Many of the songs in Music on my iPhone and Mac are greyed out and show "waiting"

Question

Level 1

68 points

Many of the songs in Music on my iPhone and Mac are greyed out and show "waiting"

I have an Apple Music subscription.

I cannot access many of the songs in Music on my iPhone and Mac because they are greyed out and show "waiting." Clicking on one in iPhone gives, "This song is not synced across your devices. On your Mac or PC, go to Apple Music or iTunes for Windows and in Preferences select Sync Library."

I did de-select and re-select "Sync Library" this did not make any difference.

I also went to File > Library > Update Cloud Library. This did not help either.

These particular songs may have been ones that were originally on my hard drive in my iTunes library, but which apparently have disappeared since I got the Apple Music Subscription. However, I was still able to listen to them, until recently.

Posted on Dec 11, 2022 09:35 AM

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Answer 1

bruno75

Community Specialist

Dec 13, 2022 02:59 PM in response to jdbartram

Hey there jdbartram,

We are not completely understanding some of the details you provided, but we do understand that some(not all) of the songs on your iPhone and Mac are greyed out. We'd like to better understand what's happening, along with ruling out some general details:

Are the greyed out songs ones located in the Apple Music catalog from your subscription, or were they obtained elsewhere? If elsewhere, let us know from where you obtained them.
If they were obtained from the Apple Music catalog, is this occurring when you try streaming them, or is it only occurring with songs you've downloaded from the Apple Music catalog?
Where exactly does it show the 'waiting' message for the songs? The more details you provide, the better we'll understand what you meant.
Sometimes unexpected behavior can be resolved with a restart. Check out the section 'Restart' here: Log out, sleep, wake, restart, or shut down your Mac Here are the steps to Restart your iPhone.
If you have a compatible Mac model, the latest version is macOS 13.0.1. You can verify this by clicking on the Apple logo at the top left corner of the screen, then on ‘About This Mac’. In case you needed it, this link shows how to first back up, then Update macOS on Mac.
For your iPhone, if you have a compatible model, the latest version is iOS 16.1.2. You can verify this within Settings > General > About. In case you needed it, this link shows how to first back up, then Update your iPhone or iPad.

Cheers!

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Answer 2

Omar_A1

Community Specialist

Dec 14, 2022 11:29 AM in response to jdbartram

jdbartram,

Thank you for those details and that screenshot.

The songs in that screenshot show as purchased. You can delete and redownload those using these steps:

"Download previous purchases to an authorized computer

In the Music app on your Mac, make sure you authorized your computer to play iTunes Store purchases.
Click iTunes Store in the sidebar.
If you don’t see iTunes Store in the sidebar, choose Music > Settings, click General, make sure iTunes Store is selected, then click OK.
Click Purchased on the right side of the iTunes Store window.
Purchases available for download are displayed. You can view all of your past purchases or just the ones not currently in your music library. Items already in your library aren’t available for download.
You can view your purchases by song, artist, or album. If you view by album, click an album to see which songs are available to download.
To search for an item, type its name or a keyword in the search field, then press the Return key.
To download an item, click its Download button .

To find out how to download previous purchases to your device, see the user guide for iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. For a device that doesn’t use the latest version of iOS or iPadOS, get the user guide from the Apple Support Manuals website."

More details can be found here: Download previous iTunes Store purchases in Music on Mac

If the issue persists, can you provide a few more details? Are you logged in using the same Apple ID used to purchase the songs originally? Also, which macOS version are you currently using?

Cheers!

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Answer 3

jdbartram Author

Level 1

68 points

Dec 13, 2022 03:23 PM in response to bruno75

Hi bruno75,

Thanks so much for your reply!

I'm old (78) and it was some time ago, but I believe that these were songs that I either imported from CDs or purchased in the iTunes Store. I have had them since way before the Apple Music subscription. At some point - either when I purchased the Apple Music subscription or when I transferred data to my MacBook Air M1, the music library seemed to loose a lot of music, but I was still able to access it so I didn't worry. It has been a month or so since I tried to access these songs, so I don't know exactly when this started.
I don't think this question applies because of answer #1.
The 'waiting' message is in the column Cloud Status. Other entries in this column are 'Purchased,' 'Uploaded' and 'Apple Music.'
I have restarted both the iPhone and MacBook Air, and today installed the latest OSs, 16.2 and 13.1.
See #4.
See #4.

See the attached image for a screen shot showing two examples of the waiting songs, "Fugue For Tinhorns" and "Get Up Stand Up."

Thanks!

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Answer 4

jdbartram Author

Level 1

68 points

Dec 15, 2022 09:12 AM in response to Omar_A1

Hi Omar_A1,

Thanks for your reply!

iPhone 16.2, MacBookAir M1 13.1

Logged in with the same Apple ID

The songs I am concerned about are not "Purchased," they are "Waiting." I followed your steps 1 to 7 above, however none of the songs that I cannot access and that are listed as "Waiting" were included in the list of songs that I had purchased.

After trying your steps, I sorted the list of songs by "Cloud Status" to see all of the "Waiting" songs together. There are 98 altogether and I think that they are all songs that I added many years ago by burning from CDs that I owned.

My understanding was that Apple Music uploaded these songs to the cloud, where they would be available on any of your devices. They were for a long time, but now they are not.

Unfortunately, for some reason, they are not on my Music folder either anymore.

Thanks again for trying to help me with this.

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Answer 5

jdbartram Author

Level 1

68 points

Dec 26, 2022 11:32 AM in response to karina184

I did get in touch with a person in Apple Support, who was knowledgeable and helpful to me. Apparently at one time I was part of iTunes Match or something and these 98 songs which I believe I had ripped from CDs, were uploaded to Apple and removed from my computer. Now they are no longer in the Apple Cloud nor on my computer.

I thought they were gone forever, but when I looked through all my backup drives for the second time, I found that I had saved my music library in 2016 so it looks like all the missing songs are there. I'm not sure how or if I will try to integrate them into Apple Music again, but at least I still have them.

Thanks to those who tried to help!

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Answer 6

karina184

Community Specialist

Dec 15, 2022 11:10 AM in response to jdbartram

Hey jdbartram,

At this point, we would recommend reaching out to Apple Support. They will have the necessary tools to investigate into this matter more with you: Get Support.

Take care.

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Many of the songs in Music on my iPhone and Mac are greyed out and show "waiting"

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