Apple Music doesn’t work on flights

The ONLY reason to pay for this service is to have offline songs. One of the most common places to need offline songs is an airplane.


In the span of 2 weeks I’ve taken 3 flights and on all of them I’m not able to listen to downloaded songs. The songs are downloaded according to storage, and they work again as soon as the plane lands, WITHOUT connecting back to the internet.


Before I get asked the same usual questions:


I tried restarting the phone.


After the first flight this happened I unsynced and synced the library, to no avail, the problem occurred again on the next two flights.


I do not want to attempt disabling Dolby Atmos or reducing the quality, because at that point why pay for this service?


Again, I can guarantee the songs are successfully downloaded since they work offline in every other circumstance. This only happens on airplanes and I’m wondering if it’s to do with location, something completely unacceptable since the songs are on my phone, paid for.


Please fix your problems or provide me with a workaround. Spotify is looking very attractive once more; I might have to sell my Apple HomePod but I guess that’s life.

iPhone 14 Pro Max

Posted on Jun 19, 2023 12:59 PM

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11 replies

Jun 21, 2023 03:30 AM in response to vasilis71

vasilis71 wrote:

Thanks for your reply.

Yes I was under the impression I was contacting Apple through this post but obviously I was wrong.


I found this Web page, which may be of interest. At the very bottom, there's a "Get Support / Start now >" link. If you follow that, it appears to give you the option to chat with an Apple representative or call Apple. (I stopped there, and didn't actually chat with, or call, them.)


Music - Official Apple Support



Jun 20, 2023 03:55 PM in response to vasilis71

vasilis71 wrote:

The ONLY reason to pay for this service is to have offline songs. One of the most common places to need offline songs is an airplane.

Actually, the reason to pay for the service is to have access to the song.


Again, I can guarantee the songs are successfully downloaded since they work offline in every other circumstance. This only happens on airplanes and I’m wondering if it’s to do with location, something completely unacceptable since the songs are on my phone, paid for.


Do they work when you are completely offine in the other locations? With no Internet connectivity at all, even cellular data connectivity that is restricted to allow data transfer, but not music streaming?


What happens if you successfully play some of the offline songs in the airport, right before you board a flight? Does that make a difference as to whether offline listening works aboard the plane?


I'm wondering if the issue has something to do with authorization - with the Music app wanting to occasionally "phone home" to make sure that you are still paid-up and authorized to play the offline copies. (Presumably it checks every now and then, so you can't just stop paying for the subscription, keep the offline copies, and use them forever, free of charge.)


Please fix your problems or provide me with a workaround. Spotify is looking very attractive once more; I might have to sell my Apple HomePod but I guess that’s life.


If this ("your problems") is addressed to Apple, you need to contact Apple. You are talking to other customers here.

Jun 21, 2023 03:24 AM in response to vasilis71

I wouldn't think you'd need a lot of fiddling around – but I have had occasional problems at home where I have tried to play a song, only to be told (incorrectly) that I am not authorized to play it. When I try to play the song again, things work. This has happened at home, where my phone has a WiFi connection to the Internet.


So there may be some glitches in the authorization system – and hence my wondering whether playing a song successfully before boarding the flight, might help in avoiding an authorization error during the flight.


Jun 25, 2023 02:37 PM in response to vasilis71

vasilis71 wrote:

Thanks again for the workaround. I do think it’s kind of silly that these access checks don’t get done on payment date and saved till next payment date, but then I’m not a software engineer so what do I know.


I think the authorization system should have been designed with enough flexibility (of some sort) to keep the problem from happening. Whether by the implementation you propose, or a different one.


Your offline listening copies should work for several days after the last time that you had Internet connectivity (assuming that you were still an Apple Music subscriber at that time). Maybe not forever – to keep somebody from loading up an iPhone, turning on airplane mode forever, and getting an "iPod" full of "free" music. But a few days, anyway, to reduce the chances of what happened to you.


You might want to contact Apple, and let them know of the problem. Maybe there is a bug in their code that they can fix in a future iOS release.


Music - Official Apple Support


Jun 19, 2023 01:24 PM in response to vasilis71

This sounds exactly like what I get when purchasing Music from Apple.


For grins and giggles try “connecting to airline Wi-Fi while on board plane” and see if it will then play song.


If it doesn’t play on plane while flying after getting a Wi-Fi signal, then I would suggest you call 1-800-MY-APPLE. They will help determining what needs to be done.


And by the way, as my opening statement says, this happens to me when on the ground AND when the songs have not been ‘told to download song’ to my device.


Apple assumes you will be streaming songs to your device, to save space.


But I believe you in what you’ve reported, just checking first. Call Apples Tech support as I listed above. Music is too important to not have on an airplane these days.


Best of days to you

Jun 20, 2023 02:01 AM in response to supercondr

Firstly, thanks for your reply.


I will attempt your solution when travelling back home this week, though I suspect it should work since I’m having no issues when connected.


Ideally, I hoped the monthly subscription fee would remove the need to connect (and pay for) on board Wi-Fi.


One detail I forgot to mention since it was slightly different:


I get a similar issue when playing music on the metro (my metro doesn’t have wifi access) but it seems to fix itself after trying to play different songs. With fix itself I mean that after fiddling with the app, eventually I’m able to play any of my downloaded songs (even the ones that initially would refuse to play).


This being different to the plane scenario where no songs will play at all.


I will try to update here if I don’t get this same issue on my next flight. One thing I want to try is to put on airplane mode while still on the ground and see if that holds throughout the flight.


My suspicions are two: location issue, or something to do with my phone thinking it’s still connected and getting stuck in a loop trying to play via streaming

Jun 25, 2023 01:55 PM in response to Servant of Cats

Came back to say that this - playing some songs while still connected before departure - worked, in case anyone has the same issue.


In particular, what I did was:


While still connected, I played some of my songs in my library. Then, I turned on airplane mode and checked that the songs still played, including songs I hadn’t played while connected - they played. Finally, I didn’t remove airplane mode till landing. I was able to play songs throughout.


Thanks again for the workaround. I do think it’s kind of silly that these access checks don’t get done on payment date and saved till next payment date, but then I’m not a software engineer so what do I know.

Jun 21, 2023 01:14 AM in response to Servant of Cats

Thanks for your reply.


Yes I was under the impression I was contacting Apple through this post but obviously I was wrong.


Authorisation sounds like the likely issue.


Songs seem to work after some fiddling (like pressing the play button repeatedly or skipping to next song and back) when underground with no cellular data or Wi-Fi, which I assume is what you mean?


I‘ll try playing songs at the airport first before manually putting on airplane mode. If this works I’ll come back to update.


Indeed I should’ve specified that _for me_ the only reason to pay is for offline songs, since when connected I can stream songs for free using other services.

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Apple Music doesn’t work on flights

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