How to Fix Apple Music Stuck on Macbook

Can’t listen to your music because Apple Music got frozen and is stuck on your Macbook?

You might not be making music for a living, but music is definitely a mood changer while you are working. If you have a day job, it keeps you pumped up in the morning and relaxes you at night.

Apple Music is one of the best apps that can deliver and manage your favorite music. If you have lots of songs, you may have considered downloading them in your Macbook.

But what if you see your Apple Music app frozen in a loading status page?

Several Apple Music subscribers have recently reported experiencing the same issue and some despite having tried to reach out to Apple, saw no effective workarounds. Hence, we decided to make this article to help and share the solutions which we’ve found to be effective and hopefully that it may be of use to you too.

We’ve also included all the possible factors that cause this problem. By defining these, you will learn how to fix your Apple Music that’s stuck on your Macbook.

Let’s get started!

 

1. Restart your Macbook.

Never underestimate the process of power-cycling (restarting). This simple procedure can sometimes resolve the most complex of issues.

The reason why is because your Macbook may be trying to run an important task or it is too overloaded to perform well. It is essential to restart your Macbook once in a few days or so.

To fix this issue, click on the Apple menu on the top of your screen and click on the Restart option. This will offload your Macbook of all tasks including your launched applications.

 

 

After your Macbook has started up, launch the Apple Music app alone and it should work again.

 

 

2. Re-enable Sync Library Feature.

The ‘Sync Library’ feature enables your entire music library to be available on all your devices including your Macbook. It sometimes may happen that your music library can’t perform loading, and it starts showing a spinning loading icon.

For some, your ‘Sync Library’ feature might just be disabled, or there can be a corrupted app setting issue.

Whatever the case, you can fix it by enabling or re-enabling the feature.

Here’s how you can do it:

  1. Go ahead and launch your Apple Music app on your Macbook.
  2. Then, click on the Music option, then Preferences, and then General option.
  3. Now find the Sync Library option and uncheck the checkbox if it is enabled to turn it off.

 

 

  1. Next, quit the Music app and re-launch it.
  2. Repeat Steps 2 to 3, and this time, check the checkbox to re-enable it.
  3. Finally, quit the Music app again and re-launch it. It should sync your music library again.

 

 

3. Check for Software Updates.

If you are still experiencing the Apple Music stuck on Macbook issue, then it might be because your Apple Music app is outdated or buggy.

This is also true if you are using iTunes in a macOS Mojave or earlier version macOS installed in your Macbook. To fix this, update your application to the latest version to install the latest bug fixes.

To update your Apple Music app, you just need to update your macOS Catalina to the latest version. This is because the Music app is part of the core applications in macOS Catalina.

To do this, click on the Apple menu icon, then System Preferences, and then Software Update. A message for available updates should prompt the screen.

 

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Now if you are using the iTunes app, then the steps are a little different. To update it, just go to the App Store on your Macbook, and click on the Updates option. If an update is available, click on the Install option.

 

How to Fix Apple Music Stuck on MacBook

 

Once done, make sure to quit the iTunes app and relaunch it. When updates are done, launch the Apple Music or iTunes app and test to see if the app works without getting stuck.

 

 

4. Launch Music App when Offline.

There is a workaround mentioned on the Apple Support Community that worked for a number of users. It was observed that the Music app was getting errors when your Macbook is connected to the Wi-Fi network.

To avoid this, you can temporarily disconnect your Macbook’s wireless connection and then launch the app.

Before doing this, make sure to force quit your Music app. Click on the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar and click on the Turn Wi-Fi Off option.

 

 

Afterwards, relaunch the Music app and it should be able to load correctly.

Once you find that it is working, you can head back to the Wi-Fi icon on the menu bar and click on the Turn Wi-Fi On option to turn your Wi-Fi network back on.

 

 

5. Clear the Music App Cache.

Just like any other application, the Music App also makes use of cache for faster app responsiveness. But sometimes, these cached files can get corrupted and they tend to mess up the application.

To fix this, you need to clear the cache so the application can download the updated files and rebuild it.

Here’s how you can do it:

  1. First, create a folder on your Macbook’s desktop for backup of your Music app files.
  2. Then, locate your Music app files and copy it on the folder you created on your desktop.
  3. Next, once files are backed up, delete all files in the Music app folder.
  4. Now click on the Finder app, choose the Go option, and then the Go to Folder option.
  5. Type in ~/Library in the message prompt and hit Enter.

 

How to Fix Apple Music Stuck on MacBook

 

  1. After that, find all folder with Music or iTunes label and delete them.
  2. Do Step 4 again and this time, type in ~/Library/Caches.
  3. Then, find and delete any folders with Music or iTunes label.
  4. Finally, restart your Macbook. Refer to Method 1 of this guide for this process.

After this process, you can copy the files from backup to the Music app folder. Launch the app and test the app again to see if it resolves the issue.

 

 

6. Remove and Re-install iTunes.

There is a chance that your iTunes app is corrupted if the issue still persists. This can happen especially if you are using an older version of macOS and iTunes on your Macbook.

So apart from just updating the macOS (Method 3), you can choose to rebuild the iTunes application by removing and reinstalling it.

 

Note

Before proceeding to remove and reinstall your iTunes application, make sure you backup your Macbook which will safely store all of your iTunes media library content.

 

Once you’ve backed up, here’s how you can do it:

  1. Go ahead and force quit your iTunes app.
  2. Then, launch the Terminal app and type sudo rm -r /Applications/iTunes.app to remove the app.
  3. Next, click on Finder, click on Go, and then Home.
  4. Go to the Music folder, then click on the iTunes folder, and delete iTunes Library.itl to remove iTunes file indexing.

 

 

  1. Finally, download and install the latest iTunes app.

After having rebuilt the whole iTunes application, you should be able to use it with no further issues. You can now restore your media files from backup.

 

 

7. Connect with Apple Support.

In this time of crisis due to COVID-19, your community might be still under lockdown. No worries for you can just talk to an Apple Support Representative over the phone. With your permission, they can just remotely access your Macbook and be the one to resolve this issue.

 

How to Fix Apple Music Stuck on MacBook

 

But if the nearest Apple Store in your place is already open, then you can ask the Apple-certified technicians to do it for you. They are trained to resolve both software and hardware issues on your Macbook. When they are done, just make sure to test the Music app if it works before you leave the store.

 

 

And this wraps up our short but helpful guide for you today. We hope that you were able to fix your Apple Music that is stuck on your Macbook. If you have questions related to this topic, please feel free to leave a comment below.

 

If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂

 

Author

  • Mako Young

    Mako is a staff writer at Saint. He's been writing about tech for more than a decade. When he isn't reading about the latest news on Apple, he's busy studying cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, cloud computing, and other IT-related sectors. His exceptional work graces technology and Apple-related blogs like How-To Geek, VEED.io, Macgasm, onMac, PhotoWorkout, GameRant, and many more. He also has a Bachelors in Computer Science and has been writing since 2018, with over 400 posts published. LinkedIn X (Twitter)

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