Anyone having issues controlling music on iPhone with Apple Watch since OS 4.3.1

I just wanted to add that I have now purchased an album through iTunes Store to test this and it plays fine on my iPhone when started via the Watch. No other albums in the iPhone library will. All the rest where not purchased through iTunes but are CD rips from CDs I own or digitized versions of records from my collection.

I hope this new behaviour is not intentional and that it will be corrected in an update quickly.

Thanks,

Interesting. How are you accessing the music on the watch? Are you using Siri to play the music, or something else? Can you see all of the music listed, or just the music that you have purchased? I'm guessing that you are not using Apple Music's subscription, correct?

On Watch.. Music App --> "On iPhone" --> "Albums" not Siri. all albums/songs on iPhone are listed.

Before 4.3.1 I could then select any album and it would play. Now it seem only the one "Purchased through iTunes" album will play. All others just stall out and the Music App on the Watch goes into pause mode. If I then click Play it will just shuffle songs from the phone.

I have had quite and extensive back and forth with Apple Support about this today trying to figure out what the problem may be. They had no solutions for me but were taking it to the engineers I was told 🙂 . I have since added the info above to the case number.

and no music subscription.. Just my own albums (CDs and otherwise) I have uploaded to the phone.

Everything worked as expected in 4.3

Thanks!

Okay, I've not experienced that problem, but I have one single song on my iPhone that I can play just find on the phone, can play just fine if I use Siri on the phone, but if I try to play that particular song on my Apple Watch using Siri, it will not play. It has played in the past, and this unusual behavior started with the update to watchOS 4.3.1. Not exactly what you are experiencing, but there are similarities. I've already got my phone and watch on the charger for the night and was getting ready to go to bed when I read your post, so I wanted to add what I've seen. I'll check back tomorrow, and test to see if I have issues similar to yours with music other than iTunes purchases.

I have no problems selecting, playing or controlling ripped music on the iPhone from the Apple Watch music app or player app.

The only time I’ve seen the “random play behavior” is when Siri can’t decide what was requested.

My non-iStore songs/cds are playing on my iPhone via the watch again. On a whim I signed up for the 3-month Apple Music trial and that seems to have done it. Before the trial my album covers showed up as the grey default icon on my phone but now that the trial is enabled they seem to display their proper covers in the music app.

I do not know if things will revert if were to cancel the subscription but for now I seem to have gotten past this issue.

Cheers,

C

Same problem here. I've tried to reset my iPhone 8 and apple watch series 2 Nike, unpaired and paired from a backup and tried apple music subscription too, but not fix the problem. The songs in watch memory are ok.

I have uploaded my music to the phone too, maybe it's a watch OS problem.

If you find a way to fix it, please share it asap.

Thanks!

I tried some more scenarios but couldn’t break it. The first song on an album begins playing as soon as the album is selected. Both the watch an iphone display the now playing screens. I can see the rest of the album in the up next list. I played ripped albums that were streamed from the cloud or present on the iPhone.

Same problem here with my Watch and with my gf's. It worked fine with watchOS 4.3.1 and iOS 11.3, but it got messed up with the iOS 11.4 update. That iOS introduce changes on AirPlay, so it must be a bug.

Same problem here on both my Series 3 and my wife's Series 2; we both own the iPhone 8 Plus. I noticed this happening to the both of us just this past Tuesday, and all the above troubleshooting has been completed, but to no avail.

I just spent between a non senior and senior reps over at Apple Support approx. 45 minutes on the phone, and of course both of them combined were not aware of this issue, but the engineers would be made aware of this.

All my music on my iPhone is ripped from previous purchased CD's or purchased without iTunes, but for a very long time that did not seem to matter since my music played after starting it from my watch.

gbavero:

You said: "All my music on my iPhone is ripped from previous purchased CD's or purchased without iTunes, but for a very long time that did not seem to matter since my music played after starting it from my watch."

Can you browse to the playlists (of ripped CD's) shared with your AW on your AW? What happens once you play an Album on the iPhone and see it in the "now playing" on your AW? Can you then select, play, pause songs from that album on the AW?

Once I pick a band on my watch that I want to hear their music whether on my phone or through a Bluetooth headset the info is shown on the watch, but nothing happens on the phone except I see now playing on the phone, but nothing is playing.

If I press the play button once again on my watch a random song starts to play.

If I press a song from the songs list, no matter what I play it starts with the very first song on my list each and every time.

The problem is pretty strange and everyone doesn't seem to have it. I was asking you above to put on a Debugger's Hat for a moment to better understand when the problem happens. The case above tries to answer, "Is the behavior identical even for songs already shared with the AW?" That is, you have the Album on the AW but you're playing/navigating the copy on the iPhone.

There's another interesting case of using the AW to navigate albums that are currently playing on the iPhone.

Ok so I have that problem too music ripped from cd won’t play when controlled from watch. Music from the music store play when selected from the watch.

So they need to sort out playing from ripped music