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.
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.
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