Playlists in Apple Music suddenly stopped working

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Level 1

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Playlists in Apple Music suddenly stopped working

Today I was organizing my songs in Apple Music (the app, not the subscription service). I had made a few playlists and was successfully able to add songs to them. I then connected my iPhone in order to sync the folders I just created. However, after the sync, the playlist panel on the left stopped functioning. I cannot add a new playlist. I cannot change the name of an existing playlist. If I add/delete songs to a current playlist, it seems to be successful, until I quit Apple Music and then reopen the app. Once I do this, all of the songs I added are now gone and the songs I had deleted are now back. It is as if the playlist froze at the moment in time when I synced to my phone. I have tried to restart the computer, but that doesn't seem to work.

This is really frustrating because it was working fine just 2 hours ago.

Any thoughts? Anyone?

iMac 24″, macOS 14.7

Posted on Feb 20, 2025 10:18 PM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

277,799 points

Feb 24, 2025 3:37 AM in response to M Mason

Press and hold down Option as you launch Music and use the Choose Library... option to explicitly reselect your Music library, normally at ~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary. There seem to be some circumstances where Music becomes connected to a cached copy of the library that doesn't update correctly. Close Music, relaunch while holding down Option+Cmd to open the library in Music's safe mode. This may perform some internal housekeeping which may also help.

tt2

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Answer 2

M Mason Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 24, 2025 6:43 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks for the tips. Launching Music with the Option button allowed me to create two new playlists, and then the problem returned (I tried repeating this step, but still was unable to create a new playlist). However, I seem to now be able to add music without it disappearing after closing and re-launching Music, so that's an improvement. I then I tried opening in safe mode and this seemed to have no effect.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my query. Any other ideas?

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Answer 3

turingtest2

Level 10

277,799 points

Feb 24, 2025 7:03 AM in response to M Mason

Are you running any third party security software? If you have an HDD drive is it healthy? You could right-click on your Music Library.musiclibrary package and see if it contains multiple hidden .tmp files. One of these should appear briefly as you make changes to the library, but otherwise there should be none.

tt2

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Playlists in Apple Music suddenly stopped working

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