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Delay between iTunes Store purchase and Music app on iOS

Having an issue where there is a long delay between purchasing a song on the iTunes Store app and the song showing up in the Music app on iOS. Sometimes the delay is minutes, other times the delay is tens of minutes but never more than an hour in my experience.


Some other symptoms of this behavior:


In the iTunes Store app:

Sometimes a purchased song's price/purchase button will revert to the price other times the button will say "PURCHASED". If the button reverts to the price of the song, tapping a second time will prompt that I own the song and ask if I want to purchase again. While tapping on "PURCHASED" does nothing. (same for entire albums).


Tapping on the song title just plays the snippet of the song, not the song itself even after purchase (not sure if that is abnormal behavior).


Going to "More" (... icon) > Purchased > Music > [artist name] shows the album/songs with the download icon (cloud with arrow pointing down). When tapped switches to "Downloaded" then after a few moments, flips back to the download icon.


Happening on iPhone SE latest gen iOS 16.x, though this may have happened in 15.x as well? Can't remember, but it has been happening awhile. "sync library" in settings is on.


Using apple card in apple pay for purchases (thought maybe they won't give me the song until the transaction processes and that is happening slowly?)


Curious if anyone else is experiencing this or if there is a fix that I'm unable to find because I've searched about this several times with no solution.

iPhone SE

Posted on Sep 5, 2023 8:27 AM

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Posted on Feb 2, 2024 12:51 PM

I have the same issue, except in my case I find the music can take one or two days to finalize. It often sits as "pending" in purchases overnight. I use the Moises music app and have to buy the music to load it into Moises. I have all kinds of issues with when the music actually shows up, and when it actually becomes available to use in Moises. I'm buying the music from Apple to use on my Apple devices, nowhere else, so why on earth does it take so long to have the music fully available in the Music app?


There's some serious discombobulation here Apple! This should have been fixed long ago.

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Delay between iTunes Store purchase and Music app on iOS

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