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YouTube Music ‘song is unavailable’ issue has no official fix yet

YouTube Music bug Song is unavailable issue

December is approaching, exams are near and anxieties are high. Every morning I look at my calendar and mark off each day left till the impending doom. I spread out my books, make coffee, and log onto YouTube Music, nothing making a study session more productive than coffee and study music compilations on YouTube. I find the perfect compilation and click the play button, instead of hearing the calming music I see “song is unavailable.” I move onto another compilation, then another, and then another – almost all of them are not playable because the “song is unavailable issue” persists. The YouTube Music bug has been ruining my study sessions for about a year now.

The wrath of YouTube Music bug

The song is ‘unavailable issue’ is not recent, nor does it happen with just one or two songs. People have been complaining about the YouTube Music bug for more than a year now, and YouTube still refuses to take action.

Another user complained, “I am getting “song is unavailable” in my playlists. There is an exclamation mark on the album art and is greyed out and not able to play. I have uninstalled the app and reinstalled it again but nothing. It’s not just Android its on every device and not just one song but more a good chunk of music in my playlist.” Users have complained that random songs that were previously playing smoothly get greyed out and suddenly become unavailable.

Although many people use other music applications like Spotify, YouTube Music still forms an integral part of our lives. To make matters worse, Google has transitioned from Google Play Music to its new YouTube Music service.

Upon undertaking a thorough study of the bug, we found that it operates in the following ways:

1. A set of songs suddenly become unplayable at once. Sometimes, the bug can affect even half of one’s playlist
2. Songs start becoming unavailable one by one, the bug seems contagious in nature.
3. The bug occurs more frequently when users are streaming via Chromecast

Tips and Tricks

Moreover, the YouTube Music bug is not related to subscriptions at all, as both free and premium users have reported being bothered with the same issues. YouTube has still not resolved the issue which is especially infuriating. This is 2020, YouTube should constitute a fundamental right of every living being (yes not only humans, but my cat also enjoys music too).

There is a list of things you can do that might make your songs playable again:

  1. Re-add the song to your playlist again – although this is bothersome, sometimes it works.
  2. Play the song via YouTube, licensing issues affect certain songs on YouTube Music.
  3. Try switching to mobile data if you are on Wi-Fi and vice versa.

We sincerely hope that the YouTube Music bug gets fixed and we are all able to live our lives happily again.

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About the author

Saman Iqbal

Saman is a law student. She enjoys writing about tech, politics and the world in general. She's an avid reader and writes fictional prose in her free time.







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