iTunes/Apple Music not working for El Capitan users

[nungesser]

I didn't see a thread about this, but it may already have been reported here... right now one of the more active threads on the Apple community forums is around Apple Music, which stopped functioning for anyone using El Capitan (10.11.6) about two weeks ago.

About 600-700 users so far have reported the same issue: the "Browse", "Radio", and "For You" tabs simply don't work anymore. They just get a blank screen and 'loading' spinner.

Apple Support is aware of the issue and has no fixes or suggestions as they say that El Capitan is too old to have any documentation.

Some people like myself have downgraded to iTunes 12.4.3 to get access to Apple Music. I suspect Apple isn't going to offer an iTunes update for the small number of Apple Music customers using El Capitan, but it's disappointing to be abandoned.

 

[ddmcnair]

Why haven't you upgraded to 10.12, 10.13, or even 10.14? By the way, in 10.15 iTunes is gone. 10.14 is pretty solid and still has 32 bit support. Seriously upgrade, it's free.

 

[SuperMatt]

Why haven't you upgraded to 10.12, 10.13, or even 10.14? By the way, in 10.15 iTunes is gone. 10.14 is pretty solid and still has 32 bit support. Seriously upgrade, it's free.

Some of us have older computers that can't run anything newer than El Capitan. We shouldn't be stopped from using iTunes without warning.

 

[nungesser]

Why haven't you upgraded to 10.12, 10.13, or even 10.14? By the way, in 10.15 iTunes is gone. 10.14 is pretty solid and still has 32 bit support. Seriously upgrade, it's free.

I'm using a 2008 Mac Pro. 10.11.6 is the latest MacOS that can be installed on it -- believe me, I'd love to use a newer OS, but Apple won't allow it. And now they won't allow Apple Music to work on older machines, either.

 

[SuperMatt]

One workaround for this issue: the new web interface for Apple Music loads without a problem on Safari on El Capitan. Playlists appear to sync too.

 

[nungesser]

One workaround for this issue: the new web interface for Apple Music loads without a problem on Safari on El Capitan. Playlists appear to sync too.

Thanks, this is an excellent workaround.

 

[wellander1]

Itunes support for 10.11 had ended last month.

 

[NoBoMac]

Apple Music, which stopped functioning for anyone using El Capitan (10.11.6)

Just out of curiosity, which version of iTunes were you using on El Cap? Was it the "special" iTunes, 10.6.3(?) that has the App Store access still in place? Can see that being an issue, as that was kind of a "use at own risk" version. And per Apple's download page for this, the page is no longer maintained and the dmg itself seems like it has not been updated in a year, so, can see that it is incompatible.

Per Apple, they support 12.8.2 iTunes starting at El Cap 10.11.4.

https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1977?locale=en_US

Itunes support for 10.11 had ended last month.

Is this documented anywhere?

 

[wellander1]

Just out of curiosity, which version of iTunes were you using on El Cap? Was it the "special" iTunes, 10.6.3(?) that has the App Store access still in place? Can see that being an issue, as that was kind of a "use at own risk" version. And per Apple's download page for this, the page is no longer maintained and the dmg itself seems like it has not been updated in a year, so, can see that it is incompatible.

Per Apple, they support 12.8.2 iTunes starting at El Cap 10.11.4.

https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1977?locale=en_US



Is this documented anywhere?

I thought that it was part of the os lifecycle. Full updates for one year then security updates for two years and iTunes updates and support for three years. Am I wrong?

 

[NoBoMac]

I thought that it was part of the os lifecycle. Full updates for one year then security updates for two years and iTunes updates and support for three years. Am I wrong?

No, correct. Just that since we won't be seeing Catalina for a couple of weeks, everything should be in a supported state. In this case, 10.11.6 for MacOS and 12.8.x for iTunes. End of September, all bets are off.

Where issues happen from what I've seen with iTunes is if you get the latest version of iOS and want to sync with an old version of iTunes, might very well get all sorts of errors. But things like the stores and services seem to work ok.

Xcode kinda works in a similar way in that an old version will be ok with latest OS, but once the .1 release of MacOS comes out, that old version is EoL.

 

[SuperMatt]

Just out of curiosity, which version of iTunes were you using on El Cap?

Per Apple, they support 12.8.2 iTunes starting at El Cap 10.11.4.

https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1977?locale=en_US

Running iTunes 12.8.2 and ElCap 10.11.6. I was going to go back to an older version to see if Apple Music would work, but it said my music library wasn’t compatible with the older version. For now I am using the web app for Apple Music and iTunes for stuff in my library and playlists.