iTunes Won't Play Music on Mac & PC? All Fixes are HERE

In this post, we have all the effective fixes to the problem that iTunes won't play songs properly together with detailed troubleshooting steps. Whatever your iTunes music problem is, you can find a fix here.

In addition to sync and back up iPhone content, iTunes also allows you to store and play music. To play a song in iTunes, you typically select it from iTunes library and click the Play button. But things go awry sometimes. There are users complaining that they can't play Apple music, cannot play the exclamation marked iTunes music missing files, Tunes won't play full songs, iTunes music won't play on Bluetooth etc. In this post, we will address the iTunes music problems one by one.

Transfer, Convert and Manage iPhone Music without iTunes

1. Transfer mp3 songs, purchased iTunes music, ringtones, downloaded music between iPhone and computer freely;
2. Convert incompatible songs into formats of iDevices, kills iTunes not playing music errors caused by improper formats;
3. Export iTunes songs from DRM protected M4P to DRM-free MP3 songs for easier playback on other devices;
4. Make personal ringtones with favorite songs with a few clicks;
5. Manage iPhone music library, delete songs, create playlists, edit album & artists, etc. without iTunes.

1. iTunes not playing full music

iTunes can't playing a full song is one of the most cried iTunes errors with music. When a user clicks on a song, iTunes starts to play but gets stuck in the middle or skips to the next song instead of playing the complete music.  

1. Go "Account" at the top and select "Authorizations". Then click "Authorize this computer", and restart iTunes.  
2. Delete the song that won't play full length > go back to iTunes Store > Purchased > Music > Not on this computer and download the problematic song.  
3. Rebuild iTunes library: back up iTunes media folder in case anything goes wrong. Then quit iTunes and find iTunes Library.xml, iTunes Library.itl. Move iTunes Library.xml to another folder and remove iTunes Library.itl from the iTunes folder. Restart iTunes and select File > Library > Import Playlist and select the iTunes Library.xml file saved in another folder.
4. Check if the song is in formats supported by iTunes, namely MP3, AIFF, AAC, WAV and Apple Lossless Encoder. If not, iTunes will not play the music. You can upgrade to iTunes Plus or try other audio converter to import the music to iTunes library and auto convert incompatible audio video formats for Apple.

iTunes Songs Greyed out with Dotted Circle? Fix It Now

2. Apple music won't play

Many users may find that iTunes won't play any Apple Music songs on Mac or PC. When they try to play any songs from Apple Music, iTunes will skip one by one through all of the Apple Music songs.

1. Restart your computer and try again.
2. Sign out of iTunes and log in to your account again.
3. Click System Preferences > Network > Advanced > DNS. Click the + icon and change the DNS to number 199.85.127.10 or 199.85.126.10.
4. Disable firewall and anti-virus software on your computer.

[Solved] iPhone Apple Music Playlists Not Showing in iTunes >>

3. iTunes won't play purchased/downloaded music

There are also quite a lot of complaints reporting that iTunes fails to play the songs they purchased from music store. When they try to play a purchased song on iTunes, it will stay at 0:00 and won't move.

1. Remove the unplayable songs from iTunes and re-download them from iTunes Store.
2. Check if your Apple ID is linked to many devices: open iTunes > View My Account > click iTunes in the Cloud > Manage Devices.
3. Flush DNS cache in macOS: open Terminal application and enter the following: "sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder; say DNS cache flushed". Enter the admin password if required and clear the DNS cache. Then restart iTunes.
4. The track may be damaged, report the problem to iTunes Store.
5. If you can't play imported music, make sure you sync music to iTunes in the right way. If the downloaded songs are DRM-protected, you may need to remove DRM.

4. iTunes won't play music on Bluetooth speaker

When I connect my Bluetooth speaker to my laptop, iTunes refuses to play audio through it." iTunes will play music via the laptop's built-in speaker, but won't play through the speaker. This iTunes problem happens most to Windows users and also on fewer Mac computers.

1. Open iTunes and go to Edit > Preference > Playback > Play Audio Using Settings and change the playback from Windows Audio Session to Direct Sound. You may need to restart the computer to apply the changes to the playback settings.
2. Make sure you have installed the latest version of QuickTime on your computer.
3. Try to download iTunes 12.1.1 for Windows (64-bit — for older video cards).
4. Try to update your Bluetooth Driver in Device Manager.
5. Make sure your device like iPhone is connecting to Bluetooth.

5. There is no sound

The music is playing but there is no sound. Reported a user on Apple Community "The bar moves at the top, showing the song is playing, but I can't hear it." Some others can play the video but still iTunes has no sound on Windows and Mac. How to fix this problem?

1. Check if there is any clash of audio drivers and open quicktime preferences, select audio tab and then click the select audio playback and recording devices button.
2. Play a video or movie and right click on the volume speaker at the bottom of the screen. Click "Open Volume Mixer" and where it says iTunes, lift up the bar.
3. Play a video or movie in iTunes and select the "airPlay" button. Check "Computer" instead of Apple TV.
4. Open iTunes and find the square icon on the bottom right. Hover over the icon with your curser and you will see "Choose which speakers to use", make sure that My Computer is checked.