Music not playing on Apple Watch

I have the exact same issue. I have tried unpairing, deleting all music, resyncing, restarting my watch and iPhone, turning Bluetooth on and off, unpairing my AirPods, etc. It will work without issues for a few days and then suddenly, the music on my Apple watch just stops playing. I can't make it start again by doing anything - all the troubleshooting tips don't work (and I've searched for weeks). Then I'll try again later and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The issue isn't consistent.

It's not my AirPods, because they work with phone calls and my iPhone. All Apple music and radio works with my iPhone, but it's very unreliable with the watch. It's especially frustrating when I leave for a walk without my iPhone and it won't work.

I have an iPhone 8 and my watch is a series 3 with an active cellular plan. All my software is always up-to-date. To me, it seems like it's a bug either with Apple Music, or with the watch OS. Either way, this needs to be fixed.

Good morning djohariah!

It sounds like you were previously able to play music on your Apple Watch, but all of a sudden you’re not able to play music anymore. I’ll be happy to look into this with you and figure out what might be going on.

First, have you tried restarting the Apple Watch? If not try that now: How to restart your Apple Watch - Apple Support

If you’re still not able to play your music, try removing a song and resyncing it to the Apple Watch, or simply add a new song not on the Apple Watch and see if it plays. Be sure Bluetooth is toggled on. Here’s the steps:

Remove music from your Apple Watch

1. On your iPhone, open the Apple Watch app, then tap the My Watch tab at the bottom of the screen.
2. Scroll to Music and tap it, then tap Edit in the upper-right corner. You'll only see Edit if you have music synced to your watch.
3. Under Playlists & Albums, tap next to any music that you want to remove, then tap Delete.

Sync albums and playlists to your Apple Watch

You can add specific albums and playlists to your Apple Watch by syncing them. After you sync, you can play the music on your Apple Watch without your iPhone.

1. Set your Apple Watch on its charger and make sure that the device is charging.
2. On your iPhone, go to Settings > Bluetooth. Make sure Bluetooth is turned on.
3. On your iPhone, open the Apple Watch app, then tap the My Watch tab.
4. Tap Music > Add Music.
   
5. Choose the music that you want to sync.

Listen to music on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Did that work for you? If not, let us know a little more about what happens when you try to play the song. Do you get the Now Playing screen, but then it just disappears? Do you get any sound at all before it stops playing?

Take care!

I have a similar issue. Music will play for awhile and then as soon as it goes to the next song, 5secs later it stops and I can’t restart the song. I have to skip ahead a couple more songs and then back 1 song to get it to play. Once it plays, as soon as the next song comes on it stops all over again. I’ve used different headphones, hard restarted the watch, reset the watch, unpaired the watch, erased the playlist and reloaded it. This didn’t happen the first few weeks i had the watch and now happens every time I use it

I too am having this same issue on a Series 3 (regardless of phone or cellular connectivity). I suspect this is a Watch OS bug. The more people that report this issue to Apple the better chance we have of getting it resolved sooner. You can report here: https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch.html

Hi all, same issue here too. As requested, I sent a message to Apple feedback: https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch.html

From my observation, it seems like this happens more when I'm doing weights activities. And I'm careful to avoid any contact with the watch face when doing weights too. I don't recall specifically it happening when I'm running, but it might have once or twice. In times when it stopped, it didn't matter whether I restarted the watch, made sure I was out of range of my phone, or confirmed LTE signal.

Thanks for the contact numbers. I’ll give them a call and reiterate that I’m fairly certain it’s a watch OS issue. Two engineers that I’ve dealt with in store believe the same thing and have reported it as such.

They also suggested reporting it here, as posted earlier in this thread: https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch.html

I’ve done this and encourage everyone to do the same. Hopefully a fix will be released with the next update.

Fortunately, mine has been working very consistently for the last week or so. Of course, now that I've written that, it will probably stop working.

This release was a minor one and was never supposed to include a fix for this. Hopefully it will appear in the next one, or maybe a hot fix for this issue specifically will be released (that would be nice).

Every Apple rep I've spoken to thinks it's a software issue, so I'm not sure why that's not communicated company-wide. Unless there is some hardware issue going on with your watch, attempting to repair it won't fix this if it's indeed an OS issue.

Again, if you haven't already done so, let Apple know what's going on here: Feedback - Apple Watch - Apple

I had the exact same problem and they Ould not diagnose it at all. They had me take it back to Apple yesterday and sent it away, as it is under warranty. They made me buy a new one while the other is sent away, which I thought sucked, but they guaranteed I would get a refund when the other one comes back in 2 weeks, or longer if it takes longer. They don' know what to do and I can't lie without my watch...

Here’s an update on my end. I tried multiple things the other day which included listening to radio and listening to songs> shuffle all. When I listened to radio and my library, the problem didn’t happen even after the problem just happened right before while listening to my playlist. I’ve only spent a short time testing it but I didn’t see the issue happen. With that said, i deleted the playlist and created a new one from scratch. I tested this playlist last night for about 30mins and it didn’t happen. I’ll keep monitoring this but at the moment it appears that the problem is due to an issue with my specific playlist. I’ll write an update if the problem comes back

Same problem as several users here. Owned my series 3 for less than 3 months and the issue started appearing. First few times of experiencing music stopping in the middle of a workout, restarting the watch was the fix. Then I tried un-pairing/re-pairing several times. Then I tried unloading and reloading a few playlists at a time. It got to the point where music would stop, and pressing play each time would play a few seconds, then stop again.

A few days ago I brought it into an Apple Store. Since I was able to replicate the issue, they took it in and had it ready after 2 days (not sure if it was a new Watch, but a minor scratch I had on the face was gone).

The playback issue came back after a day of use. It appeared 22 minutes into my run today. Since I use it mainly for fitness and activity tracking, sending it in again is getting very frustrating!

Yep we are identical in this. I was going to take it to apple for a replacement but your comment lets me know I shouldn’t bother. Thanks

I’ll add a couple more bits of info. Before this watch i hd the series 3 gps version for 4 months and never had the problem.

Also today I listened to music at the gym without using nike run club, first time in awhile. My music didn’t stop, this may be a coincidence but we’ll see

So, I’m glad I’m not the only one with this issue anymore... I think I’ve spoken with every senior engineer with Apple support. I’ve sent them a diagnostic log of the watch acting up. I’ve sent them a video of the watch acting up. I’ve tried every possible combination of restarting, unpairing/repairing, updating, deleting and reinstalling apps. I’ve used different headphones. Everything. Music works fine playing from my phone, though. Like everyone else, just when I think the music is back working normally, another day at the gym comes and in the middle of a workout, the music stops. I’ve got another phone call scheduled for Saturday with Apple, so we’ll see.

What model do you all have with this issue?

Mine is S3 Nike+ 42mm.

I tried a guided run with Nike Run Club today while listening to music. The audio in NRC stayed for the 35 min, but the music stopped at 22 minutes. So it seems it’s a Music app issue.

I have S3 nike+ cellular. My s3 nike+ gps didn’t have the problem.

And yeah i thought it was the music app since the NRC notifications kept working even though music didn’t. This may or may not have a bearing on this, but i have the problem in the radio app too. Not sure from a programming standpoint if they share a similarly in the background.

Thanks for the follow up. So this clarifies that it’s not isolated to nike+ or cellular. Also it happened to me today while using the radio app again.

An additional thing i noticed was that the headphones were connected because I was getting NRC notifications, but the remote on my heaphones wouldn’t make a beeping sound like they normally do when they’re pressed. This has happened to 3 difference BT headphones in the pst as well. So even though the headphones are working, something with the music connection is preventing any response or functionality with the Bluetooth headphones remote. This only happens part of the time.