I’m developing a third-party Apple Music streaming app using MusicKit (ApplicationMusicPlayer + catalog requests).
Issue:
Whenever Apple releases an Apple Music update that shows the “What’s New?” onboarding/modal screen in the native Apple Music app, MusicKit in our app completely breaks for all users.
Attempts to play anything (queue, prepareToPlay, etc.) fail silently or with service-related errors.
Playback and most MusicKit operations remain broken until the user opens the native Apple Music app, dismisses the “What’s New?” screen, and returns to our app.
After that single native interaction (we deliberately stopped users from going any further within Apple Music to verify this), everything works perfectly again.
Reproduction Steps:
- Apple Music receives an update with “What’s New?” screen.
- User launches our third-party app and attempts playback.
- MusicKit fails.
- User opens Apple Music → dismisses modal → returns to our app.
- MusicKit works again.
Expected Behavior:
Third-party MusicKit apps should not become non-functional because the native Apple Music app has a pending onboarding screen. Shared backend services (account readiness, tokens, subscription state, etc.) should initialize independently.
Environment:
iOS 26.4.2
Devices verified to be affected:
- iPhone 13 Pro
- iPhone XR
- iPhone 15
Workarounds attempted:
- Re-requesting MusicAuthorization
- Recreating ApplicationMusicPlayer
- Stopping/re-queuing
- Background/foreground app
None resolve it without the native Apple Music interaction. This appears to be a recurring integration fragility with shared Apple Music services.
Has anyone else seen this? Any recommended recovery path or API to force service initialization?
Thanks!