After doing my fair share of research, I’ve discovered the reason why the Apple Music app keeps freezing (unresponsive buttons) and crashing.
It seems like the main reason why Apple Music freezes and crashes are because your library was changed during a playback (when a song is playing). Here are a few different scenarios.
Deleting a song during playback
If you play a song from your library and you delete that song (while it’s playing), the Apple Music app freezes and crashes every single time.
Sometimes, the next song would start playing when the currently playing song is deleted but the screen freezes, then after 10 to 15 seconds the app crashes.
Normally, the Apple Music app would skip to the next song when you delete a song that’s playing, but for some reason, now the app freezes and crashes.
The same thing goes for downloaded songs.
I downloaded about 9,000 songs from Apple Music. I played them, turned on Shuffle, then deleted a downloaded song and the app suddenly freezes and then crashes.
So I tried to solve the problem by deleting every download and trying again (just streaming the song). The same thing happened – if I delete a song the app freezes and then crashes.
This means that the Apple Music app has a tendency to freeze and crash whenever you delete a song from your library during playback (when a song is playing).
If you want to delete a song from your library, do it when a song is not playing.
Shuffling your entire library
Many users, myself included, have noticed that shuffling your entire library, especially if it has tens of thousands of songs, can cause the Apple Music app to freeze and crash.
Whenever I shuffle all songs, the screen freezes (all buttons become unresponsive). Then, after I force close the app, it shows a white screen until I have to force close it again.
After force closing 2 times I’d be able to open Apple Music and shuffle a playlist. However, if I try to reshuffle my entire library again, the app would do the same thing (freezes, then crashes).
Based on my research, Apple Music freezes and crashes when you shuffle the entire library especially if it has a large number of songs. Mine has almost 74,000 songs.
However, there are no issues when you shuffle downloaded songs.
The problem also doesn’t happen when shuffling songs from a playlist, individual artist, or single album. It only happens when shuffling the entire library via Songs or Albums.
If you want to use the Shuffle feature on Apple Music, my advice is to shuffle songs from a single album, individual artist, or a small playlist, instead of your entire library.
Shuffling a large playlist (with tens of thousands of songs)
Not only does shuffling your entire library cause the Apple Music app to freeze and crash, but shuffling a playlist filled with a large number of songs does the same thing too.
There was a time when shuffling a playlist with almost 3,000 songs caused Apple Music to crash on my phone but playing a smaller playlist with less than 300 songs is perfectly fine.
My advice is to keep your playlists small (less than 500). You should have no trouble with freezing and crashing when using the Shuffle feature on Apple Music.
A Smart Playlist changes your library during playback
There are three different types of playlists you can create on the Apple Music app. One of them is called a Smart Playlist, which automatically updates based on specific rules you’ve set.
One of the features of a Smart Playlist is called Live updating. When it’s enabled, your Smart Playlist will update when you add, remove, or change items in your library.
Therefore, if a song no longer matches the rules you’ve set for a Smart Playlist, Apple Music would automatically remove that song from your library.
Unfortunately, many users, myself included, are seeing the Apple Music app freezing and crashing whenever a Smart Playlist updates the library during playback (when a song is played).
For example, I sort my Smart Playlist based on “least recently played songs”. This means that the playlist will remove songs that are played the most and add songs that are played the least.
Apple Music will play the first song, and sometime during the middle of the second song, it will try to update the library (remove and add a song), then freeze and crash.
Not only that, loading one of these playlists takes 30 seconds up to a minute.
It seems that the Live updating feature on Smart Playlists causes Apple Music to freeze and crash. Standard playlists that do not change the order of playback work just fine.
A “buggy” playlist causes freezing and crashing
All things considered, one playlist that is “buggy” could be the main cause of Apple Music constantly freezing and crashing. Let me explain.
After some experimenting, I found one playlist that causes the Apple Music app to freeze and crash. Other playlists, even larger ones, don’t cause the same problem.
I’ve narrowed down one Smart Playlist that causes freezing and crashing. Admittedly, it’s large (about 20,000 songs), but I have larger Smart Playlists that are not having this issue.
When I switched to a different Smart Playlist, the problem went away. The freezing and crashing problem only happens when I try to play one particular Smart Playlist.
Deleting and remaking the playlist doesn’t solve the issue.
It could be that the system files and cached files of a certain playlist are filled with bugs. No matter what you do, that buggy playlist will cause Apple Music to freeze and crash.
If the same thing is happening to you, my advice is to forget about the playlist and play songs from a different playlist. Or, you can clear the cache of the Apple Music app.
Both your app and software are not up to date
Last but not least, your Apple Music app could be freezing and crashing because both the app and your device’s software are not up to date.
Like any other app developer, Apple is constantly releasing app and software updates to eliminate bugs and provide fixes on all of its products and services.
The best thing you can do is to keep your apps and software updated. You can find software updates by navigating to Settings on your device (Android or iOS).
If you’re using an iPhone or iPad, open the App Store and tap your profile icon at the top of the screen. Tap on UPDATE if you see an available update for Apple Music.
If you’re using an Android device, open Google Play and tap your profile icon at the top right of the screen. You can find available updates after you click “Manage apps and device”.
Related articles: