Apple Music Songs stop playing at 15s

[GregoryPeckEPA]

Apple Music songs stop playing at 15s (or sometimes not at all) and will no longer respect the single device limit when playing music. This means one of your devices may keep playing while you play music through another device instead of prompting you to upgrade to listen on more than one device. They are likely connected.

Red herrings:

• Has nothing to do with Atmos, Lossless Audio, Crossfade, Spatial Audio, Cellular or WiFi, outdated software, device (any Apple or non-Apple device can be affected) or unicorns and bubble gum farts.
• Has nothing to do with type of upload (Matched, Uploaded, or Purchased content). All can be affected. Only songs located directly on Apple Music are not affected. This also means that deleted songs from your account and re-adding is just more snake oil as you cannot remove purchased content.
• Has nothing to do with the device itself, in that, the web player plays the songs when the Music.app does not on macOS. Which means Apple's servers are likely storing different ways to authenticate Music.app (makes sense) from the Web Player. Resetting the Web Player is as easy as deleting your cookies. Resetting the pairing of the keys stored in your keychain seem to be the crux of the misery.
• Simply re-authorizing the device is not sufficient.

The (likely) cause:

• DRM (device registration) is the cause but since cryptography appears to be made by pixies that live in Narnia, sometimes it's not a straightforward resolution. It's also why some devices can be affected, while others, and even the web player, will play the song without issue.

If you are affected, try the following (note that not all of these steps may be necessary but there is a lack of credible data on this topic):

1. Sign out of Apple Music.
2. Close Apple Music if on macOS and reboot if on a mobile device.
3. Sign back into Apple Music.
4. Click/tap on Account Settings.
5. Log into your account.
6. From your Account Settings, click/tap on Purchase History.
7. Once loaded, go back to the main account window.
8. Click/tap on Managed Devices.
9. Once loaded, go back to the main account window.
10. Click/tap on Apple Music and verify AM, Podcasts and potentially the Web Player have access (along with any other app you have granted access to AM).
11. Go back to the main account window.
12. Click/tap Payment Details.
13. Go back to the main account window.
14. Go to Notifications...
15. Toggle one of your notifications and go back to the main account window.
16. Close Music.app
17. Relaunch AM and (re)authorize the device (a prompt will inform you the device has been reauthorized or is now authorized).
    1. Alternatively you can try to sync your Cloud Library manually without authorizing first I don't know if the above is necessary or not.
18. If you are on macOS, a prompt at the bottom left will appear informing you your account is syncing with Cloud Library
    1. Alternatively you could try syncing manually from the File menu.
19. The process should take ~30s. If the process completes quickly, it's unlikely to have worked. If it takes some time, then it's a good chance it worked.
20. Another reboot is not needed (at least not on macOS).
21. Now trying playing an affected song.

Alternative resolution:

1. Download the song manually.

Notes:


I am posting this for posterity because I spent the last two hours fixing this and have gone through this madness numerous times before with varying degrees of success using some form of the method above.

Keep in mind, the process above is meant to try to force Apple's servers, by any means necessary, to re-align your pairing key. Visiting your account page, even your payment details, tends to do this.

The issue arose in early 2021 and has never truly been fixed it seems. As such, the above is just a temporary resolution.

If anyone browses these forums and works at Apple, that is the best I can do in trying to isolate the problem. Feel free to DM me if you need more info and want to be the savior of the people.

Hope it helps someone in the future (or future me as I won't remember all this 6 months from now when it all falls apart again).

Cheers.