Lesson 11. Dealing with iTunes Match Playback Problems

In the previous lesson, you learned solutions for errors that can occur when you upload your library to the cloud with iTunes. In this lesson, you learn what to do when you encounter errors while trying to play back your iTunes Match music.

The Problem

iTunes Match is really impressive. But sometimes, it can be painfully buggy. This will likely improve with time. For now, it’s worth taking the time to learn what hiccups you might encounter with the service and the best ways to work around them.

Rarely, iTunes Match ends up completely dead in the water. It’s not common, and outages never last long, but as an Internet-based service, iTunes Match can and will briefly go offline. When that happens, there’s pretty much nothing you can do; when you double-click songs in iTunes on your computer or tab songs on your iOS device, if they’re stored only in iCloud, they won’t play—and that’s that.

Sometimes, however, the service is up and running, but you still encounter weirdness and frustrations.

One such frustration is almost inevitable when you use an iOS device, if my own experience is a guide. The gist of the issue is that although you tap on one song, you hear something else. This problem can take one of two forms:

• You tap to play a song on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, and after anywhere from a fraction of a second to several seconds, your device instead skips ahead to a different track and starts playing that one.

• You tap to play a song on your iOS device, and the device reports that it is indeed playing back that song. But, because you know that Shakira’s voice sounds nothing like Barry White’s, you disagree. Despite appearances, your device is playing the wrong song.

It’s an annoying problem. This is especially true when you promised your 3-year-old that she can hear a specific Laurie Berkner song when she finishes her veggies, and then your iPhone refuses to play the song, resulting in your daughter’s misery—and your own. Not that I’m bitter.

When you encounter this problem, you have a few options. Generally, tapping to play the desired song a second time doesn’t help.

Often, when you encounter the second version of this issue—the Music app says it’s playing one song, but you hear another—there’s a unique visual quirk that goes along with it. For instance, suppose that the Music app on your iPhone says that it’s playing the song “Memo to Human Resources” by They Might Be Giants, but it is actually playing the song “How Blue” by Bleu.

Suppose the sound icon, which appears next to whichever track the Music app is currently playing, is incorrectly placed next to “Memo to Human Resources.” But “How Blue” sports the circular downloading icon—the one that doubles as a progress bar. “How Bleu” was never tapped, so that icon shouldn’t be there. And, as is almost always the case when you encounter this issue, you see that the progress bar never fills. You can see this in action in Figure 11.1.

Figure 11.1 When a case of mistaken playback occurs, the erroneously played song often sports a never-filling download progress bar icon.

The Solution(s)

Regardless of whether the Music app simply skips past the song you requested or it claims to play it when it’s not, the steps you can take to try to resolve the issue are basically the same. Follow these steps to get the Music app to play the right song:

1. Tap to play a completely different song. Sometimes, the Music app ignores the newly requested song and instead starts playing the song you wanted to hear in the first place.

2. If Music actually plays the song you just tapped on, all is not lost. By tapping away from the song you originally wanted to hear, you exposed the iCloud Download icon for it—it doesn’t appear when the Now Playing icon is there. If it’s there, try tapping it to get Music to download the song. If the download progress bar icon appears, try tapping the song’s title again and see if it starts to play.

3. If you do all that and the wrong song starts playing, swipe across the song from left to right, as if crossing it out, to delete the cached version (see Figure 11.2). Note that you can’t delete cached tracks in this way from Playlist view; you must instead go into a different tab (like Songs) and find the track to delete there. Once you swipe to delete the cached track (and then tap the Delete button), try playing it again by tapping on the song’s title once more.

Figure 11.2 Sometimes, deleting the cached version of a track from the Music app on iOS can fix playback problems.

• If that doesn’t work, you can try force-quitting the Music app. This is discussed in detail in a tip in Lesson 9, “iTunes Match Restrictions,” but here’s a brief recap: Press the Home button, and then double-press it to bring up the multitasking bar. Next, press and hold the music icon in that bar until a minus sign appears. Tap the minus sign on the Music app, and then press the Home button. Finally, re-launch the app.

• If that doesn’t work, go for the nuclear option. Head back into the Settings app, tap General, Usage, and then find Music in the Storage list when it appears after a moment. Swipe through All Music on the screen that follows (see Figure 11.3) and tap Delete.

Figure 11.3 By deleting the entirety of your iOS device’s cached music, you can sometimes resolve frustrating playback problems.

• If things still aren’t working right, you need the super-nuclear option: Head into the Settings app again, find Music settings, and turn off iTunes Match. After a moment, turn it back on again.

• If that doesn’t happen, use the super-duper nuclear option: Hold the power button on your device until the Slide to Power Off image appears, and make the slide. Then, hold the power button again to turn your device back on.

Playback Issues on a Mac or PC

iTunes doesn’t seem to suffer the same issue the Music app does, where it claims to be playing one song but, in fact, plays another. iTunes does, however, on rare occasion, experience the other problem: It skips past a cloud-stored song you request and plays a different song.

This issue only crops up on iTunes when you stream music from iTunes Match, not when you play locally stored files.

If you encounter it, try double-clicking the song a few more times to see if it starts playing properly. Alternatively, you can click a different song, and then try right- or Control-clicking the song you want to hear and choose Download from the contextual menu that appears. If that doesn’t work, restart the iTunes application.

Summary

In this lesson, you learned a slew of tricks for dealing with occasional iTunes Match playback errors.