed DNS with no success. The problem persists. I posted earlier to see if there were more tips about doing this.  Very annoying altogether. Normally Apple is quick to respond.

Seems to be a general network routing issue, not limited to only Sky, tracing a route of traffic trying to download and stream tracks they all fail with route not found - change the DNS on mac and iPhone, all seems to work again.  This seems to be limited to physical networks and not 4G / 3G - they use different carriers.

Might just be temporary when the DNS tables update later today, goodness knows when though.

For now the tmp work around of 199.85.126.10 this DNS seemed to work for my iPhone 6 and iMac

The 2 main issues seem to be streaming audio directly from Apple Music and offline downloading - all use the same route and method - for me changing the DNS on any divice - iMac or phone fixed for now.

Iv been having the same problem since Friday I can't  save no music for offline all i get is a error come up all the time what is the point off having apple music if no one can not get it to work we have all been given 3 months free well we are wasting that with it not working and fill we should all be compensated  Iv signed up for a family member ship and none of us can use it part from stream it this is all I get when trying to save offfline this is a joke Apple Iv been in contact with Apple and they dont seem to no what's going on I am waiting for them to call me to tell me what's happing

I've tried to get some playlists downloaded for offline playback for the last 2 weeks now. According to my router's stats I have pulled down way over 100GB of data through my FTTH line and the ADSL at my family's home and still I could listen to a handful of songs when I was not on Wifi or out of signal.

My iPhone has spent entire days connected to the charger, running searing hot while downloading songs. It's pointless. As soon as a playlist reaches more than a few hundred songs , there's just no way to successfully download it, it will just go in this endless loop of downloaded incompletely and erasing the downloads and downloading them again.

I'm now back to having turned Apple Music off and at least syncing my own music again.

Has anybody else had success?

Same problem. Tried changing DNS but still no joy. I can stream music no problem but cannot make available offline.

Really annoying. Hope this is sorted soon!

I have a very similar issue and it seems to be growing through out my entire library. I consistently find songs that are "Unable to Download" which means I cannot stream them or download them. I called Apple Support for about an hour and they took down all the info, screen shared for my Mac to see the issue in iTunes, and had me do some signing in and out on all of my devices to see what the issue was. Here is the really interesting part though:

My wife can stream and download all the songs that do not work on my devices, and she has zero issues with syncing so far. That means that this issue is linked either to the devices or to the AppleID. My guess is that the file has corrupted somewhere server side, but that specific signing of the song was approved to be played for my unique AppleID. So if it does corrupt, then maybe it tries to read the version of that song that was approved to be streamed for my unique AppleID, causing my devices to error out when loading the song.

All I can say is please keep posting as you see errors. If this issue doesn't become big enough, then we could be seeing this bug for a looooong time. I am so sad that the company I usually trust with my music has pretty much destroyed the experience for me. Is this that revolutionary music service that deserved the "One more thing..." speech at the WWDC? And this is only one issue of probably 20 I have found in Apple Music since it's launch. Why give us all a BETA?!?!?! Someone needs to be fired over this, as this is almost as bad as Apple Maps... does anyone disagree?

Just got off phone to Apple. Tried some things to no avail. They are going to escalate now and ring me within 2 days.

I Can stream ok but not download

So I found a really bad solution, and I say bad because it is really unfortunate for people that have already built playlists and a library from Apple Music content. So see if this works for you guys:

I had the "Where Are U" track by Skrillex/Diplo on a playlist I built back when Apple Music started. I do not own the song, so it is iCloud Status Apple Music AAC. This song would not play on my Mac, iPad, or iPhone after this past Saturday, but instead decided to pop the "Unable To Download Song" error we are all familiar with. So after calling Apple and trying things myself, I found one way to make this song play and download on all three devices.

Go to your library on any device, and search through your music (not playlists) and find the songs that are giving you problems. I will use the "Where Are U" song for this example. I went to Artist "Skrillex/Diplo" and then to the song "Where Are U" and tapped the ... option button and selected REMOVE FROM MY MUSIC. This deletes the song/ songs from your iCloud Music Library.

Now, search Apple Music for that song again, and add it back to your library. This allowed me to stream "Where Are U" and download it as well. Rinse and repeat for all music not playing. I am considering just selecting all of my iCloud Status: Apple Music AAC files in iTunes and deleting them from my iCloud Library to get back to just my music I own. Then as I add music from Apple Music back, it should work just fine. The HUUUUGE downside is that this completely resets your playlists as you have to go back and add each song again... so sad.

Let me know if this works for anyone else.