Why is Siri unable to play music from my Apple Music library?

I have the same issue. 17.6 fixed my personal playlists until I connect to CarPlay using a USB cable. But, I also am an Apple Music subscriber so I don’t think that’s the reason why it’s not working.

Great news. I have been suffering from this exact problem: Siri won’t play my iPhone playlists. “Looks like Apple Music can’t play that.“ I once could use CarPlay to play my music, but a few months ago it stopped working.

Well, for me at least as of mid August, 2024, it’s working again. I am on iOS version 17.6.1. I had just spent hours making VLC do what iTunes had been doing, and now it turns out all that effort was unnecessary. No complaints from Apple Music anymore. I just tell Siri to play my playlists, and everything works. I can hear my music through CarPlay and Apple Music in my car again. Yay.

Now Siri is recognizing some of my playlists, but not others. For example:

Listen to playlist Billy Joel 3-5 Stars

"Now playing Billy Joel 3-5 Stars"

Good! It found my playlist and is playing it!

But:

Listen to playlist Beach Boys 3-5 Stars

"Now playing the Beach Boys"

Bad! It didn't find my playlist, and it is playing all songs by the Beach Boys

And:

Listen to playlist Beatles 4-5 Stars

"Now playing the Beatles"

Again, it didn't find my playlist, and it is playing all songs by the Beatles

I’m running 17.6.1 and it doesn’t work at home on the phone either. It will play something, but not what I asked for: it replies “Maybe you wanted….”. and what it plays it maybe be related to the playlist, but it’s not actually the requested playlist.

I suspect this is because they’ve begun lobotomizing Siri in preparation for Apple Intelligence or whatever in iOS 18.0. I’m hopeful that all these problems go away when we get the shiny brand new Siri.

Me too on 17.6.1. Still not working. And in Australia it's illegal to touch your phone unless the car is parked, so can't just pick up my phone and manually select the playlist/ album. Incredibly frustrating to have an essential function inexplicably removed from Car Play.

We’ll add me to the list now. 17.6.1 and now I can no longer move songs from library either cloud or downloaded to a play list.

I created a “Delete” playlist for songs I no longer want/need.

I could simply say “Hey siri, add this song to delete playlist”. And it was done. (Because simply asking to delete from library does not work)

Now I get “Sorry, I can’t find what speaker you’re referring to”.

Oh the joy!

Well this is truly annoying. I am replying to my own post because as of today my “great news” has become invalid. Siri had been playing my playlist through CarPlay, but no more.

Elsewhere in this thread I saw someone has mentioned that Siri would play playlists as long as CarPlay was not involved. I nearly replied that that made no sense because CarPlay simply fed off the iPhone and if the iPhone was working with playlists, certainly CarPlay would as well.

Boy would I have been wrong. Today when I told Siri through CarPlay to play “favorites one“ she replied, “looks like Apple Music can’t do that right now.“ So I turned off the car (I was still parked) and tried again with just the iPhone. I said, “Siri, play favorites one,“ and she replied, “OK, here is Favorites Five.“ Then I started the car and the music stopped coming through the iPhone and began coming through my car speakers.

Bottom line: today Siri will play a playlist for me, but not through CarPlay and not necessarily the playlist I want to hear.

This is really weird.

Because fixing it doesn’t generate 9.99/month. I haven’t tried it, but I believe it is tied to removing playlist functionality from iCloud unless you pay for playlist storage in iCloud. Plus we are a minority. Quantity over quality. The millennials and gen z want everything at their disposal via streaming. 92kbps sample rate is all they’ve ever heard. Then they come to my house and ask why movies and music sound so good. Because it’s not compressed garbage. It’s source material with no compression.

Ok update on my situation.

I said the usual “Hey siri” but instead of saying “move this song to xxxx-playlist”.

I now say “move this song to playlist” then I wait for Siri to ask what playlist, then I say the playlist name. And it works perfectly.

This is the same for playing any of my playlists.

To summarize: I now have to complete an extra step by saying play or move to playlist, then wait for her to ask what playlist. Followed by the appropriate playlist name.

This is for both versions of CarPlay in my cars, one is wireless (BMW iDrive) and wired (Ford sync3).

Hope this helps

Bobulousprime wrote:

Besides not being able to play any playlist, I find that Siri cannot perform functions while any music is playing. 🙄

I find that Siri responds to "Siri, pause" when the Music app (or the Audible app) is playing, and "Siri, play" to resume the same tune (or audiobook).

iOS 17.6.1

I got an email from this discussion this morning alerting me that daarza had offered a workaround to the problem and I tested it today and IT WORKED!

I have an Apple Watch and while sitting in my car with CarPlay going I raised the watch to my lips and softly spoke “hey Siri, play Favorites Three” and to my great surprise my playlist began playing through my car stereo. It was interesting that after asking for the playlist everything took about 5 seconds or more to get sorted out, but the music eventually began to play just as I had asked. I guess this isn’t much help to those who don’t wear an Apple Watch, but for me this is a great workaround solution. I wonder when Apple will get around to fixing this problem correctly?

I have this problem. I turned ON the Cellular Data for Apple music, and instead of "Sorry, there was a network error with Apple Music" I now get "Sorry I can't find that/can't play that". But, if I asked for it to play a particular artist from whom I also recently purchased a track, it played all the songs by that artist, even ones I'm pretty sure were ripped from CDs years ago.

iOS 17.7.2 on an iPhone 12 Pro. I feel this problem won't ever be fixed now that iOS 18 is out. Someday I will update to that once it's stable.

Hi Clarice,

The latest update, iOS 18.1.1, didn't help either. Has your issue with Siri been resolved since you posted in the thread?

Do you have an Apple Watch? Instructing Siri via the Apple Watch bypasses the interface between the iPhone and CarPlay, which is causing the problem. Bring the Apple Watch to your lips with the instruction for Siri to play any playlist works every time.

Or.

Like you, I have a form of online music subscription with Apple (iTunes Match). With this subscription, I got Siri to respond correctly by turning on "Sync Library" on my iMac and iPhone. When you turn on "Sync Library" on your iPhone, the existing on-device library will be deleted and replaced by that from the online library.

Do not connect your iPhone to the Mac/PC after turning on the Sync Library. You have to download the playlist on the Music App on the iPhone to play them without Siri responding with "Looks like Apple Music can't play that".

Hope this workaround solves your problem with Siri until Apple developers release a fix.

Good Luck.