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AW S5 problem syncing music with Watch OS9
- Thread starter Mity
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I have a new Apple Watch (first time user!). I have also noticed that the music option in the Watch app either says waiting, or the progress bar doesn’t move… 4 days now I have waited and watched it when it has been on charge hoping it completes. Wifi and bluetooth on and phone (iOS 16) is right next to watch (os9).
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Similar behaviour on my Watch Ultra.
As soon as I choose a Playlist/Album the status changes to done. But nothing happens.
Already tried:
Restarting both devices
Force quitting Music App and Apple Watch App
Choosing smaller playlist with only 2 songs
Unpairing and repairing Apple Watch
Connecting both devices again manually to the Wifi and bluetooth.
Disabling Low power mode
Downloading manually a playlist within the Music App on my Watch to start the sync process
Connecting both devices to a charger locking the screen/unlocking the screen to initialize any progress.
All I see is, that the Album/Playlist shows up as a placeholder on the bottom of the Music app below iPhone, library etc. But you can not tap on it and it also does not show any content and settings - general - storage/about does not show any songs synced to my Apple Watch.
watchOS 9.0.1 and iOS 16.0.2 installed.
As soon as I choose a Playlist/Album the status changes to done. But nothing happens.
Already tried:
Restarting both devices
Force quitting Music App and Apple Watch App
Choosing smaller playlist with only 2 songs
Unpairing and repairing Apple Watch
Connecting both devices again manually to the Wifi and bluetooth.
Disabling Low power mode
Downloading manually a playlist within the Music App on my Watch to start the sync process
Connecting both devices to a charger locking the screen/unlocking the screen to initialize any progress.
All I see is, that the Album/Playlist shows up as a placeholder on the bottom of the Music app below iPhone, library etc. But you can not tap on it and it also does not show any content and settings - general - storage/about does not show any songs synced to my Apple Watch.
watchOS 9.0.1 and iOS 16.0.2 installed.
I reported the problem here: https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch/
Under feedback I selected 'Report a problem'.
Under feedback I selected 'Report a problem'.
I have a similar yet slightly different issue. After updating to OS9 on both a S6 and S8 I had the above issue. Playlists showed as waiting but nothing seemed to happen. I have 13 playlists on my iPhone 12, I selected only 2 to sync with the watches. What I found when I went to Music/Library/Downloaded/Playlists on the watch was the titles for all 13 playlists showed up. Some had a few song in them and some were empty. The 2 that I selected were complete even though the Watch app on the phone still showed waiting. After further examination I realized the playlists that had a few songs in them were songs that were also in the 2 I had selected to sync. I have tried all the suggestions regarding rebooting, backing up and restoring. I even restored the S6 and started it a a “new” watch. Nothing so far has helped. Hopefully an update will fix this. As my S8 is new I’m going to report the issue through the support app.
I was thinking about doing a factory reset but I'm glad I didn't. I basically use my watch for music at the gym so it's essentially useless for me until Apple fixes this.
Definitely use the link above to send feedback to Apple so they realize they have a bug. The more people that report it, the better the chances of it getting a quicker fix.
For me it worked now after:
Deleting the Music app on my iPhone and therefore deleting all my local synced music too.
Creating my preferred workout playlist on my Mac in the Musics app.
Reinstalled Music App on iPhone and synced my music + playslist to it.
Choosed the playlist under Watch app - Workout to get it synced to my Watch.
Checked Watch app - Music to see if it appears.
Put my Watch and iPhone on their charger
waited for ~2hours and my 26 songs big playlist got fully synced to my Watch.
Overall I can say, it is pretty slow to sync music to the watch, but as other info like Siri Shortcuts and Wallet Passes are still not syncing between both devices, I am still searching for a complete solution. At least for the moment I could enjoy my music on my latest run.
Deleting the Music app on my iPhone and therefore deleting all my local synced music too.
Creating my preferred workout playlist on my Mac in the Musics app.
Reinstalled Music App on iPhone and synced my music + playslist to it.
Choosed the playlist under Watch app - Workout to get it synced to my Watch.
Checked Watch app - Music to see if it appears.
Put my Watch and iPhone on their charger
waited for ~2hours and my 26 songs big playlist got fully synced to my Watch.
Overall I can say, it is pretty slow to sync music to the watch, but as other info like Siri Shortcuts and Wallet Passes are still not syncing between both devices, I am still searching for a complete solution. At least for the moment I could enjoy my music on my latest run.
2 hours for only 26 songs? Goodness...
I just installed iOS 16.0.2 and that didn't fix anything. It looks like watchOS 9 may be the problem.
I bought a Series 7 today and it came with watchOS 8.x. It began syncing my music! And then something interesting happened, I forgot to turn off automatic download for software update in the watch settings and after watchOS 9.0.2 was installed on the new S7, music syncing failed. So, I'm now 100% confident that this is a bug in watchOS 9. I created a case with Apple Support who said they would escalate it to the engineering team. Hopefully they'll actually do something.
I tried pottersfield suggestion and it partially fixed my issue. The playlists download in a few minutes and the waiting to download message goes away. However I’m still seeing all playlists that are on my iPhone on the watch. Music>Library>Downloaded>Playlists. It seems songs that are shared between the playlist I downloaded and other playlists on the phone are the issue. Playlists without shared songs show as empty, while playlists with shared songs show just the shared songs. Not a big issue just annoying.
I updated to watchOS 9.1 yesterday and I was excited that my playlists were syncing. And then I discovered more bugs. Instead of just my selected playlists syncing, ALL playlist on my iPhone are syncing. And when I try to play some songs, I get an error: "Playing this item requires an Apple Music membership You can sign up in the Music app on your iPhone." All of my songs were purchased AAC files, not streamed, as I don't use Apple Music streaming.
These are the playlists that I've synced a shown on my iPhone in the AW app:
But these are the playlists that show up on my watch (note the extra playlists):
The first song from my "Gym Energy" playlist plays:
But forwarding to subsequent songs shows this error:
Why are there so many bugs all of the sudden? On the iPhones and now the Apple Watches. I'm tired of being a beta tester for Apple. I didn't pay premium prices for a subpar experience.
These are the playlists that I've synced a shown on my iPhone in the AW app:
But these are the playlists that show up on my watch (note the extra playlists):
The first song from my "Gym Energy" playlist plays:
But forwarding to subsequent songs shows this error:
Why are there so many bugs all of the sudden? On the iPhones and now the Apple Watches. I'm tired of being a beta tester for Apple. I didn't pay premium prices for a subpar experience.
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I didn't realize there was an existing thread around issues with Music syncing and Watch. I started a thread here:
in which I wrote:
in which I wrote:
I did not have issues downloading music to Apple Watch Ultra until the most recent update to WatchOS 9.1.
There's a "ghost" album/song that keeps indicating that it is downloading to the watch but I have never requested it to be downloaded. When I try to delete the download, at some point later the album/song will try to re-download again.
In addition, albums that I download will begin downloading and will show up on the Music screen of the Watch app, but at some point disappear no longer to show that it is an album either being downloaded or already downloaded.
In the screenshot below, it shows that an album by the Commodores is being downloaded (and it keeps spinning) even though I never asked it to be downloaded. I also had requested an album by Spyro Gyra to be downloaded and that has disappeared; that album is showing up on the Watch though.
What's going on? How do I fix?
Earlier, I wrote that you can report a bug online but that is not true according to a technical support rep I spoke to. You have to call Apple Technical support and create a case. Only the people that handle calls are allowed to escalate the issue to the engineering team. If you're having this issue please do so. If enough people do it, they'll realize it's not an isolated incident and the likelihood of a fix becomes greater.
The short answer is yes. From casual observation, that does seem to be true.
The longer answer is that I can't go through every single song to determine this because I simply have too many songs.
Unpairing won't work. I've already tried it. I also tried deleting the Music app and then reinstalling it. I gave up and bought a Series 7 that comes with watchOS 8 and I turned off automatic updates so that it doesn't download 9.2 on its own.
Sorry got my threads mixed up. This issue was not resolved by re-pairing. On the other hand my issue of play counts not updated was resolved by unpairing and re-pairing the watches.