Item Not Available: Apple Music error

I had this exact same issue. I used the instructions found at:

Redownload music, movies, TV shows, apps, and books from the iTunes Store, iBooks Store, and App Store - Apple Support

1. Open the iTunes Store app.
2. At the bottom of the screen, tap More > Purchased > Music.
3. Tap "Not on This [device]."
4. Find the song, album, or music video that you want to download, then tap it.
5. Tap to the right of the title. The song, album, or music video downloads to your device.

I have the same problem since a year ago, and it's continuing with all my favorite albums and songs ... I don't know why we're paying them... they should pay us back all what we paid .... its better to sue them and when have to pay millions of dollars then they learn how to stop stealing people's moeny .... they are we agreed to pay them in full as they requested and they are not offering the right service at all ... i dont think that is a app problem... they are blocking the service so they don't have to pay others probably... i have a song called Ananthema and it came into albums for the same band ... the first song was block and now the other too ... that ***** ... I think it better to sue them as a group just like what ppl do when they sue motor companies ... im seriously mad about it.

Hello! Mine is doing the same thing but It started after I updated my phone to the 10.2.1. I have to re-download 15+ songs a day. You have to delete them & re-download them so that they will play. I am getting pretty annoyed with this situation. Apple really needs to fix the issue

I've got the same problem as you but mine is okay now. What I did is I sign out my apple account and then sign in again. All your music will be gone in apple music, so go to settings > music > turn on the icloud music library. Then go to your apple music again and all of your music will appear but it needs to be downloaded again so just click the download botton and it will be okay.

I had the same problem and found a different solution. De-selecting and re-selecting iCloud Music Library, unfortunately didn't work for me.

Solution:

I searched Apple Music for the songs that were previously greyed out and just re-added them. In most cases, this did create a different song file, ie. play count starts at 0 etc. Though at least I can play all my songs now.

To fix the play count issue, if you have the time, just set the song on repeat and keep replaying + scrubbing till the end so that iTunes/ Music registers a play count. It's easier to do this on iTunes.

Hope this helps someone 🙂

You do realize that most of the time, the decision to allow an album or individual tracks is not Apple's decision, but made by either the artist or his label. And that decision can be changed at any time, so a track that originally available might not continue to be available forever, and Apple has no control over it. It even might just be based on the region where the user is signed into - songs might be available in England but not in the US for example.

Thanks for the info, but why I see these songs and when i start listening it's there and working then after keep listening to the same song for a while the song is blocked and later after leaving it for along time it's available again and when i just listen to the same song again i found out that it's blocked and not available.. try this yourself and you will notice that ... a song is available then it's not ( and that's when you can't listen to it) then its available ( coz you didn't listen to it for a while) then you listen to it and its blcoked after a one time or two ... i even had a song blocked while i just started to listen to it... I don't think most of the albums that I listen too are not available in my region... thanks for the response though.

Your post describes what's happening to me exactly. Music that I've owned for years. CD's that I spent an enormous amount of time transferring to my computer I can't play now. I never had this problem until I subscribed to Apple Music.

Did you find a solution to this problem?

Well ... as I mentioned, The only solution is when you no longer listen to the album, it will be available again. I start to use YouTube till the album is available again... that's why I have them back now because I didn't use Apple Music about a month ago.

THis worked for me. I had cancelled a family subscription so that I could have the student one instead. As soon as I payed for the new one, none of the downloaded/iCloud music would work. I thought it was an issue with iCloud and I guess maybe it was?? Anyways, I did the above and everything seemed like it hit the fan and all my stuff was gone but within a few minutes all of the downloaded music was back. Worth a shot if you want to risk losing all of the stuff you've downloaded.

I have the same issue. The workaround Ive found is this (is brutal though)

- Album by album select every song manually so your phone recognises the song wont play and it greys out

- In iTunes, deselect the album and reselect again

- Sync

- Songs now play on your phone.

Is painstakingly long but it works. Ive been going for 5 hours at work and are only up to F so will take a while, but it has fixed it. Ive got 15000 songs on my phone so will be at it for a while.

Any easier options please advise as this way is killing me!

I managed to fix this issue, - done what was previously said settings > music > turn off/on iCloud music to no avail, Then went into iTunes signed out of account, signed back in and the music began to sync, then around 5 mins later i was able to play/download the music again.

thank you thank you thank you. I had a lull in income, and my apple music went dormant. Back to being a subscriber and was super frustrated that this was now unable to play! <3

I appreciate your input to the support site 🙂

now.. if i could JUST make my text shortcuts come back 😟

Just adding to others' experience. I had an album that I had previously purchased from Apple, which then was uploaded to iCloud music library when I started using Apple Music. Recently iOS 11 caused my iPhone to crash and the music app would not open. I had to sign in and out of my iCloud account and add back all the music. I think this may have corrupted some of the music in the iCloud library, as at least one album (the one I had previously purchased from Apple), was reported as no longer available on my iPhone and iPad. It was still on my Mac in iTunes however. I opened the finder location of the album and made a copy to the desktop for safe keeping. Then I selected to option to remove the album from my music library using the iPhone and confirmed deletion of the album from the cloud. Then on the iTunes Mac library the little blue cloud with an x icons appeared. I was then able to right click and select upload to iCloud library. Once this was completed the album now appears on my iOS devices.

This isn't a fix for DRM Apple Music files that have not been purchased, but it seems to fix the issue with uploaded purchased files in the iCloud music library not being available.

Note, I did not have to delete all the music off my iPhone to complete this step.

Well, I tried something easy. I just clicked the three dots while veiwing my album on my device, and I clicked delete from library. After that, I went into itunes and I veiwe purchased, found my artist, and redownloaded the songs. They now can play! I hope you find this helpful! 😁