[March 04: Potential workaround] Music won’t play on Instagram story? Lot of users facing ‘no sound’ or ‘music not playing’ issue

Himanshu Arora
March 4, 2021
Apps, Bugs and Issues, Instagram, News, Standalone
15
[March 04: Potential workaround] Music won’t play on Instagram story? Lot of users facing ‘no sound’ or ‘music not playing’ issue

This story is being continuously updated….new updates are being added at the bottom…..

Original story (from 2019) follows:

It was back in June last year, Instagram announced a new feature for its users. The new functionality allowed users to add a soundtrack to their Instagram story. Here’s how the Facebook-owned company explained the feature in their official announcement:

When you tap to add a sticker to a photo or video in Stories, you’ll now see a music icon. Tap on it to open a library of thousands of songs — you can search for a specific song, browse by mood, genre or what’s popular and tap the play button to hear a preview. When you’ve selected your song, you can fast-forward and rewind through the track to choose the exact part that fits your story

Music-Sticker-updated

The feature also lets you choose a song before capturing a video. All you have to do is to launch the camera app on your device, then under the record button, swipe to access the newly-added ‘Music’ option. The next steps involve searching for a song, selecting the part you like, and finally recording a video with the part of song you selected playing in the background.

Music-Format

Given that hundreds of millions of Instagram users use the Story feature, the new functionality to add a song to Stories was welcomed with open arms. There was, however, a caveat: this new feature wasn’t available worldwide initially. Here’s what the Instagram announcement said about it:

The music sticker is now available as part of Instagram version 51 in select countries, and the ability to choose a song before capturing video is available on iOS only, with Android coming soon…….. we’re working hard to bring it to the global community in the future

It’s been close to three quarters since the feature was launched, but not all Instagram users are able to access it. There have been complaints regarding this all along, with some complainants saying one of their or their family member’s account has the feature, but other doesn’t.

Take a look at some Reddit threads from last year:

No Music Sticker? from Instagram

why i don’t have instagram music? from Instagram

Comment from discussion ofthesummercourt’s comment from discussion "Don’t have the music sticker on Instagram stories??".

Instagram music isn’t available in my region… but I’m in America? from Instagram

And if you look at recent reports, the situation remains the same. In fact, the language in some of the reports suggests the feature was there but it was pulled. Here are some latest tweets:

The problem is being reported by users across the devices, so it’s safe to say the issue isn’t specific to a device. Then, as I already noted above, some users have it on one of their accounts, but not on the other, which means unavailability in a specific region is not the issue as well.

Having said that, it’s worth mentioning that not all regions have the feature yet, so it could be possible that some of the complaints are coming to regions that are still not supported.

While researching on this issue, I stumbled upon some reports from Spotify users who are facing similar problems. Here’s one such report:

While Spotify’s Twitter help account suggested the user to take their case up with Instagram, I found a Spotify forum discussion from last year about same issue where Spotify confirmed they are looking into the matter. Here’s what the original complainant had said:

When I try to share some song I don’t see the Instagram Stories option, can you help me?

And here’s what a Spotify forum moderator confirmed earlier this month:

We are currently working with Instagram to make this option available for everyone soon!


instagram-music-issue3

As you can see, aside from normal users, even companies like Spotify are in touch with Instagram over issues related to this feature, but we haven’t come across any response from Instagram yet. However, rest assured, we’re tracking the situation closely, and will update the story as and when we have any newsworthy info.

Until then, it would be good if you share your Instagram Music experience in our comments section below, as it will not only give us a more clear picture but also help other users who are affected.

Update 1 (June 14)

Lately, many user are complaining about music sticker missing or disappeared. You can read more about this in our latest coverage here.

Update 2 (Feb 28, 2020)

It appears that the Instagram music not playing on stories issue is troubling a lot of users as of writing this.

Update 3 (March 04, 2021)

Instagram music stories have troubled a big chunk of users at multiple occasions. There has been random events where users, while trying to upload music stickers as their stories, were prompted with an error that restricted them to effectively use this feature.

Well, till the time Instagram steps forward and clears the air on this matter, we have a workaround to save your day.

Instagram Business accounts appears to be the primary victim of these incidents and so, the first step is to try basic troubleshooting techniques of re-installing and updating Instagram app to the latest version.

Users can then try to switch accounts from Business to either a Personal or a Creator’s account. Creator accounts seem to be the next best option as the two barely has any significant difference. More information here.

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Himanshu Arora

Himanshu Arora

My interest in technology and writing started back in 2010. Since then, I have written for many leading publications, including Computerworld, GSMArena, TechSpot, HowtoForge, LinuxJournal, and MakeTechEasier to name a few. Here at PiunikaWeb, my work involves covering on daily basis the biggest tech stories as well as scoops that you won't find anywhere else.