Why are certain songs on Google Play Music greyed out on my phone but not on PC?

Question

Here's one that's been driving me crazy: The other day, I noticed songs on my phone's "Thumbs Up" playlist, songs that were both bought from Google Play or from elsewhere, were greyed out on my phone.

This seems to be a problem with Google auto-matching songs to their own songs offered on the Play Store. The songs that are greyed out and were uploaded have an option to "Fix Incorrect Match", but songs that were purchased from Google are greyed out anyway. Songs that can't be matched are left alone. This is also only limited to the "Thumbs-Up" playlist.

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This issue does not persist on Windows and does persist on Android regardless of internet connectivity or playlist downloading.

Answer 1

I managed to fix it by checking my settings, "stream only on wifi" was turned on some how.. once I turned that off, everything available as before

Answer 2

It's actually quite simple. Those songs aren't available because you have no internet connection, and Google never cached them on your phone for offline music.

To test this out, try this: Connect to WiFi, and you'll notice that all your songs are available. Try playing a song all the way through. Now turn off WiFi/your data connection and you'll notice you can still play that particular song, while others might be grayed out.

Note: This also happens for songs on a data connection as well when the "Stream on WiFi Only" toggle is checked.

Answer 3

Oddly enough, this fixed itself on it's own.

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Thanks for nothing, Google.

Answer 4

I had this issue. I force stopped the app and cleared the cache. All good now.