Similar Posts

39 Comments

  1. I went to iTunes and did Preferences, Advanced and Reset Warnings, and then OK. What I think really worked was to not automatically synch entire library when connecting but just selected artists, songs, and playlists….then to be quick I selected every playlist and viola…the next synch worked.

    Good luck

  2. I was on the phone with Apple for two hours asking them about this problem. None of them had answers.. so frustrating! Then I decided to try something to see if it would work and it did. My new iPod touch was graying out certain songs that I had imported from a cd to my computer then it would say the song wasn’t available in this country or region. I found that odd since the singer is from the U.S. The album I was having issues with is “How Can It Be” by Lauren Daigle. I deleted the songs from iTunes, reuploaded the songs from the cd to my computer..but I noticed the album I own is actually the Deluxe Edition so I changed the album title to the exact title it is in the iTunes Store which was How Can It Be (Deluxe Edition), synced them to my iPod and to my surprise it worked! The songs were no longer gray or saying that they weren’t from this country. Hope this helps someone!

    1. This wouldn’t work for me because in my case more than half of my entire library is greyed out, most of which I ripped from CDs.

      1. Same here. This was maddening, but eventually, after removing the songs from the playlists, I resync’d without music (to wipe them off the phone), then readded everything and resync’d again with the checked music playlists and artists. Took a few times total to get them all correct, but finally worked for all.

        Another note: I really haven’t liked the trend of Apple trying to force people to pay for their subscription-based service–especially when you’ve paid for hundreds of CDs that you shouldn’t have to pay for in the future.

  3. I opened iTunes and selected my device, selected all the songs and hit “delete”. (my intention was to wipe iPhone and re-sync) Instead of the songs being deleted iTunes suddenly started re-syncing everything and I now have access to all my music again

  4. I noticed it today when two songs I purchased on albums from iTunes are no longer available but all of the other songs on the album are. There are several other songs I have either purchased from Apple or ripped from CD’s I bought that no longer work today. This is infuriating because I changed nothing! Please fix this!!!!!

  5. This is asinine. Apple has no right to block me from listening to songs I own. This is clearly a bug in their software and one that is longstanding. I will be looking for a different music player to load on my iPhone, assuming that the almighty Apple has not blocked that functionality as well.

  6. i’m having this issue too. the last time i was 100% happy with my iphone was with ios6. it’s like after steve jobs died, they stopped giving a shit. i have tried 3 different flagship androids, and didn’t like any of them. however, ios has become such a shit show that it’s not if, but when i switch to the competition and maybe i’ll just get used to it and be happier in the long run. or maybe even a windows phone, which i had a long time ago. anything is better than this crapple.

  7. I found a fix separate to those listed here, so if none of those work, hopefully this can.

    In iTunes, the songs that would get the error message when attempted to play on iPhone had a cloud symbol next to them, specifically a “dotted-line cloud” as shown and listed here: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203564.

    On that support page, the first point in the description for that cloud symbol fixed it for me, updating the Cloud Music Library.

    As I say, hopefully this can help someone!

    1. Your comment made me just figure out what’s going on. Because my iCloud Purchase more, they are blocking my music that I uploaded from a CD that was purchased. This is another way to make me pay for more storage. I’m going delete my pictures in iCloud and if Enough storage and the music doesn’t start playing, I guess I’m calling Apple. I am sick and tired of big corporations doing sneaky things to get more money out of me!

  8. I seriously do not understand what is going on, so I am and artist and I have a song already on iTunes I have a new song that is being released January 1st and is currently for pre-order on iTunes, I can find it on my iPad I can listen to the preview I can even pre order my own track however if I want to share that link say on social media 4 promo purposes or PR all of that stuff.. I get that stupid message that says not available in your country or region. I have an Android phone that I can only have apple music on, nowhere on Apple music but it’s on Apple music on my iPad I don’t understand why the link won’t work but my friend who lives in California I live in Florida, he has no problem with the link he can email the link to anybody and they can tap it and hear the preview and see the artwork and pre-order it I don’t understand why my link doesn’t work and why it says I’m in the wrong country or region WTF?!! I’m the dang artist I should be able to send it to whoever I want did Apple have some issue with Florida and they are not dealing and distributing songs in Florida, I’m going to bring it up to my record label and my distributor is a huge worldwide distributor its Sony so there should be no issue! Pre-orders are available on only three sites Amazon Google play and iTunes or it’s supposed to be preview on Apple music but definitely not on my Android and my iPad I can do everything but send the link because I can’t even open that link I don’t get it I hate it there’s something off it thinks I’m somewhere else or it’s all screwed up!!!!!

  9. I had this issue back when this was first reported. Now its December 2019 and am having the same issue again. It is supper annoying that I can’t play and listen to the music I bought from I-tunes in the I-tunes app. My Mac Desk top plays them but not my iPhone. Yuck!!!

  10. I’ve just bought an album from the iTunes store on my iPhone. I could see the album and the tracks on my iPad but got that message. It seems to work now but all I did was go into my iPad settings for iTunes and turn the automatic download of purchases made on other devices off and back on. 5 minutes later and there they were, artworks and all. Hope that helps anyone.

    1. Thanks Al. That did it for me. I turned off automatic downloads, waited a minute and turned it back on. Was able to download everything then.

  11. Yes, this is BS. Been an apple user for years…now considering leaving because of the frustration of not being able to play songs I’ve paid for after updating. %&%#$%

  12. Another workaround (that worked for me). Same problem, but when I selected to sync only the songs/artists/whatever selected, it worked fine. Sync All – most tracks greyed out and showing the error message. Sync marked items only, and manually select everything – and the problem was solved.

  13. Weird. I find that original songs I have written and recorded are sometimes UNAVAILABLE in my country or region. Makes me wonder where I fly off to when I go to bed at night. Apple needs to fix this.

  14. Same problem here
    Leaving apple and going back to Android
    My old iTunes on other computer works fine
    But not compatible with new phone

    1. I’m having the same problem, I have a huge library from my cd’s and music I have bought and can’t play them. Does anybody out there have a fix?

  15. I bought a song from the iTunes Store, and it wouldn’t download because of this message. So it’s not just ripped songs or old purchases, it’s also brand new purchases

    1. Exactly- I have just purchased an album through iTunes and it’s telling me it’s not available in my country or region – all songs when finally downloaded are greyed out

        1. I did step two above (logging out and back in again) and it worked for me to fix the new purchases!

  16. I have heard of this happening for years.. with both iPhones and iPods. If Apple feels that you did not legally acquire the song, they have even gone so far as to delete it from your device. Hope you saved the CD.

    I have looked at this up and down; even scrubbed the MP3 tags; nothing seems to fix it.

    Work-around is: Connect iPhone to computer and open iTunes, look at all songs on device in iTunes on computer and find those songs grayed out, go to device and tap each song to try to play it (it won’t play), after tapping all gray songs go back to computer and perform a sync. This temporarily restores your ability to play those songs, but the next time you backup you will lose them again.

    1. This worked! Tapping on the grayed out songs in order to trigger the ‘not available in your region’ error message to pop-up while my iPhone was connected to my Mac with iTunes open caused the two devices to go back into synch and suddenly all of the grayed out songs started to appear one by one as non-grayed songs on my phone. Great tip. Thank you!!

    2. I’ve had the same greyed out “song” problem on voice recordings I made using my iPhone. WTF I can’t play back my own voice recordings? I get the message it can’t be played in my country or region. I’m using IOS13.2.1.

    1. I’m seeing it with both m4a and mp3 files (though not all of either), some of which were ripped off CD and others were purchased online (as mp3s – I abhor copy protection). I also see differences *within* some albums that were ripped or purchased at the same time – some tracks are greyed out and others just fine. That strongly suggests to me that this is a bug and that Apple didn’t do anywhere near an appropriate level of testing with iOS 13. Very disappointing for such a simple, core feature of their flagship product to fail like this.

      1. Same here. Just tried to listen to album ripped from my own cd. First three played; remaining 16 songs “not available in your country or region.”

        Kicking myself for ”upgrading.”

      2. I don’t know what M4a files are, but I’m having the same issues with my iPod touch, too. All the greyed out songs are from my own purchased CD’s. How on earth are they “Not available in your region” if you bought the actual CD?!

  17. only showed up after the new updated version was released. I have the issue on my ipod touch and the ultra annoying thing is that its songs that I have on cds I have bought, or else songs downloaded from other sources than apple. it is obviously a software bug, that they have either introduced on purpose or accidentally but hopefully they will fix it soon. I am currently looking at other software to play my music on computer, and I will be looking for other music players to replace my ipod touch. seems a waste of a purchase but if apple continues to pull stuff like this they wont continue for too long as a successful company, certainly not as successful as they have been under jobs leadership prior to this.

    1. FFS this I am so annoyed- I do have a gigantic library which I have meticulously looked after all these years and I am just flabbergasted by Apple and what they have done. I’m looking at Swinsian or something else. I just cannot take it.

      Please just fix it.

  18. This is certainly a BUG in the new version of IOS for iphone. I updated it, and suddenly this problem cropped up. I seem to have fixed it by re syncing my phone a couple of times…. but the problem popped up again a few days again. Out of 6000 songs in my library, it seems 10% were in this “Greyed out” non accessable condition… all songs from my bought and paid for CDs…. none of my many itunes purchases had this problem. Smells of software bug to me.

  19. I’m having this issue with songs encoded from my cd’s that iOS 12 won’t sync to my iPhone – weirdly its random songs from albums making an album incomplete. I am leaning more towards moving away from Apple if this continues

    1. Apple are doing far too many updates to improve things that don’t need improving. Nearly all of my songs will not now play. WTF?? ITS 39gb OF MUSIC. Whats the point of having an iPhone if i cant listen to my own Godamned music?

    2. Right there with you, Mark. I have a carefully curated library of about 30,000 songs. Most are encoded from CD and its hit or miss if they’ll actually play on my iPhone. They’ll play on the Macbook, but not on the phone. No rhyme or reason to it. Its not just certain record labels of albums. Its scattered throughout my library.

      I’m due to buy a new phone, but I’m not plunking down a grand for another iPhone if there’s no fix for this.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *