Apple Music won't play songs - "Not playing"

I just encountered this issue on my Apple TV today. After reading about the corrupt cache file in this thread it had me thinking that the file is attached to a profile rather than the application itself. This was after trying all the basic troubleshooting. I then logged out of my iTunes/App Store profile and logged in under my wife’s account and launched Apple Music. This reset the application and appears to have overwritten the corrupt file with the new profile. I quit Apple Music, logged out of iTunes and back iin under my profile. I then relaunched Apple Music and this appears to have rewritten the data again, thus fixing the issue and allowing Apple Music to work correctly. I’d recommend trying this before performing a reset. Good luck.

I think I know what's going on and why only a clean install without backup restore fixed the issue. It appears to be a corrupt cache file.

I have the same issue and I can play anything I purchased, whether downloaded or in the cloud, but I cannot play anything from Apple Music. I can download songs, but then I get a dialog box about the song not being authorized rather than the silent fail and "Not Playing" status I get if I try to stream it from Apple Music.

Anyway, I connected the iPhone to my Mac and fired up Console, and here's what I see when I try to play an Apple Music song in the Music app:

I have a case open with Apple and am going to talk to them on the phone tomorrow, but my guess is they can't do anything other than take my console log and see if they can learn something from it while I wipe my phone and try to get on with my life.

I do have iMazing and iExplorer, and I should hopefully be able to restore app data for those apps that don't use the cloud to store it. Either way, it's going to be a painful experience and a massive waste of time.

Yes, I tried 11.4 b3 (see my earlier post). It didn’t help. My guess is updates don’t touch cache files of apps that aren’t updated in that version.

The only solution for me was to wipe my iPhone and start with a clean install and not restore from backup. I tried everything else in this thread and some things not in this thread.

I just had this problem on iOS 12, and what I had to do was go into settings > music > turn off iCloud music library > close out the music app completely > turn iCloud music library back on

then the music should be back in working order, however you might have to re-download songs. It’s the easiest solution I’ve seen so far.

hope this helps!

And sure enough, once I did a restore from backup, Apple Music is broken again.

What kind of OS allows a corrupted cache file where it KNOWS it's corrupted (it logs it as such in the console log) and doesn't just wipe the cache and recreate it? Really, the only way around this is to wipe the phone and start completely over from scratch? Meaning: lose all your app data for apps that don't store in the cloud, have to recreate your Apple Pay settings, Touch ID settings, Siri and autocorrect learning, etc, etc, etc, all from scratch again.

This is a really poor user experience.

BubblesMcGee33

User level:

Level 1

(4 points)

Apple Music

Speciality level out of ten: 0

Jan 15, 2019 7:56 PM in response to cmx

I was able to fix by following these steps:

1.) delete Apple Music app

2.) Go into setting on iPhone and sign out of Apple id

3.) download Apple Music app back onto iPhone

4.) Go into Apple Music App and sign in with Apple ID; it will ask you to sign into Apple ID in settings (do this by clicking on appropriate button from dialogue box).

5.) Enjoy music!

Sorry, this one worked for me! Thank you!

After struggling with this for 8+ months, I had tried nearly everything, including those things listed in the original post here. The only thing I didn't want to do was clean install and rebuild the whole phone from scratch. Too much work. However, I found something that worked for me and I'm so relieved. It takes a while, but I'd love for someone else to try it to see if it was a fluke:

1) Delete Music app and do a full backup of iOS

2) Clean install iOS and then restore from that backup

3) Install Music app again

Let me know if it helps.

I HAVE FOUND A SOLUTION!!! It may seem too simple but all I know is that it worked for me. I had asked Siri to start playing music while I was in the kitchen. She did so and it played for one second then immediately stopped leaving the play arrow present and not the usual pause sign. I would press play and again, immediately, it would stop. So I started browsing to see if anyone else had the same problem and obviously there are quite a few of us. I know that this solved the problem for me and I really hope it works for you, too, but it may be something more difficult or simply unknown for some.

So here’s what I did, after remembering that earlier in the day I switched the App Store from the US one to the UK one when I was looking for a particular app. I couldn’t download it, obviously, since my iPhone isn’t register for the UK Store so I just let it be. However, I didn’t switch back to the US Store. When I started to try and think of what could possibly have corrupted my phone to make Apple Music stop any and all music I thought about that app and realized I had never changed stores before so that just might be the problem. And low and behold, it was!!! I went back to the App Store, tried to download the app that isn’t available for me at the current store and when it prompted me to change stores I pressed “Change Store” and it went back to mine, the US App Store. And that right there, was it, Bam!!! Instant fix! It was really the only thing I had done different with my phone. If you haven’t actually switched stores I would still try it. It could’ve switched on it’s own somehow but either way it’s worth a shot. I hope it works for all of you!!! I would be so ****** if I had to build the phone back into what it is today, from the ground up. Too too too much of me has gone into it.

😃😃😆😆👍👍

Again, I hope it’s as simple as that for all of you. Good luck!!!

Just solved mine by changing the app store location. Somehow my app store was directed to another country while trying to download some app.

Everything works again after changing the location back.

Hope this helps

So I actually work with apple support

Always make sure you iCloud music library is turned on by going

settings-music-iCloud music library slider

And changing it off of cellular data

this usually resolves the issue if the slider is turning itself off close Apple Music app and reset network settings

Okay, I have noticed a lot of people have this issue, this is caused by a corrupt file in Apple Music, more than likely a bug. To fix this issue, go to Settings > Music > iCloud Music Library > Off > Switch back to On

this will require you to redownload all of your music for offline play, however all of the music you had previously downloaded will still be available in your library. This only requires you to click them and redownload them, which is much better than the only option I read on here which was to lose all of your data. Hope this helps!

I found a fix to this issue and apologies if it was already reported. I signed out of my iTunes account. Rebooted the phone and signed back in and it worked. Hope this works for you.

Thanks OregonWoodman !

Just log out and log in back from my iTunes/App Store account solved it.

MANNNNNNNN! you saved me!! This was the exact problem and easy fix! As I was reading your post I remembered trying to download an app and it switched me to the UK store and since then apple music was acting funny. I went in switched the app store back to US and BAM! My music works again!

THANK YOU!!!!!!

Yeah, I just got that when I tried it on my own phone. One way to check is to open the App Store or iTunes and see if the apps/songs/movies are in your language and your currency.

Try this: on your phone, open iTunes and scroll all the way down to the bottom. Tap Apple ID: [your Apple ID] and then tap "View Apple ID". Tap the small link "appleid.apple.com". On the page that opens, enter your Apple ID and password, answer the security questions. If you pass all the checks 😀, a page will open with a list of options for managing your account. Select "account", scroll all the way down, and check the contents of the country/region field.