[Updated] YouTube Music shuffle 'Song unavailable' error & repeating songs issues surface, workarounds inside

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on June 24, 2022) follows:

YouTube was born as a multimedia platform focused on videos. But, over the years, it gained new features and sections.

For instance, YouTube has been offering support for live streaming for a while now. Also, the service received YouTube Music for users who often use YouTube as a music platform.

YouTube Music offers a large catalog of songs and albums, in addition to music videos. Users can use the free version or pay a monthly subscription to remove ads and get additional features.

However, for a few weeks now, some YouTube Music users have been facing issues with the shuffle feature where they get a ‘Song unavailable’ error message or the songs are constantly repeating.

Like other music services, YouTube Music app allows you to download songs to listen to them offline.

The downloaded songs can be arranged in playlists, in which you can shuffle. But a YouTube Music bug is causing a ‘Song unavailable’ error when activating shuffle on playlists.

So glad youtube music allows me to download playlists that it says are unavailable (Song unavailable) when I try to play them. What does downloaded even mean anymore? #youtubemusicsucks #imissgoogleplaymusic
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On a Pixel 6. This happens when I use the pop-up shortcut and when I use the shuffle all function in YTM downloads. I can shuffle individual playlists, but not all downloads. Is this happening to anyone else? I’ve cleared the cache. I’d rather not have to reinstall YTM, as I’ll have to redownload everything, but I fear I may have to…
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There is a potential workaround that helps to resolve the bug. Basically, it is recommended to delete all downloaded songs and download them again.

Same, this happened before. I fixed it by clearing all my downloads and redownloading everything, I don’t want to do that every time.
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This can be annoying, but it is the only current method that works as a fix.

According to reports, some YouTube Music users are also facing an issue where the shuffle feature is repeating the same previously played songs.

YouTube Music doesn’t shuffle. It keeps playing the same songs over and over again until the point when you blow up. This is a basic music player feature, if Google is neglecting that for years now, I think that they don’t really invest in it. My old MP3 player has better shuffle than YT Music.
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Just to hijack this a little. You can’t search your likes either. I just spent ten minutes looking for one song in a 1000+ liked playlist. Makes me want to cancel right now.

The YouTube Music shuffle thing is beyond irritating. Also bring back the music listening find function in the search you had in GPM.
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For this bug there are two workarounds you can try. First, you can use the alternative ‘Shuffle Play’ option instead of the main YouTube Music Shuffle button.

Also, you can try the following method:

The “solution” I’ve been using was to download the playlist and then shuffle it from the downloaded menu. This seemed to work better than the streaming shuffle and it played more than 20 songs. I’ll give this 3 dot menu solution a try.
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There is still no official acknowledgment for any of the issues from the YouTube team. We will update this story if new related events arise in the future.

02:30 pm (IST): According to some recent reports (1,2,3,4), the issue remains unfixed to date.

NOTE: You can also check the YouTube bugs/issues tracker.

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