Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

ric22

Suspended
Mar 8, 2022
2,713
2,963
I have over 10,000 songs that I've bought from iTunes over the years and I have been using iTunes (now apple music) for 15+ years in my cycling studio. The 15-second cut-out just started happening to me a few weeks ago but it's extremely annoying. I have searched everywhere for a solution, but it seems like apple is just happy to take my $10 per month to play music that I've already purchased. I'm still not ready to give up. I noticed today that the songs that it's happening to are the ones marked 'matched'. I've never understood the advantage of the 'match' program, but I don't think I had a choice. Anyway, if anyone on this thread can run with the info that it seems to be happening only to matched songs, I (we) would be grateful!
An Apple tech on the phone suggested wiping all music and music-related files they had for me, and starting off with a blank slate. He could think of nothing else to try.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: max2

bak5557

macrumors newbie
Jan 12, 2023
7
3
Good lord! That sounds drastic. Pretty telling when the Apple tech 'can't think of anything else to try....' :-(
 
  • Like
Reactions: max2

GraldAmuzu

macrumors newbie
Feb 26, 2024
1
0
I’m not sure if another solution has already been found, if it has is love to know what it is, but here is what I’ve had to do to work around this issue:

I am unable to reliably play lossless Apple Music due to many tracks simply stopping at 15 seconds, sometimes resulting in a “bad url” error of some sort. I found that tended to happen on songs I had uploaded from CD many years ago. As a workaround after a song stops at 15 secs I searched my personal library for the song and deleted it (or the entire album) from my library. After I did this, Apple Music had no problem playing the lossless/atmos track. I then re-added the lossless Apple Music version of the song or album to my library (not sure this is necessary but I like my library to contain my music).
I have a fairly large personal music library and this is a cumbersome process for every track that is effected. So I consider it a workaround and not a solution. I’ve been using this process effectively for the past couple days so I’m not sure if will always work but it has so far.
Hope this helps someone and I hope Apple comes up with a real solution sometime soon.
Ever since the latest update to iOS 15 I've noticed Apple Music frequently stops playing after the first 15 seconds of a song, particularly if the song was Dolby Atmos, but that's not always the case. Anyone else have this?

Hardware is a 2020 iPhone SE 2.
The solution to this problem is a simple one. When playing music with your Apple device, there is always an option for the output to come from the internal speakers of the device or from external speakers through a bluetooth speaker. If your device has been set to play through a bluetooth speaker and the bluetooth device is on and connected, the music will play through the bluetooth speaker. But if the bluetooth device is not available or not connected, your device will play for only a few seconds and stop.

SOLUTION:
Go to your music library and toggle the icon to play through the internal speakers of your device or connect to the bluetooth speaker. See attached screenshot
 
Last edited:

MajorFubar

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 27, 2021
2,174
3,825
Lancashire UK
The solution to this problem is a simple one. When playing music with your Apple device, there is always an option for the output to come from the internal speakers of the device or from external speakers through a bluetooth speaker. If your device has been set to play through a bluetooth speaker and the bluetooth device is on and connected, the music will play through the bluetooth speaker. But if the bluetooth device is not available or not connected, your device will play for only a few seconds and stop.

SOLUTION:
Go to your music library and toggle the icon to play through the internal speakers of your device or connect to the bluetooth speaker. See attached screenshot
While your suggestion is well intended, it's worth bearing in mind that we're not all Apple newbies who make rudimentary errors. I can't say if this is still a problem because I have abandoned Apple Music, but in my case it definitely was not because bluetooth or anything else was dropping off. The same thing would happen whether I was using BT headphones or whether my phone was streaming to my AirPort Express. I don't use the phone's built-in speaker to listen to music. People who do that don't deserve good music.

There are no settings I can find in Apple Music that specifically direct it to play to a certain audio device. It plays (played, in my case, seeing I don't use it anymore) to whatever device my phone was physically or virtually connected to.
 

Powerbooky

macrumors demi-god
Mar 15, 2008
686
627
Europe
One month later and it still glitches.

On iOS 17.4 I find that the Music app always skips a fraction of a second within the first 10 seconds of playback. And it doesn't matter from which source the music is. Digital purchases, matched songs or unmatched songs, even MP3... and it also doesn't matter if it was previously (re)downloaded onto the iOS device.
My HomePod mini's also have this issue, but a little bit less.

This morning I opened the Music app on my Mac (MacOS 14.4 Sonoma) at work. When I pressed play on whatever song, Apple Music or an MP3 of my own, it just stopped within 10 seconds. The play button kept showing the play status, but the speakers were silent. When I press the play button again it showed the pause state, but then the music started playing again for another 5 seconds... weird. Restarted the app a few times, but nothing changed.
But then I noticed something... the app was searching for an one of the HomePod's at home, which I had used yesterday. For some reason it kept looking for that device very long and meanwhile it used the built-in speakers for 5-8 seconds. It took around 2-3 minutes until the Music app finally decided to show a pop-up in which it explained that it was searching for different speakers. After selecting the built-in output, the music started to play normally.
But after a while the issue came back... playing a newly searched song for 5-7 seconds... then it stops again, still searching for the AirPlay device that isn't on the connected network.

This macOS version is the worst I ever experienced... did Apple hire former Microsoft programmers or something?
 
Last edited:

ric22

Suspended
Mar 8, 2022
2,713
2,963
One month later and it still glitches.

On iOS 17.4 I find that the Music app always skips a fraction of a second within the first 10 seconds of playback. And it doesn't matter from which source the music is. Digital purchases, matched songs or unmatched songs, even MP3... and it also doesn't matter if it was previously (re)downloaded onto the iOS device.
My HomePod mini's also have this issue, but a little bit less.

This morning I opened the Music app on my Mac (MacOS 14.4 Sonoma) at work. When I pressed play on whatever song, Apple Music or an MP3 of my own, it just stopped within 10 seconds. The play button kept showing the play status, but the speakers were silent. When I press the play button again it showed the pause state, but then the music started playing again for another 5 seconds... weird. Restarted the app a few times, but nothing changed.
But then I noticed something... the app was searching for an one of the HomePod's at home, which I had used yesterday. For some reason it kept looking for that device very long and meanwhile it used the built-in speakers for 5-8 seconds. It took around 2-3 minutes until the Music app finally decided to show a pop-up in which it explained that it was searching for different speakers. After selecting the built-in output, the music started to play normally.
But after a while the issue came back... playing a newly searched song for 5-7 seconds... then it stops again, still searching for the AirPlay device that isn't on the connected network.

This macOS version is the worst I ever experienced... did Apple hire former Microsoft programmers or something?
Will you try speaking to Apple support to ask for help? I'm curious what they'll suggest
 

Powerbooky

macrumors demi-god
Mar 15, 2008
686
627
Europe
Will you try speaking to Apple support to ask for help? I'm curious what they'll suggest

I've found a workaround; I had to untick the AirPlay2 device, even though that device doesn't even exist on the current network I'm on. Now the device is gone and can't be ticked again. The music now plays normally.
But I'll send in a bug-report to Apple.

Maybe the functionality has changed here, I remember that in the past iTunes simply forgot the AirPlay connection when iTunes was closed. Apparently the Music app today doesn't.
 

MajorFubar

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 27, 2021
2,174
3,825
Lancashire UK
I sent a bug report to Apple when I started the thread, over two years ago. No doubt it's in the backlog of a Jira project somewhere, but I am now utterly convinced a fix will never see the light of day because not enough people GAS about it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ric22

TigerKR

macrumors newbie
Nov 6, 2004
22
2
I've had this problem for years through multiple OS versions. Still have this problem. Sonoma 14.4.1. Not playing on any remote speakers, no remote speakers checked off. Using Apple Music cloud library and have iTunes match.

Tracks just sit at 0:14 - no paused, but not playing. Happens very regularly. It is very frustrating. Only way to get music to play again is to skip to the next track.
 
  • Sad
Reactions: MajorFubar
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.