asking Siri play a specific song from my watch doesn’t work

[Hanuman42]

I’ve noticed recently that if I activate Siri from my watch, and ask it to play a specific song, nothing will happen. For example, I can say “play Let it Be by The Beatles” and nothing will happen. Previously, this would work. I can say “play songs by The Beatles” and my phone will start playing songs by The Beatles. Asking Siri from my phone to play a specific song works fine too.

Anyone else experiencing this? I’ve gone through my Siri settings and I can’t seem to find anything. I tried unpairing my watch with my phone, and then setting it up from a back up, but that didn’t work.

iPhone 12 mini, iOS 16.4.1 Apple Watch 7, watchOS 9.4

 

[AME77]

Yes me, it began a few months ago when I got a new SE 22, replacing my Series 4. Took me a while to notice a pattern in the errors so I can't tell exactly when it started. There also were some OS updates in that time period.

I made a video and I guess this is what you're experiencing too:

(Activate subtitles if you don't understand german)

I opened a service case at apple about 2-3 weeks ago and at present I'm in contact with 2nd level support. They reinstalled the operating system in their lab and sent the watch back to me but nothing changed. I uploaded the video at Apple and the supporter asked me to check the problem with my old series 4 which is still lying around somewhere here. He'll consult other colleagues at Apple and call me back next friday.

iPhone SE 2
Watch SE 22
latest OS'es

 

[AME77]

I’ve noticed recently that if I activate Siri from my watch, and ask it to play a specific song, nothing will happen. For example, I can say “play Let it Be by The Beatles” and nothing will happen. Previously, this would work. I can say “play songs by The Beatles” and my phone will start playing songs by The Beatles. Asking Siri from my phone to play a specific song works fine too.

Do you use Apple Music or iTunes Match ..?

 

[AME77]

Updates on 9.5/16.5 didn't change anything.

 

[Hanuman42]

I wasn't using Apple Music. I just recently signed up for a free trial and the problem seems to have resolved itself. I haven't tried since the 9.5/16.5 updates.

 

[AME77]

A short status report:

The problem is reproducible on other watches, so it shouldn't be a hardware issue. It also seems to be independent from the OS as it "survived" a few updates. The second level support took a complete system image of my watch and currently I'm waiting for a feedback.

 

[AME77]

I just got a call from Apple. They confirm a software error, it will likely be fixed with the next update.

 

[smile1fish]

Same problem here. When I use Siri on my watch to play a specific playlist…it always plays Adele. Weird. When I ask Siri on my watch to play a specific song, it just picks random songs. I have reset my phone from new, and Apple Genius Bar did a bunch of tests on it and even sent it back to Apple. Apple sent it back to me saying nothing was wrong with it. I’m glad to hear others are also having an issue. I had a feeling it was related to software. I’m updated on the software.

 

[AME77]

Well, thats exact the opposite of my watches problem but .. yeah, might be related. Haven't installed the newest update yet but there was no corresponding note in its specification. I don't know how long it lasts until a confirmed error ends up in an update.

 

[isomorphic]

I'm reviving this old thread to say: I have this problem, too, and it survived a Series 6 watchOS 9->10 software upgrade, and a Series 6 -> Series 9 hardware upgrade.

Asking Siri to play music sometimes works if the Now Playing and/or Music apps are not loaded. Once they are, all bets are off.

The one thing I haven't tried is just unpairing the watch and setting it up as new.

 

[AME77]

I haven't updated my devices yet (never install a ".0") but I'll do it this week. If the problem still exists I'll contact Apple again.

 

[isomorphic]

A similar issue I've experienced, Siri not playing the correct thing (despite correctly understanding my speech), has a thread here: <https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253043450>. Playing the wrong thing is more frustrating than doing nothing at all.

The recommendation in that thread was to re-pair the watch as new. I suspect there are some cross-watchOS-version bugs in the Watch's ability to play back music resulting from some kind of malformed settings data—that is, if starting with new pairing fixes the issue. I've been migrating my data forward since I had a Series 2.

In all cases if I say the exact same thing to my iPhone, I get the correct result. So it's definitely a watchOS bug.

 

[AME77]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm experiencing. I tried all workarounds in cooperation with 2nd level support but no change. They took a snapshot of my watch and after a few days confirmed it's a bug they wanted to fix with a "future" Update. I'll stay in contact with that supporter.

 

[AME77]

I just had a talk with the 2nd level support. The problem still isn't solved as far as they can see. They'll contact the developing team and call me back on Wednesday.

 

[AME77]

I just got a call from a senior support team member. She's reviewing the ticket and asked me to update my devices with todays new OS release, then try it again and call them back. I'll report when that's done.

 

[AME77]

Okay, still not working with IOS 17.1.1 and WatchOS 10.1.1

I called the support team but I couldn't talk to the the senior supporter. Instead a young man said that he has to open this as a new case (...?) and he'll call me back in one week. Thanks Apple.

[ ] (A)bort
[ ] (R)etry
[ ] (W)TF

 

[AME77]

Chapter 12: The misunderstanding

A supporter called me back and asked me to do some resets, log off Apple Music etc. but nothing worked and just for a second I thought I heard him saying a word that his supervisor might not like 🙂 I had to restart my iPhone and so he needed to hang up and call me back but instead I got an email, saying that he had tried and just heard a busy signal from my number (Yep, sure you did buddy)

I called again and got another supporter (very skilled, very nice) and after studying the long ticket for a while he found out that the developer team never said they would write an update. Instead they requested an update of my logs because the files were unambigous. So the case was lying around for several months until I called. Oh great ... like 👍

The (second) supporter assured me that his English is very good (at least better than that of his coworkers), he would clear the issue with the U.S. developers and then ... guess what ... call me back.

 

[AME77]

Short update:
The support took two system images during the last weeks. It seems the developers aren't quite sure about the origination of the error but at least they confirm that there is one.

 

[vanhalen26]

Ever resolve? I have the same issue. I’ll be playing music on a Bluetooth speaker and I just get the error

There's no device capable of audio playback connected​

 

[AME77]

The last contact to the support team was in April '24. I wrote an Email to the 2nd level supporter today, so we'll see. The current problem is:

- Siri (Watch) doesn't play titles on the iPhone/car radio, Example:
"Hey Siri, play the title "Born in the USA"" doesn't work
"Hey Siri, play the album "Born in the USA"" does
- Siri (Watch+iPhone) don't play genres from my library, instead it always starts the genre on TuneIn

This is especially annoying while driving my car with the iPhone in my pocket ... just when you need Siri most ...

 

[AME77]

Just got a call from a T2 supporter:
The developers confirmed it's a bug and it shall be solved with WatchOS 11. As far as he knows, the fix is already implemented in the 11 beta.

 

[AME77]

Nope ... nothing .. still the same error in WatchOS 11/iOS 18:

- Siri (Watch) doesn't play titles on the iPhone/car radio, Example:
"Hey Siri, play the title "Born in the USA"" doesn't work
"Hey Siri, play the album "Born in the USA"" does
- Siri (Watch+iPhone) don't play genres from my library, instead it always starts the genre on TuneIn

 

[vinegarshots]

Yeah, I’ve had this problem forever (and it only fails when my phone is connected to my car via Bluetooth—works fine if request is sent though watch playing to AirPods, or playing through phone speaker) . There is a workaround (which is super annoying)— if you phrase your request “play song-title on Apple Music” it will play. No clue why it’s necessary to add the “on Apple Music” part when it didn’t used to be 🤪🤪. Especially when you don’t need to add that part if you use your phone instead of watch

 

[AME77]

Thanks for the advice but it doesn't work.

The problem occurs every time, independent from the output device or Siris language. I got another call from a t2 supporter yesterday who told me that according to the ticket, just 5 persons have this issue (like 5 in "worldwide" ...?) Siri even doesn't work with my account on my sons hardware, so somehow it must be related to my iCloud account. The best "solutions" I got from the support team were to

- create a new account and loose my well known mailadress (great, thank you) or
- change from iTunes Match to the free Apple Music tryout and then back to iTunes Match. I'll try this out over the weekend.

(No, I don't want Apple Music. iTunes Match just makes synchronizing the devices easier and that's all I need)