Apple Music Playlists: We've Run Into a Problem

  • 26 November 2023
  • 55 replies
  • 2187 views
G

For the last week (at least) our Sonos system cannot access my Apple Music playlists. When I select playlists (or Recent) it says "We've run into a problem. Try again later."

 

All other features of Apple Music appear to work including songs, albums, artists, etc.

 

I've already reinstalled the app. I've reauthorized the Apple Music account. These did not work.

 

Any idea?

 

Also this is my first post but I've had a LOT of issues with Apple Music working with sonos over the past 2 years. It's been pretty bad and unreliable.

 

Thanks

Greg

55 replies

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Similar issue - My entire Apple Music Library is accessible on my Sonos app except my Apple Music Playlists.  I can access my recently added music, artists, albums, songs... but not my playlists.  I did the obvious troubleshooting like reauthorizing account and deleting the Apple Music service and reinstalling.  I called the support line, spoke with a representative, went through all the obvious troubleshooting (listed above), and still can’t get my playlists to populate.

I spent an hour on the phone with Sonos customer support last night and after all the troubleshooting, we were unable to resolve the issue.  I get the same message when trying to access my Apple Music Playlists:  “We’ve run into a problem.  Try again.”  It seems very odd that I can access EVERYTHING in my Apple Music Library EXCEPT the Playlists.

None of my playlists are the new collaborative types and none of my playlists have the same name.

I have about 80 playlists in total, ranging from a handful of songs to several hundred songs, the largest being about 1,000 songs.  Most of them are in the 200 - 500 song range.  Is there a new limit on how many playlists / songs it allows, and if you exceed that it just prevents ANY of them from showing up? I say NEW limit, because all of my playlists were showing up in the Playlist folder a few months ago. 

Another interesting note - my recently added music is accessible, including songs, albums AND RECENTLY CREATED PLAYLISTS.  The recently created playlists do not show up in the Playlist folder, but they do show up in Recently Added folder.  But the Recently Added music folder only goes back so far, so only a handful of playlists that I recently created are accessible through that folder.  So it’s not a matter of accessing a playlist, as long as it’s recently created.  It’s an issue of the new and older playlists not showing up in the Playlist folder.  This is a relatively new issue.  The playlists were all accessible a few months ago.  So what has changed?  Thank you.  

You may not have the same issue as the other reported ones, but clearly the code is fragile so you must have another special case. This is 100% Apple’s fault and up to them to fix. If no-one asks them to, chances of a fix are slim.

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
L
Userlevel 3
Badge

All Sonos does is point to an Apple server that has the SMAPI (Sonos Music Application Programming Interface) installed on it. This would be a different server that Apple has stood up for Sonos, as most streaming companies do. 

It is certainly possible that Apple has made a change that isn’t supported by SMAPI, but Sonos, to my knowledge, doesn’t write individual SMAPIs for each streaming company, just one that serves all streams. My guess is that Apple needs to tweak their server to serve those SMAPI endpoints properly, but Apple always is convinced that everyone needs to bend to them, in my experience, and it’s likely the percentage of Sonos connections is dwarfed by other connections, and it isn’t a priority for Apple.

A lot of speculation on my part, but based on knowledge of how Sonos works (see the Sonos partners page) and my previous experience in attempting to work with Apple on getting work ‘approved’ through their stores. 

Thanks for breaking that all down.  You know a lot more than I do about this, so I’ll take your word for it.  The most puzzling thing to me is that my playlists do show up in the Recently Added tab.  So it’s not a matter of my playlists being accessible on the Sonos app, it’s a matter of them showing up in the Playlist tab, as opposed to the Recently Added tab. 

A work around will be to create a new playlist on iTunes with a new name and drag and drop the playlist(s) that I want accessible into the newly created playlist(s), and they will then show up in my Recently Added folder.  Kind of a pain, but it’ll have to do until Apple (or Sonos) gets their act together on this.  

L
Userlevel 3
Badge

Similar issue - My entire Apple Music Library is accessible on my Sonos app except my Apple Music Playlists.  I can access my recently added music, artists, albums, songs... but not my playlists.  I did the obvious troubleshooting like reauthorizing account and deleting the Apple Music service and reinstalling.  I called the support line, spoke with a representative, went through all the obvious troubleshooting (listed above), and still can’t get my playlists to populate.

I spent an hour on the phone with Sonos customer support last night and after all the troubleshooting, we were unable to resolve the issue.  I get the same message when trying to access my Apple Music Playlists:  “We’ve run into a problem.  Try again.”  It seems very odd that I can access EVERYTHING in my Apple Music Library EXCEPT the Playlists.

None of my playlists are the new collaborative types and none of my playlists have the same name.

I have about 80 playlists in total, ranging from a handful of songs to several hundred songs, the largest being about 1,000 songs.  Most of them are in the 200 - 500 song range.  Is there a new limit on how many playlists / songs it allows, and if you exceed that it just prevents ANY of them from showing up? I say NEW limit, because all of my playlists were showing up in the Playlist folder a few months ago. 

Another interesting note - my recently added music is accessible, including songs, albums AND RECENTLY CREATED PLAYLISTS.  The recently created playlists do not show up in the Playlist folder, but they do show up in Recently Added folder.  But the Recently Added music folder only goes back so far, so only a handful of playlists that I recently created are accessible through that folder.  So it’s not a matter of accessing a playlist, as long as it’s recently created.  It’s an issue of the new and older playlists not showing up in the Playlist folder.  This is a relatively new issue.  The playlists were all accessible a few months ago.  So what has changed?  Thank you.  

You may not have the same issue as the other reported ones, but clearly the code is fragile so you must have another special case. This is 100% Apple’s fault and up to them to fix. If no-one asks them to, chances of a fix are slim.

I’ve reached out to Apple as well, with no luck.  The representative I spoke with seemed incompetent on Apple Music as a whole, so I gave up quite quickly.  I’ll try back again and hopefully get a hold of a different representative.  Thank you.  

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Thanks for breaking that all down.  You know a lot more than I do about this, so I’ll take your word for it.  The most puzzling thing to me is that my playlists do show up in the Recently Added tab.  So it’s not a matter of my playlists being accessible on the Sonos app, it’s a matter of them showing up in the Playlist tab, as opposed to the Recently Added tab. 

A work around will be to create a new playlist on iTunes with a new name and drag and drop the playlist(s) that I want accessible into the newly created playlist(s), and they will then show up in my Recently Added folder.  Kind of a pain, but it’ll have to do until Apple (or Sonos) gets their act together on this.  

My guess is that one of your playlists is “special”, and when your playlists are enumerated by Apple, their code crashes when it hits this specific playlist. I would further guess that if you played this “special” list (using the Apple Music app), then “Recently Played” on Sonos would also give this same error. I don’t now how many playlists you have, but a painful process of trial and error could narrow down the “special” playlist. But now I’m talking like a software engineer looking to debug this, not a music listener :-)

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
L
Userlevel 3
Badge

Thanks for breaking that all down.  You know a lot more than I do about this, so I’ll take your word for it.  The most puzzling thing to me is that my playlists do show up in the Recently Added tab.  So it’s not a matter of my playlists being accessible on the Sonos app, it’s a matter of them showing up in the Playlist tab, as opposed to the Recently Added tab. 

A work around will be to create a new playlist on iTunes with a new name and drag and drop the playlist(s) that I want accessible into the newly created playlist(s), and they will then show up in my Recently Added folder.  Kind of a pain, but it’ll have to do until Apple (or Sonos) gets their act together on this.  

My guess is that one of your playlists is “special”, and when your playlists are enumerated by Apple, their code crashes when it hits this specific playlist. I would further guess that if you played this “special” list (using the Apple Music app), then “Recently Played” on Sonos would also give this same error. I don’t now how many playlists you have, but a painful process of trial and error could narrow down the “special” playlist. But now I’m talking like a software engineer looking to debug this, not a music listener :-)

I’ll give it a try.  Since the issue is relatively new, it’s reasonable that the “special” playlist is a relatively new one.  That should narrow it down.  I’ll report back if I find the culprit… 

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