The most interesting bug in the world

Software
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1

Not looking for fixes on this one, although I’ll take ‘em if you got ‘em.

So. I have this Apple Music playlist. (There are many like it, but this one is mine.)

Then, iOS 14 happened… and for each of the songs that were on this playlist before iOS 14, I now get this error…

This song is not currently available in your country or region.
This song is not currently available in your country or region.2388×1668 467 KB

…but only on my iPhone and iPad, not on my Mac.

If I go to any song’s album, all of the other songs can be played.

If I add new songs to the playlist, they are fine, too. (Hence, In July at the end, now.)

I make a lot of playlists. Yet, this is the only one that has suffered from this issue!

Possible causes:

  • I accidentally built a playlist solely of 12 seemingly random songs that were slated to be de-licensed for Apple Music in Canada, and my Mac is secretly American.
  • One of Apple Music’s curators abhors my taste so much that they ruined the playlist for me on purpose.
  • My iPhone and iPad are actually in some no man’s land jurisdiction of music licensing. That region is defined as exactly the volume of my iPhone and iPad at all times, and the only music that is not licensed for the region are these 12 songs.

I guess you could say that this playlist has collapsed…?

2 Likes
2

Well, there’s only 13 songs in the playlist, maybe try creating it again from scratch?

3

No, the songs themselves are not playable due to a supposed region lock.

For instance, this is the album view for the album the Mura Masa song, No Hope Generation, is from… note that it’s greyed out, but the rest of the songs are not.

image
image2388×1668 362 KB

4

So if you play the album the other songs play but not that one?

5

Your answers are more interesting to read :slight_smile: but this one from Apple support sounds like it may work - you may need to physically connect your phone to your Mac with a Lightning cable:

image
image966×261 37.7 KB

1 Like
6

@jec0047 Yes, exactly. And again, only songs that were on precisely this playlist before iOS 14. Weird, eh?

@rkaplan Thanks for the pointer! I think I’ve figured out a fix, though.

Apparently the broken songs don’t play in my library, but if I navigate to the same albums from Apple Music, they seem to work—and my devices don’t think they’re downloaded. (I.e., they appear as the only songs on their respective albums that are not downloaded.)

So, theoretically, if I remove these songs/albums from my library, then re-add them, it might work… I’ll report back when I get the chance to try it.

7

Maybe those songs moved to a subscription model

1 Like