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

OregonWoodman

Level 1

9 points

Posted on May 5, 2018 12:17 AM

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.

View in context

79 replies

Jan 13, 2019 3:55 PM in response to cmx

Had the same issue with my moms phone, I logged her out of her Apple ID and logged her back in after closing out the app and opening it back up and it worked perfectly fine.

Feb 10, 2019 9:57 AM in response to KateSKWLSN

This worked for me. Signed out on my itunes account on my phone. Logged back in and turned icloud back on.

Jun 27, 2019 7:53 AM in response to cmx

I just had this issue today, and all I had to do was delete the app and download it again.

Feb 8, 2019 2:23 PM in response to cmx

I got this problem. I solved it by deleting Apple Music and re installing it. It worked for me and hasn’t happened since.

Apr 29, 2018 11:35 PM in response to Scott Willsey

This is a really detailed reply and I really appreciate that! I was thinking of doing the same thing with the console but you beat me to it. It definitely seemed like something locally was screwing it up too, as it's so fast to NOT play the music that it seemed like it was too quick for any kind of network request to be telling it to not play.

Looking forward to more info if you're able to get anything helpful from Apple or from hacking around on this issue.

cmx Author

Level 1

62 points

Apr 10, 2018 1:23 PM in response to jagreenwood

Yup that's exactly what mine did. I finally got Apple Music to play music again by Erasing all settings and content and then NOT restoring my iCloud backup. Total pain and not really a solution but I guess it will have to do for now.

Apr 10, 2018 12:13 PM in response to cmx

Hi, I came here looking for a solution to the same issue. I've tried most of what you have w/o any resolution. I believe this started happening for me some time around when I installed iOS 11.3, but can't be sure. Apple Music on macOS seems to work fine.

cmx Author

Level 1

62 points

Apr 24, 2018 9:07 PM in response to teltech290

Yeah unfortunately I couldn’t figure out another solution. Really inconvenient if you have a lot of apps that store local data only. In my case it was really only one app where i lost a bunch of stuff but it wasn’t too critical.

Might not be an option for you though.

May 7, 2018 11:57 PM in response to teltech290

No, but it’s not a bad idea. I did get an email from the support guy who called me the other day and he says they’re still working on it, which I assume means going over the log file I sent. I hope they are. This is a stupid problem for anyone to have to have.

Jan 17, 2019 5:28 PM in response to cmx

I just added Apple Music only to find this problem. I am okay as a user but certainly not a software engineer. I guess I will continue using Amazon Music--it's not worth it to me to start over with everything on this phone at this point. My iPhone 7 has died three times in the last just-under-2-years. Needless to say, I am considering going back to Android. This has not been a good experience all the way around.

irfan243

Level 1

4 points

Jan 11, 2019 10:13 PM in response to cmx

My I phone music palayer is not playing songs

10xchamp

Level 1

4 points

Jan 16, 2019 9:45 AM in response to OregonWoodman

Worked for me. Appreciate it

Jan 17, 2019 1:56 PM in response to OregonWoodman

Thank you, this worked!

Jan 18, 2019 3:41 PM in response to cmx

Thank you!! This one worked for me!

Feb 10, 2019 9:56 AM in response to KateSKWLSN

This worked for me.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

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