YouTube Music users say offline downloads suddenly won’t play

Some YouTube Music Premium subscribers are hitting a wall when trying to play their downloaded music, with multiple reports surfacing across support forums and Reddit over the past day. Songs that were previously working fine are now stuck in an endless loading loop, refusing to play despite being fully downloaded to users’ devices.

One user posted about it on Google’s support forums. They noted that downloaded songs simply won’t play back and remain stuck on loading. Interestingly, deleting the downloads allows songs to stream normally, but the moment they’re downloaded again, playback breaks. The user tried everything from clearing the app cache to rolling back versions, but nothing worked.

Other users quickly chimed in with nearly identical experiences. Someone noted that songs stream fine initially, but once they finish downloading after the first listen, they become unplayable. Similarly, a user reported the same behavior and pointed to a Reddit discussion where even more people confirmed the problem.

One user mentioned the issue started right after installing the latest Android update on their Pixel 10 Pro, though their iOS devices work without any problems. So current evidence suggests that this might be impacting Android users only.

Another user on Reddit speculated the bug might be related to YouTube Recap, since downloads worked perfectly before that feature rolled out.

Right now, the only workaround is disabling downloads entirely and streaming everything, which defeats the whole purpose of having offline music. Users in another Reddit thread are reporting the same issue, with downloads refusing to play but streaming working fine.​

TeamYouTube responded on Reddit suggesting users submit feedback reports so the team can investigate.

For now, subscribers are stuck either streaming their music or waiting for a fix.​ That said, we’ll keep an eye out for any further details and will post an update if and when there’s something to share.

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