iOS 18 on iPhone 15 ProMqx Music app strang duplicates?!?

Hi all,

Allow me to start by saying I never had any subscriptions to Apple Music OR iTunes Match or any of that. I simply always just purchase music via iTunes Store on my iPhone, fire up my 2022 M1 MacBook Pro and any new purchases pop up in library I manually click download so all songs are 100% square (downloaded)on my iPhone and MacBook. This is as simple as it get because I want ALL my music actually downloaded I NEVER do any streaming services.

Problem: I downloaded iOS 18 when it released and everything works great and install was fine. But couple days ago I notice a strange phenomenon in my music app on iPhone; random songs were duplicated with the same version that’s greyed out and no “downloaded” indicator next to it. If I tap one of these “ghost” songs I get the “not available in your country or region” pop up but the download real version plays fine. This is ONLY happening on the iPhone and NOT the Mac library. Luckily the total song count still matches on each device so 20,600 songs on iOS and 20,600 on Mac. Probably just a bug but still strange and annoying.

Sidenote: I’ve also noticed that under iCloud settings on iOS there’s now a switch for Music now and it was on. Not sure why that’s there now in iOS 18.??

What I’ve tried to fix it: Signing out of Media & Purchases on iOS device, close all apps and reboot device. Went in Music app and toggled off/on Show all Purchases switch. Toggled off/on the new Music switch under iCloud (new to iOS 18 and was already on), Attempted to change regions but was prompted for payment and address info so aborted that step lol, Signed back in to Media & Purchases opened music app but ghost songs remained! Connected iPhone to Mac via cable and performed a couple syncs, but the issue persisted. Rebooted device again and tried a few more times but nothing worked.

I’m not sure if that new switch under iCloud backups labeled Music caused something to create ghost songs bug but I turned it off then repeated ALL the above steps again and still did not fix the issue. Again, I do NOT nor have I ever used any Apple subscription services on iOS or Mac! I simple download music on iOS then manually download to Mac via iTunes Store under “show library”purchases tab. Been doing it this way for years without issues and haven’t had any music sync issues since maybe iOS 6.2 lol. Any advice is greatly appreciated. I’ve attached some pics below.