Level 1

62 points

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

So starting last week at some point, Apple Music on my iPhone seems to have just stopped working. It refuses to play anything that is not in my library, nothing from "For you", "Radio", or any saved Apple Music Playlists.

The now playing card only shows "Not playing". If I hit the play button enough times it seems to just pick a random set of songs from my library and start playing.

I have already tried:

Restarting the music app
Reinstalling the music app
Resetting network settings
Restarting the iPhone
Signing out of iCloud and singing back in.
Erasing all content and settings (I restored from backup, I might need to try this again without restoring)

No luck from any of the above. Anyone know how to fix this?

iPhone 7 Plus, iOS 11.3

Posted on Apr 10, 2018 11:02 AM

Top-ranking reply

Scott Willsey

Level 1

47 points

Posted on Apr 29, 2018 5:23 PM

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:

default

15:26:53.305659 -0700

SpringBoard

Request: playbackState 66A52D72-244F-4A19-9511-B866A7744A5F for origin-iPhone/client-com.apple.Music-766 (Music)/player-Music is short-circuiting because cache

default

15:26:53.308170 -0700

SpringBoard

Response: playbackState 66A52D72-244F-4A19-9511-B866A7744A5F returned Stopped with error (null) for origin-iPhone/client-com.apple.Music-766 (Music)/player-Music in 0.0006 seconds

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.

View in context

79 replies

Jan 19, 2019 10:15 AM in response to cmx

hi,

I had the same problem

I force reseting my phone by:

Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings

I backed up my phone via iCloud right before.

When the phone reseted, I chose back up via iCloud and now my phone looks exactly the same as it did before, and apple music is playing. It takes some time but worth it!

Oct 9, 2018 10:15 PM in response to cmx

Hopefully everyone has downloaded 12.01 to fix this issue. It happened to me as well after the 12 update but the new patch fixed it.

Afrei2

Level 1

4 points

Oct 15, 2018 11:03 PM in response to cmx

My phone was doing this exact same thing and I just updated to the latest update (12.0.1) and it fixed the problem. Now my music works and can play songs. Hope this helps!

Oct 27, 2018 4:24 PM in response to natekapi

I had it on 12.0 until I signed out of iTunes and Apple Music. Restarted phone. Signed back in to iTunes and Apple Music. And I’m back in business!

Feb 2, 2019 6:30 AM in response to cmx

I had the same issue, turned one cellular data to stream music and now I’m able to listen to all playlists

Moses6x6

Level 1

0 points

Apr 16, 2019 5:51 AM in response to OregonWoodman

Logging off ITunes and then logging in with my wife’s account, then logging off and back with my account worked!!!! Thank you!!!!

Jun 28, 2018 2:28 AM in response to MeghannMoonshine

I've found an solution for this problem, too...

I've found the app "Decipher Acitvity Transer" for MacOS via google. This app costs 30$, but I has the possibility to modify iTunes backups, so that I can save all app data and health data without the settings of the iPhone (Apple ID, Apple Music, etc.).

This solution worked very well for me, but it's very poor that the Apple support doesn't have any solution for this problem. Very poor!

SysAdmom

Level 1

5 points

Aug 30, 2018 8:57 AM in response to cmx

Make sure you're in your "home" iTunes store. My husband had this problem today, turned out he'd somehow switched to the US store, when his "native" one is Russia. Switched him back, and all his music magically reappeared 🙂.

To check your store tap Settings > [your name] > iTunes & App Store > [your Apple ID] > View Apple ID > Country/Region.

Kelsosho

Level 1

4 points

Aug 21, 2018 12:43 AM in response to cmx

U ready to thank me 😁

Change your app stores back to your country.

Aug 22, 2018 12:59 AM in response to Kelsosho

Thanks so much, all of a sudden my music wouldn’t play, changed country now all good. I don’t know how the country changed. But thanks any

Aug 26, 2018 12:11 AM in response to Catsfan3802

My specific problem seems to be fixed on the tracks where I was experiencing it.

When I spoke to Apple, I gave them a list of 7 tracks where I could play on Apple Music on my MacBook but couldn't play on my iPhone.
Therefore we knew the problem was iOS specific.

I don't know what they did but they followed up with me and fixed those tracks somehow.

Have you tried asking them to look at the specific tracks you have a problem with?

Apr 24, 2018 5:10 PM in response to cmx

Hi there, I found this thread while searching about this issue since I'm having the same thing happening.

That's a pretty terrible solution, since you basically lose all your data just to be able to play music with Apple Music again.

Is there really no other solution? No one else has had any luck with anything else? I've tried so many things and have not been able to get this to work either, except to setup my phone as new again. This is pretty ridiculous.

May 4, 2018 4:25 PM in response to teltech290

Ok, just did a fresh install of 11.4.3 beta, installed as new phone (didn't restore from backup). Apple Music works fine now. Now I'm restoring from backup to see what happens. I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this one.

Jan 18, 2019 5:36 AM in response to OregonWoodman

1/18/2019 - Tried all other solutions to get Apple Music working on my iPhone this worked. Logging out of my iTunes account and logging back in.

Had same problem of not playing any songs not downloaded to my phone, the "not playing" issue, and when trying to play a playlist, the phone would shuffle through each song and try to play for one second, but would not actually play music.

Oct 27, 2018 4:22 PM in response to cmx

I signed out of iTunes and Apple Music, restarted my phone, signed back into iTunes and Apple Music. It’s working!

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