Album cover art not showing on Apple Watch when away from wifi

Question

Album cover art not showing on Apple Watch when away from wifi

Hello,

My Apple Watch (GPS only, series 7, Watch OS 10.1) refuses to show album cover arts in Apple Music / Playing Now, when my iPhone (iPhone 12 Pro, iOS 17.1) is not connected to a wifi and instead is only connected to a cellular network. If I start an album while at home (connected to my home wifi), then its cover art continues to appear on Apple Watch - until I change it to a new one; this new one won't show on my Apple Watch.

I've tested various situations and the behaviour is essentially this:

Apple Watch wifi on, iPhone wifi on - cover art showing

Apple watch wifi off, phone wifi on - cover art showing

Apple watch wifi off, phone wifi off (cellular on) - cover art NOT showing

Apple watch wifi on, phone wifi off (cellular on) - cover art NOT showing.

Bluetooth is on both on my iPhone and Apple Watch, cellular data is up and working. "Recent Music" in Apple music settings (auto-download Recent Music) is OFF.

This started happening pretty recently, maybe a couple of weeks ago, I cannot tell exactly when, everything was fine before that. The only thing I did to my Apple Watch recently, apart from updating its OS, was resetting it (due to its refusal to show any notifications).

Can anyone please help?

Apple Watch Series 7, 10

Posted on Nov 2, 2023 07:01 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 9, 2023 05:28 AM in response to partiallygeorge

For those wondering, here is some update:

After a careful investigation of the situation on my own, it turned out album cover art is not shown on Apple Watch 'Music' or 'Playing Now' apps for:

Albums I downloaded from Apple music
Albums I purchased on Apple iTunes
Albums that, even though I downloaded them from different sources, are available on iTunes and/or Apple Music.

For the albums I downloaded from different sources that are not available on iTunes and/or Apple Music, their cover art remains visible on Apple watch at all times.

(again, the invisibility issue is only present when I am not connected with wifi. If I am connected with wifi, then album cover art is visible on Apple Watch.)

In order to solve the issue, I turned off Library syncing. Obviously, I lost access to all of my Apple Music albums, but the cover art of all of the remaining albums (purchased from iTunes and downloaded from custom sources) became visible once again.

I understand this cover art issue is not important enough for Apple engineers to be bothered with, however it's really bizarre and, imho, is worth investigating.

Thanks for your attention.

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Answer 2

Nov 21, 2023 01:08 PM in response to partiallygeorge

Same, but only some albums that I downloaded to watch do not have artwork..

Artwork shows fine on phone and in iTunes

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Album cover art not showing on Apple Watch when away from wifi

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