Greyed out songs

I had the same issue for two weeks. upgrading my phone did not help, syncing and authorizing devices did not help. The ONLY thing that DID help was the following steps:

1. search for the greyed out song in Apple Music on itunes
2. click on the song to have it play
3. click on the 3 small dots on the lower right side (on the screen with the song)
4. from the options that pop up - click "remove from library"
5. then confirm the Delelte from entire device and all other places
6. then just click to add the song back to the playlist or library
7. download it to be on the safe side

For mutiple songs on the same album I just removed the entire album from the device and added it back from Apple Music.

Hope that helps. 🙂

Assuming these are locally stored songs that haven't yet been added to your iCloud library then select those songs, right-click, and use Add to iCloud Library. Otherwise can you be a little clearer about where you're seeing these tracks? See also About iCloud Music Library icons and status - Apple Support for some background on what the icons and status labels mean.

tt2

I discovered that a lot of greyed out songs in Apple Music were caused by previous Apple Music Matches that were never properly uploaded to iCloud. Steps:

• View all songs in list view
• Right click on the header in the list view and make sure "iCloud Download" is checked.

I had a ton of songs that were imported form CDs, but there was a problem with the iCloud upload. The cloud icon was greyed out. More info is here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3589737

Please post a screenshot of how the tracks are shown to you so that we might be able to tell the reason. Unchecked tracks may be displayed as greyed out in certain views. They will be skipped during normal track to track playback and are typically excluded from syncing. It is possible to accidentally check or uncheck a large number of songs while attempting to use Cmd+Click to pick out individual tracks for some other purpose as Cmd+Clicking on a check box sets or clears all check boxes in the current view.

tt2

You could try the following all-purpose steps for dealing with erratic device or sync behaviour (including the troublesome greyed out tracks and/or dotted circles of stalled transfers). They assume that all of the content you want on the device is in your library ready for restoring. If it isn't see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device first. I would also recommend you copy everything out of the camera roll if you haven't already.

1. Backup device.
2. Restore as a new device.
3. Restore the backup you made earlier.

Use an encrypted backup (*) if you want to preserve passwords, Wi-Fi settings, web history and health data where appropriate. I also suggest syncing with a selection of playlists (unless you're using iCloud Music Library) rather than manually adding content as, if nothing else, the process above is easier to do if you ever have to go through it again.

(*) The downside with backup encryption is that if you forget the password when you need it again, which could be years later, you may need to invoke a workaround to turn off encryption as shown in Re: disable encrypted backups, which can only help if your device is in a state that can backup to iCloud, or runs iOS 11.

For added security you might also want to make an independent backup to iCloud and/or archive your current backup before you start.

FWIW I successfully used this method some time ago when Siri became unable to call contacts or play my music.

tt2

had the same issue after renewing my apple music subscription after it didn’t recognize my payment method

here’s what solved my issue:

1. Settings > Music

2. Turned off iCloud Music Library

3. Turned iCloud Music Library back on

done ✅

They only way I solved this was by deleting the songs and redownloading. Very annoying but it’s the only thing that seemed to work for me. So now I have multiple albums since I was to lazy to go and pick the songs individually. Go and get you a pedicure and do all this process in the mean time lol

You should sign out and out and sign in again, it´s a feature in the account menu on iTunes.

It´s really ****** how iTunes is working in the last few years. I´m a big user from more than 10 years and lately is crap. iTunes Match, the same experience without changes and the Remote app that isn´t been updated forever now.

Eddie Cue is the king of failure.

Yeah every time I renew my Apple Music with an updated credit card a lot of my music does that where it won’t play when u click on the song..but the song will play if u click on some music that isn’t greyed out and skip forward

I have experienced the same om my iMac with songs I have on my hard drive. They are visible under "all songs" and play as they should. But under any album none of the songs are playable, greyed out. This changes momentarely if I quit iTunes and open it up again, the even the album songs appear as they should. I believe this is related to some network and connection issue with iTunes

Here's one glimpse of an smart album in iTunes where all songs are greyed . The strange thing is that when they show up like this they are naturally not playable . When I restart iTunes they come up as they should once I'm in the same album as when I shut down iTunes. If I switch albums the songs get greyed out again ! The behaviour is the same for alla albums. Note I do not have Music Match !

If your songs appear in light gray text

Your songs might appear in iTunes in light gray text for a variety of reasons. Those reasons include:

• You're not connected to iCloud Music Library. If you see a Disconnected icon in the upper-right corner of iTunes, you're not connected to iCloud Music Library. Click the icon to reconnect.
• The song isn't in Apple Music or isn't available in your current country or region. These songs also appear in gray if you search for them in Apple Music.
• Restrictions are turned on for explicit tracks. Learn more about Restrictions.
• An artist or content provider made changes or edits to an album. You might need to remove the album from your library and add it back from the Apple Music catalog.

About iCloud Music Library icons and status
Take care.

I have the same problem as everyone else here. I'm connected to iCloud Music Library, yet I have hundreds of songs that came up as an "error has occurred" and not added to the iCloud Music Library. I have hundreds of songs greyed out and unusable that I have purchased from iTunes in the last 2-3 years. The songs that I have checked are available in Apple Music (which I also pay for). I have no restrictions on explicit tracks. In order to remove tracks/albums and re-download them...we are talking, again hundreds of songs where my total library is over 3000 songs at this point. I have been so frustrated and overly confused with the interactions between iTunes, Apple Music, iCloud, all my devices, backups and downloads, syncing, etc ,etc. that I have quit using Apple products twice in the past 5 years but kept coming back because of the ease of use and interacting with my family devices on generally all other platforms except for the music part. The music is very important to me, I use it everyday and is SO frustrating everyday. I need a step by step on how all this works because I AM AN IDIOT and I think the music side of Apple *****!!!!!!

I am having this problem also. All my songs that i downloaded from iTunes on my computer were all just on my phone about one week ago. Now they are there, but grey and cannot play. I had my phone plugged into my computer and tried to sync multiple times. It’s frustrating because it is all of the songs I listen to. The only songs playable on my phone right now are the Apple Music songs I downloaded. I need help ASAP

While I've had intermittent problems with this, I see now that since the last update this week, now every song in my library on itunes is greyed out. The ones I'm tried are still playable on the phone.