HomePod Looks like Apple Music Cant Play That

[markeaston]

I have an apple id against which I have purchased over 1000 albums on iTunes over 15 years. I have a homepod mini. My appleid is being used by that homepod, by a windows pc and by an ipad. Apple Music is turned off everywhere, including in the Home app and in HomePod settings. Personalisation is turned off. Voice recognition is turned off. And the opposite has been tried of course. They are on the same wifi network and band. I have reset my homepod and relogged into my account.

I can ask Siri to shuffle my library and the HomePod will randomly play all the music in my library. BUT I cannot ask the HomPod to play any of the albums in my library. When I for example ask Siri to play Avalon by Roxy Music, she just says "Looks like Apple Music Cant Play That".

I have been to Apple Support and they talk about a metadata issue. I still have this issue. I have two apple ids. For my other apple id I have it working reasonably well (still lots of problems). But for this apple id - where I have done all the same things - I cannot ask the HomePod to play any album at all. Even when a song is playing I will ask Siri what album is this. She will answer correctly. I will then either ask her to play the rest of the album or to play that album specifically ... "Looks like Apple Music Cant Play That" is her response.

I have spent over $50k on music and movies with Apple over the last 15 years. I have 5 HomePods, Iphone 14 Pro Max, another iPhone, iPad Pro, the latest Mac Mini and so on and so on ... and have continually upgraded over the years. So I have spent a LOT of money with Apple. Is it too much for me to ask for an apple device to be able to play an album I have purchased from apple? And BTW AirPlay is NOT the answer. There are various reasons for that.

 

[russell_314]

Personalisation is turned off. Voice recognition is turned off.

Have you tried turning these on?

Also, try to separate your post into paragraphs. There’s a whole bunch of information that’s completely irrelevant to your problem like how much you spend on Apple products. Sometimes if people see a long paragraph they will just skip to the next thread and not post a reply. Keeping it simple and exactly to the point gets the best answers.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Complete wall of text. Please use paragraphs! Very difficult to read.

 

[dotme]

Do you subscribe to iTunes Match? I'm pretty sure you need either Apple Music or iTunes Match to ask HomePod Siri to play an album or song that you purchased from iTunes.

I don't subscribe to either service. Not only do I resent the notion that I should pay a monthly fee to listen to the thousands of dollars worth of songs I've downloaded from iTunes over the past 15 years, I've also heard horror stories of rare local tracks being overwritten by generic ones from the Cloud when you turn it on and I have way too many special tracks to risk that.

I have a lot of HomePods, but none of them have ever played specific tracks from my library on demand. I use an AppleTV to pull music from my shared iTunes Library on the LAN, and it sprays it all over the house for me via AirPlay. I've just learned to accept it, I'm afraid.

 

[markeaston]

I feel the same about Apple Music. Yes and I am afraid AirPlay is the only answer so far. But it negates the value of a HomePod. I have to go to a device, find the album and then play it (checking airplay).

Also I have found that AirPlay (especially from a windows device) will keep stopping.


And no - Itunes Match is dangerous.

 

[markeaston]

Complete wall of text. Please use paragraphs! Very difficult to read.

Fixed

Have you tried turning these on?

Also, try to separate your post into paragraphs. There’s a whole bunch of information that’s completely irrelevant to your problem like how much you spend on Apple products. Sometimes if people see a long paragraph they will just skip to the next thread and not post a reply. Keeping it simple and exactly to the point gets the best answers.

Yes I have tried turning them on. I have spent years trying everything. I am also a Software Developer so am a wee bit technical. There are a lot of things I have discovered along the way. For instance if you change your apple id password your HomePod cannot deal with that. Even entering the new password on the HomePod does not work. So you need to reset (remove) the homepod and start again.

 

[ledzep1]

I have an apple id against which I have purchased over 1000 albums on iTunes over 15 years. I have a homepod mini. My appleid is being used by that homepod, by a windows pc and by an ipad. Apple Music is turned off everywhere, including in the Home app and in HomePod settings. Personalisation is turned off. Voice recognition is turned off. And the opposite has been tried of course. They are on the same wifi network and band. I have reset my homepod and relogged into my account.

I can ask Siri to shuffle my library and the HomePod will randomly play all the music in my library. BUT I cannot ask the HomPod to play any of the albums in my library. When I for example ask Siri to play Avalon by Roxy Music, she just says "Looks like Apple Music Cant Play That".

I have been to Apple Support and they talk about a metadata issue. I still have this issue. I have two apple ids. For my other apple id I have it working reasonably well (still lots of problems). But for this apple id - where I have done all the same things - I cannot ask the HomePod to play any album at all. Even when a song is playing I will ask Siri what album is this. She will answer correctly. I will then either ask her to play the rest of the album or to play that album specifically ... "Looks like Apple Music Cant Play That" is her response.

I have spent over $50k on music and movies with Apple over the last 15 years. I have 5 HomePods, Iphone 14 Pro Max, another iPhone, iPad Pro, the latest Mac Mini and so on and so on ... and have continually upgraded over the years. So I have spent a LOT of money with Apple. Is it too much for me to ask for an apple device to be able to play an album I have purchased from apple? And BTW AirPlay is NOT the answer. There are various reasons for that.

There was an issue recently where HomePods would not play any artist you requested, what software version are you on?
16.1 supposedly fixed it, try a search on here you should come across a few threads on the subject.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

I had to remove all my HomePods from the home app and add them back to resolve this. Was on 16.1. Buggiest product Apple has ever made.

 

[markeaston]

Done all that - tried everything. I have two apple ids each with their own devices. One apple id works (ok'ish). On the second apple id I have it all set-up excactly the same way. Have changed passwords, factory reset everything, ensured apple music is not ticked and so on and so on. The second apple id will not work no matter what I do. Have attended to every setting in the Home app and in the Homepod settings and in the iPad and ensured all on the same wifi network/channel. Nothing makes a difference. And btw this Apple Id just has the one homepod - so a much simpler set-up. My other Apple Id has three homepods, an apple mac, an apple tv, iPhones, lots of other devices etc.

 

[ledzep1]

I had to remove all my HomePods from the home app and add them back to resolve this. Was on 16.1. Buggiest product Apple has ever made.

Yep did this finally yesterday, fixed it for me.

I removed them in the home app.
Turned them off and on.
Then held my finger on the touch panel until it started spinning red which does a reset.
Then added them again via holding my iPhone close to transfer settings.