Apple Watch music problems

[Major Foster]

Despite it working perfectly for more than 2 years, the last few months I'm having a lot of problems with Apple Watch and music. I traditionally only select a single playlist of 1000 songs to be put on the Watch (SE1), but since 9.0 or 9.1 (don't know for sure) it keeps on downloading other songs from my iPhone (a lot more than those 1000) until it eventually tells me the Watch is full. During the transfer of all those songs the battery drain (both on Watch and iPhone) is enormous.

When I deselect/delete the playlist to be put on the Watch (in the iPhone Watch app), the number of songs on the Watch stays exactly the same. This seems strange, because with no music selected it should be 0, right, and there should be no music at all on the Watch? Only when I reselect the playlist it briefly goes back to 0, but then it starts downloading all the songs again (and a lot more).

Something else that seems off to me is when I go into 'Music' in the 'Settings' on the Apple Watch itself (not on iPhone), I can't switch off the first option ('add playlist songs' or something like that). When I switch it off and go back, it's switched on again. Is anybody able to switch off this first option? Maybe this causes the problem? Maybe this means it downloads all the available playlists from my iPhone on the Watch, and not only the one I selected?

I'm on 9.3 now and nothing changed. I want to hear if other people experience the exact same problem? Because the last few months a lot of people seem to have problems with Apple Watch and music, but the problems differ a lot. I also hear that restoring (unpairing/repairing) the Apple Watch has not fixed their problems, so I'm very hesitant to do it myself.

BTW: I'm not using Apple music, just offline local music from my iPhone.

 

[YodaATmac]

are the songs on your watch greyed out? otherway: can you play the song you allegedly deleted from the watch? If the song is greyed out and you wish to remove the playlist and/or the song, do you get the "error" message (I'm paraphrasing) "you have to sync with apple music..."? If so - an epic example of apple forcing users to subscribe apple music.

What does your watch app on the phone say about the memory available on the watch after "deleting" the playlist?

 

[Major Foster]

I have only selected a playlist of 1000 songs to be synced with the Watch. In reality I see there are atm 2970 songs stored on my Watch. So something is not right.

Deleting this playlists lowers the song count to less than 1000 (a few hundred) but it should be 0, right? And even then, the Watch most of the times keeps syncing/adding other songs without anything being selected to sync on my iPhone.

I see a lot of other playlists with some songs greyed out, some songs playable (other than the ones selected to sync).

I called Apple a few weeks ago and they suggested to repair the Watch, but I’m very hesitant because I don’t want to lose my fitness streaks and medals.

 

[YodaATmac]

well your data should be backuped in the cloud... so, you should not loose any of it, while at repair...

 

[soloer]

I have only selected a playlist of 1000 songs to be synced with the Watch. In reality I see there are atm 2970 songs stored on my Watch. So something is not right.

Deleting this playlists lowers the song count to less than 1000 (a few hundred) but it should be 0, right? And even then, the Watch most of the times keeps syncing/adding other songs without anything being selected to sync on my iPhone.

I see a lot of other playlists with some songs greyed out, some songs playable (other than the ones selected to sync).

I called Apple a few weeks ago and they suggested to repair the Watch, but I’m very hesitant because I don’t want to lose my fitness streaks and medals.

Did you ever figure this out? I had similar issues with my watch. First it took a miracle just to get my watch to show zero songs installed after I manually deleted songs on the watch one by one (as the Apple Watch app on my phone showed no music synced). Once zeroed out, I added three playlists for a total of 192 songs. After a bit all looked great.

I happened to look around yesterday, about a week after setting up the three playlists, and it still showed three playlists but the watch had just under 1600 songs on it. I removed the playlists from the watch app, but still had 1300-1400 songs. I then got pretty annoyed, attached my phone to my Mac, and stopped all music syncing to my phone. Once all music was gone from my phone my songs on the watch was back to zero.

Now I’m debating about doing more testing and skipping smart playlists (which I have suspicions about) or just installing Spotify and giving up on local music sync.

 

[YodaATmac]

Did you ever figure this out? I had similar issues with my watch. First it took a miracle just to get my watch to show zero songs installed after I manually deleted songs on the watch one by one (as the Apple Watch app on my phone showed no music synced). Once zeroed out, I added three playlists for a total of 192 songs. After a bit all looked great.

I happened to look around yesterday, about a week after setting up the three playlists, and it still showed three playlists but the watch had just under 1600 songs on it. I removed the playlists from the watch app, but still had 1300-1400 songs. I then got pretty annoyed, attached my phone to my Mac, and stopped all music syncing to my phone. Once all music was gone from my phone my songs on the watch was back to zero.

Now I’m debating about doing more testing and skipping smart playlists (which I have suspicions about) or just installing Spotify and giving up on local music sync.

don't you need the phone for spotify? There's a controler on the watch only?

 

[Howard2k]

Spotify can download playlists to the watch.

 

[Major Foster]

Did you ever figure this out? I had similar issues with my watch. First it took a miracle just to get my watch to show zero songs installed after I manually deleted songs on the watch one by one (as the Apple Watch app on my phone showed no music synced). Once zeroed out, I added three playlists for a total of 192 songs. After a bit all looked great.

I happened to look around yesterday, about a week after setting up the three playlists, and it still showed three playlists but the watch had just under 1600 songs on it. I removed the playlists from the watch app, but still had 1300-1400 songs. I then got pretty annoyed, attached my phone to my Mac, and stopped all music syncing to my phone. Once all music was gone from my phone my songs on the watch was back to zero.

Now I’m debating about doing more testing and skipping smart playlists (which I have suspicions about) or just installing Spotify and giving up on local music sync.

Still the same here…

Was lucky for a few months/weeks it got stuck updating around the count of 1200 songs (even though I always select one playlist of only 1000 songs), but today I got the dreaded message again my Watch is full. Upon looking I see the songs have (again) added up to more than 3000. God, I hate this

EDIT: Can somebody give me an update on the following: on the Watch itself, if you go to ‘settings’ and then go to ‘music’ I’m unable to to turn of the first setting ‘add playlist songs’ (I can effectively switch it off, but when I go back it’s always turned back on). I’m 99% sure this has something to do with it.

 

[soloer]

Still the same here…

Was lucky for a few months/weeks it got stuck updating around the count of 1200 songs (even though I always select one playlist of only 1000 songs), but today I got the dreaded message again my Watch is full. Upon looking I see the songs have (again) added up to more than 3000. God, I hate this

I’ve had a bit of success. I didn’t trust smart playlists for some reason so I created a few regular playlists and haven’t had any issues since.