Books.app doesn't work on Audible; Apple and Audible each blame the other

[theorist9]

I'm stuck in an authorization loop when I try to play Audible books on my 2019 iMac running macOS Monterey 12.4. Starting with Catalina, Apple replaced iTunes with Books.app and Music.app. Audiobooks can now only be opened by Books.app. When I try to open an audiobook I've purchased from Audible, Books.app asks me to authorize the audiobook. I say yes, and it takes me to the Audible site, where I hit Activate Now. It then takes me back to Books.app, where it says "The computer couldn't be authorized for your Audible account." See screenshots 1–3.

Here's another poster with this issue: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...le-books.2337027/?post=31229607#post-31229607

I contacted Audible, and ended up exchanging emails with an "Audible Tech Tier 3 Lead". He wrote the following:

"This behavior started when iTunes was replaced on MacOS. This started on MacOS 10.15 (Catalina). When we faced this issue back with Catalina, we encountered several ways to go around the issue, yet none to actually fix it. We (Audible) created a bug report to Apple, who at that time was about to release Big Sur. Unfortunately, the issue was not fully resolved with that update. With the update to Monterey, there were no updates that targeted this bug. We created a new Bug report to Apple, including the Sysdiagnose logs to help them find the root cause of this behavior. At this moment, we haven't received a reply yet, so we are looking for alternative communication methods with them.

Finally, allow me to address your request to look for what is working for some users with Monterey. We have not been able to replicate this activation issue in-house testing. We have used several Mac computers, yet they have all been able to be activated successfully. Our development team have been unable to identify any possible issues with the activation method from our end, which is why we have alerted Apple of this."

Since Audible says it only affects some users, I thought it might have something to do with the configuration of my user accounts, so I created a new installation of Monterey on a fresh volume. On the fresh volume, I saw the same behavior.

I also contacted AppleCare. The Senior Advisor forwarded my issue to the SSE Engineering Team. Here is what the advisor wrote about the engineering team's findings:

"The engineers tested the audible issue on a computer running an older version which was MacOS Mojave and they were able to be successful with audible but when they tried with our current version MacOS Monterey audible did not work and they experienced the same issue you are having. They were able to determine that right now audible is not compatible with any version after MacOS Mojave . So anything on Catalina and later will not work with audible."

So, to summarize, Audible is saying this:

(a) This is due to a *bug in Books.app* that Apple has not yet fixed; (b) Audible *is not* able to reproduce the bug themselves, but are aware it is affecting many users; and (c) Audible doesn't know why some users are affected but not others.

And Apple is saying this:

(a) This is due to a *bug in Audible*; (b) Apple *is* able to reproduce the bug on all versions of MacOS that use Books.app.

Finally, I'll add that, when I try to do the authorization in Chrome instead of Safari, I get a popup asking me if I want to open Audible in Music.app, suggesting the problem is that Audible is trying to authorize the wrong app (see last screenshot). Audible blames Apple for this, and Apple blames Audible.

 

[artfossil]

You can stream Audible books from the browser (audible.com).

On iOS or iPad OS, use the Audible app.

 

[theorist9]

You can stream Audible books from the browser (audible.com).

On iOS or iPad OS, use the Audible app.

I need Books.app to work so I can load the Audiobooks onto my iPod, and so I can charge my iPod without Books.app deleting all the Audible books on it because it thinks they're unauthorized, which is what is happening now.

Currently I need to crack open my old 2014 MacBook Pro, which is running High Sierra and thus has iTunes, both to load new Audible audiobooks, and to charge the iPod.

I don't own an iOS device.

 

[artfossil]

Sorry I can't help. Haven't had an iPod for ages and avoid the Books app.

But it sounds like using your 2014 MacBook Pro is a good workaround.

 

[haralds]

Working ok for me now on Ventura B7.
I had to authorize to refresh. Cider got in the way, so I deleted it and its Application Support cache, then restarted Safari.
There was an issue with the Audible books not showing after drag'n drop. I simply created a Collection and dropped them into it. The books became visible there and played.

 

[theorist9]

Working ok for me now on Ventura B7.
I had to authorize to refresh. Cider got in the way, so I deleted it and its Application Support cache, then restarted Safari.
There was an issue with the Audible books not showing after drag'n drop. I simply created a Collection and dropped them into it. The books became visible there and played.

Was this a change for you vs. how it worked in Monterey? I'm asking b/c I want to know if Ventura fixes this for those who, like me, couldn't get it working in Monterey (according to Audible, some aren't affected by this isssue).

 

[whadaheg]

@theorist9 - You can use the workaround mentioned at https://gist.github.com/paramaggarwal/d7f321b4980ccc11499ccf2a15acbd2a
to fix the issue. It works for me on Ventura

 

[theorist9]

@theorist9 - You can use the workaround mentioned at https://gist.github.com/paramaggarwal/d7f321b4980ccc11499ccf2a15acbd2a
to fix the issue. It works for me on Ventura

Thanks. Didn't work for me in Monterey. I think I followed the procedure correctly, even though the directions were incomplete and didn't exactly correspond to what I saw. E.g., it didn't tell you to include an ampersand before each query token you added, but that's what was present for the existing tokens, so I did that. I.e., I appended "&ipRedirectOverride=true&overrideBaseCountry=true" to the end of the link, since those were the only missing tokens.

I then clicked on the revised link, and didn't get the "Activate in iTunes" button the directions specified. Instead, I got an "Activate Now" button:

But I R-clicked on it anyways, and I did get this:
itms://www.audible.com/license/licenseForCustomerToken?customer_token=.....
So I changed it to ibooks://.... But that just gave me this:

 

[whadaheg]

instead of right click, just click activate without changing anything.

 

[theorist9]

instead of right click, just click activate without changing anything.

That was actually the first thing I tried--same result.

 

[theorist9]

Audible sent me an email saying they fixed it in Ventura. But I tried it in Ventura, and it still doesn't work.