Music Sync Stuck On Waiting

[Buadhai]

I am aware that there is a 2017 thread on this same topic:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/music-sync-not-working-for-anyone-else.2069717/

This afternoon my wife sent me a message saying that she couldn't sync a playlist from her iPhone to Watch 3.

So, I figured I'd try it. I hadn't done it in a while because I play all my music from my phone. She runs without her phone, so needs to be able to play music from the watch.

I tried as follows:

• Download playlist to iPhone
• Add playlist to watch via Watch app on phone
• Put watch on charger next to iPhone
• The playlist shows up on the watch by name but both the watch and iPhone show "waiting" for the half hour it took for me to water the garden
• Delete the playlist from the watch
• Force restart watch and iPhone
• This time add a downloaded album to the watch
• I know the watch and phone are communicating because the album cover art instantly shows up on the watch. Plus, other stuff that needs to sync between watch and phone (Health, Workouts) all sync just fine.
• Music sync simply doesn't happen. Stuck on waiting.

Any ideas?

 

[Buadhai]

Update: while I was composing the above post I had left my phone and watch together "waiting" to sync The Beach Boys album "Holland" - 16 songs, 54 minutes. After posting I finished a few chores and went back to the watch and phone. Just as a I arrived and logged in to each device, "waiting" suddenly changed to "Updating Music on Apple Watch". So, "waiting" took about 25 minutes. "Updating" has been going on for another 25 minutes and is about 2/3 done.

Is all this really supposed to take that long?

If so, it seems pretty useless.

Mine is a Watch 2 on 6.1.3. My phone is an Xr on 13.3.1

The router is an AirPort Extreme. Everything is on the 2.4GHz band.

Afterthought: Perhaps Apple got The Beach Boys back together to do the album again. It’s taking about the same amount of time to sync as it would to sing the entire album.

 

[mk313]

It seems like the initial sync takes a pretty long time. Mine tend to happen overnight so the music is there when I wake up but when I reset my watch, it definitely didn’t happen eight away.

If you’re looking for instant transfers, then it probably isn’t going to work great for you but the watch holds a pretty good amount of music. If you can plan ahead a bit, it works great.

 

[nbnbxdnb]

I found out this problem too. I have a playlist with idk a few hundred to a thousand songs to sync. I waited for more than one hour, it is still initiating while showing “waiting” and an empty progress bar.

 

[bricktop_at]

Helps also if you disable Bluetooth on the phone, then the watch uses WiFi to sync the music - which was not lighting fast in my case, but definitely a lot quicker

 

[nbnbxdnb]

Then it asked me to turn on Bluetooth which is required for syncing between iPhone and aw. Should I cancel then?

 

[bricktop_at]

Then it asked me to turn on Bluetooth which is required for syncing between iPhone and aw. Should I cancel then?

Exactly ;-)

 

[TommyBoy5]

It's a crapshoot. I hate it. I constantly have problems with it. I thought with Apple Music, an iPhone and an Apple Watch all with the latest versions that it would be a closed system and a seamless process. It sucks. It will work (slowly - always) for a month and then just hang. Reboots. Delete playlist. Repair. Download playlist again. Sometimes that will make it work. Sometimes it won't.

I've followed every guide and workaround out there over the couple years I've been doing this. Disabling bluetooth, yeah, that worked for a week or two then BOOM....stopped altogether.

And it is so incredibly slow. I run with my Apple Watch - it's invaluable. But to add a new album or playlist right before a run is a no-go. And there is nothing worse than syncing overnight and waking up in the morning to a non-completed playlist. Happens all the time.

FIX THIS PLEASE! They've had years to work on what you would think would be a trivial transaction.

 

[mikeaz]

This problem is incredibly frustrating. Somehow the idea of adding a playlist to my watch right before my run seems trivial. I'm so frustrated with this issue that I unpaired and erased my watch and set it up as a new watch. Waited for it to finish setting up. Went to Music to sync the one playlist that I wanted, and guess what... nothing. Waiting... It seems that adding music to this thing is a process that only works overnight, and even then, it might take a couple days. What a load of garbage.

 

[TommyBoy5]

Oddly enough, mine works perfectly now - and I've done nothing to it. I can sync an 80-song playlist in about 20 minutes.

 

[MikeyT96]

Hi! I have an Apple Watch Series 4, an iPhone 11 Pro and AirPods Pro. I recommend first ensuring that the content you want to sync to your Watch first be downloaded to your iPhone.

1. First go to the music App, go to the playlist or songs you want to sync, and download them from the cloud. Use the icon that has the iCloud logo with the downward-facing arrow.
(This will actually download the songs to your phone)
2. I recommend doing step 1 on a cellular connection, unless Wifi is faster. Either way download the content BEFORE you attempt to sync the content to your Apple Watch.

3. Ensure that WiFi and Bluetooth are both turned on. For your Watch and iPhone.
4. Go into the music settings on your Apple Watch.
--4A. On your iPhone Go to the Apple Watch App.
--4B. Navigate over to Music and then add a new playlist or list of songs, It should go much faster then.

** It is my understanding that if you don't have the content download first to your phone, your Apple Watch will try to download the content to your phone, and then to your watch, and if you attempt to do that over WiFi, you'll possibly have to wait MUCH longer. (Shoutout for the run-on sentence!)
** I believe there was even at one time a subnote to the music settings on
** Try it out, we're all just experimenting really!

Posted on January 29, 2021. Latest versions of software for all devices in question (Not the beta versions, I'd rather eat my shoe than try to get those to work!).

 

[Jay-Bee-PE]

Hey, I've been wrestling with this recently, too, and I have something that may help:

BEFORE you go through all the time-consuming updates and all with your Apple Watch that can't seem to connect long enough to your phone to download music ("Waiting...Waiting..."), try this:

**Shut down / put to sleep any electronics close by OR move the phone and watch away from other electronics. It's that simple.**

I keep my watch charger at my office desk (right next to my phone) with 3 laptops, two extra monitors, a heated keyboard pad, a Qi charger for the phone, etc. My son said there might be too much interference, so I put everything to sleep and IMMEDIATELY the music started loading to the watch fast and without any trouble whatsoever.

The connection between them is Bluetooth, which is quite susceptible to interference, especially with a low-power device like the watch. I think some of these other solutions have helped some people because, in the process, they moved things or rearranged them so that the interference wasn't as bad.

I believe that this is a basic design flaw on the part of Apple: they ASSUME folks have the charger at their bedside, mostly away from a lot of interference. I like to wear my watch at night and have little need for it when I'm at my computer, so it rests and charges with a lot of signals around. Maybe yours does, too.

I hope this helps. These devices are supposed to work seamlessly together and they've done a great job...in the laboratory.

 

[Jay-Bee-PE]

Oddly enough, mine works perfectly now - and I've done nothing to it. I can sync an 80-song playlist in about 20 minutes.

See my post below. Did you move your watch and phone or did you turn any devices off? I had the same experience.

 

[fadhilfirdausi]

Hi! I have an Apple Watch Series 4, an iPhone 11 Pro and AirPods Pro. I recommend first ensuring that the content you want to sync to your Watch first be downloaded to your iPhone.

1. First go to the music App, go to the playlist or songs you want to sync, and download them from the cloud. Use the icon that has the iCloud logo with the downward-facing arrow.
(This will actually download the songs to your phone)
2. I recommend doing step 1 on a cellular connection, unless Wifi is faster. Either way download the content BEFORE you attempt to sync the content to your Apple Watch.

3. Ensure that WiFi and Bluetooth are both turned on. For your Watch and iPhone.
4. Go into the music settings on your Apple Watch.
--4A. On your iPhone Go to the Apple Watch App.
--4B. Navigate over to Music and then add a new playlist or list of songs, It should go much faster then.

** It is my understanding that if you don't have the content download first to your phone, your Apple Watch will try to download the content to your phone, and then to your watch, and if you attempt to do that over WiFi, you'll possibly have to wait MUCH longer. (Shoutout for the run-on sentence!)
** I believe there was even at one time a subnote to the music settings on
** Try it out, we're all just experimenting really!

Posted on January 29, 2021. Latest versions of software for all devices in question (Not the beta versions, I'd rather eat my shoe than try to get those to work!).

This works for me, thanks!!

It actually doesn’t need to download all the song to the phone. I just download like 1/10 of my entire song, and it start to update with my phone and continue to download the rest.

Before this, I‘ve waited like more than 3 hour in „waiting.. waiting…“, and after I download to my phone, it finish the download to my watch just like 45 minutes, and it’s for 432 songs