Having library syncing problems in Apple Music? You're not alone — and some are losing hundreds of hours of curated music

Mw65 Apple Music
(Image credit: iMore)

Your Apple Music library is, in a way, an extension of yourself in music form. Hundreds of hours of tunes, carefully curated over years of listening, formed by your shifting taste and new music that’s released by old favorites. It's a part of you, like a physical record collection or rack full of tapes.

Imagine, then, that your Apple Music library was tanked in some bizarre bug that plagues the streaming service, breaking the syncing between the iPhone version and desktop. Your library — inaccessible on all your devices. No fix. No response from Apple. Only music-induced misery.

A sorry state of affairs

The crux of the issue, as noticed by Macrumors, is that users are unable to add new music to their library and that music previously added is no longer showing up. For some users, it’s just on the desktop app, showing a message that says, ‘Genius results can’t be updated right now. An unknown error occurred (18004).’ Others are finding that the issue has spread to their iOS devices as well, rendering their full libraries completely inaccessible — and their Apple music experience ruined.

Users have taken to the Apple support community to complain, and some Reddit users are suffering from the issue as well. There seems, alas, that there is not yet any kind of fix for the issue — although user Nonstiq on the Apple support community found that “Signing out of iCloud, changing (their) password, and singing back in again” helped. Others tried this to no avail, however, so it looks like it depends on the user.

Beyond that, there is still no word from Apple on a fix on the way or what the problem is — either way, it’s not a golden indictment on Apple Music and its services. Hopefully, the issue is fixed before users are pushed to other platforms.

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Tammy Rogers
Senior Staff Writer

As iMore's Senior Staff writer, Tammy uses her background in audio and Masters in screenwriting to pen engaging product reviews and informative buying guides. The resident audiophile (or audio weirdo), she's got an eye for detail and a love of top-quality sound. Apple is her bread and butter, with attention on HomeKit and Apple iPhone and Mac hardware. You won't find her far away from a keyboard even outside of working at iMore – in her spare time, she spends her free time writing feature-length and TV screenplays. Also known to enjoy driving digital cars around virtual circuits, to varying degrees of success. Just don't ask her about AirPods Max - you probably won't like her answer.