"Playlist can't be added to your iCloud Music Library". Why?

Question

I am migrating from Spotify and I want iTunes to accommodate the way I used to add songs to a "favorites" playlist, just like the Starred Songs works on Spotify.

Initially I created a Smart Playlist to self-update with all my hearted/loved tracks (let's call this Playlist 1). That didn't work because apparently the heart rating doesn't persist between devices, and most of the point of this is so I can have this self-updating playlist available offline on mobile.

My second solution was to create a non-smart playlist and manually update that one with any new music the smart playlist catches. (Let's call that Playlist 2.) That works (I can set this manual playlist to be kept accessible offline on my phone), but it's cumbersome to manually copy-paste songs every time I heart new tracks.

My third solution was to create another smart playlist especially made to mirror the first. (Let's call this Playlist 3.) The first playlist is set to auto-add any hearted tracks, but since this parameter doesn't carry to mobile, I made this second smart playlist that simply adds whatever music is added to the first. Essentially a mirror playlist, but with a different parameter.

This kinda works, but I get a strange error:

The playlist was created, and it works as I intended (successfully mirroring the first one at all times), but apparently I can't access it from other devices for some reason.

Why does this happen? The Playlist 3 contains exactly the same tracks as Playlist 1, so the given reason that Playlist 3 "includes other media kinds or songs that are not eligible" doesn't make any sense.

Anyone knows why is this happening and/or how could I solve my initial problem?

Thanks!

Answer 1

"Playlists that reference other Playlists can not be uploaded"

It took me awhile to figure out the solution to this problem, but I eventually did. You can no longer just drag and drop songs from Apple Playlists to new ones that you create yourself, but you are still able to do it a different way. You also used to be able to just right-click on a song, a menu would pop up, and you could then "add to selected playlist" - this no longer works either.

Solution: if you go into any one of your Apple Music playlists, hover over any one of the songs, you will notice a little icon with 3 dots show up - if you LEFT-click on this, a menu will pop up (different than the old menu), and then add the song to your desired new self-made playlist. This seems to work.

The problem is that iTunes still has both the old method and the new method active, but only the new method actually works.

Answer 2

This is what finally worked for me.

1. Create a new playlist, and copy all songs from the problem playlist
2. In playlist, remove all downloads. I did this by highlighting all songs, clicking on ..., and selecting 'remove download'.
3. This make the download from iCloud icon appear next to all the songs
4. Then I had to go through and click each song to get it to redownload from iCloud. About 10% of my songs would not download from iCloud.
5. I moved the 10% of bad songs to a temporary playlist and deleted them from the new playlist. The new playlist would now sync to iCloud.
6. I then dragged and dropped each song, 1 by 1, from the temp playlist back into my new playlist. It wouldn't work if a dragged more than 1 at a time.
7. After doing that, my new playlist synced to iCloud and all my devices.

Answer 3

I saw this error when I added songs directly from the "For You" or "New" tabs in iTunes to a playlist.

To fix the error for my playlist I manually added the songs to My Library, then added them to a playlist. I was then able to sync that playlist.

Answer 4

iCloud recently has had updates done which you check the system status at here

I had issues with creating new playlists from my phone. When I signed out and signed back into my iCloud account, this functionality came back.

I am not sure if this will resolve your issue but could be an unseen issue as to why this may have happened.

Answer 5

I found that I had some video files in my playlist that wouldn't sync/upload. These files has an icon next to them that identified them as non-uploadable. I deleted these from my playlist and booyaa!

Answer 6

Here's a super quick fix I found that works instantaneously:

1. Click on Songs to view your entire music collection.
2. Command+A to select all your songs.
3. Right click and select Add to iCloud Music Library.

Once you do that, iTunes will upload the remainder of your library. The error should then resolve itself and you won't see that iCloud icon next to your playlist that originally couldn't be added.

I hope this works for you!

Answer 7

I've found that certain songs are available in Apple Music, but once you add them to an existing playlist it becomes un-syncable. Also it can't be shared. This is a real pain, specially because there is not warning as to which song is causing the issue. For example, if you don't own Ed Sheeran X album, try adding Sing. Boom.

Answer 8

What about a ratings playlist? I've done this for years with my iTunes library and it's just a matter of creating a smart playlist for all songs rated five stars. You could import the Spotify list, select all, rate them five stars, and then they would automatically be added to the list.

I'm doing this now with some minor success...my issue at the moment is that the smart playlist I created adds random unrated songs from albums in my library for no reason I can discern.

Answer 9

I was having this problem and I managed to solve it by right clicking on the problem playlist and clicking "duplicate."

The duplicated playlist had six fewer songs (which I suspect were the reason the original playlist couldn't be synced) but I was able to sync it to iCloud without any issues.

Answer 10

If you go to your playlist and tell it to arrange according to song, you can regain the ability to click the little cloud icon in the menu bar and sort this way. If you see any clouds with lines through them, delete them from your playlist.

Also make sure that you delete any music videos from your playlist.

Both of these issues will keep the playlist from sharing across devices.

Answer 11

I found an easier way to fix this. In iTunes, go to preferences and turn off iCloud music library. Remove what's left - maybe re-add it through Apple Music? - then turn it back on. Problem solved :)

Answer 12

Here’s what works: Double click on the MP3 file and it will start playing oon iTunes Click on the 3 dots next to the song title now playing and select upload to iCloud music Watch the spinning arrow on the right. Click on it showing the progress of the upload When finished uploading, click on the 3 dots again and choose add to a playlist and you’re done. I tried with multiple files and it got stuck so do it one song at a time to be certain.

Answer 13

I just started using Apple Music, and found that 1 of my playlists from iTunes wouldn't sync. It was a Smart Playlist that included 2 rules that referenced other playlists (e.g., don't include the song here if it is in one of those playlists.) Deleting those 2 rules fixed the issue so it will sync now, unfortunately, the playlist now has 1700 songs in it, and wasn't exactly the fix I hoped for.