Re: Apple Music - Device not compatible error
srahoosier
Enthusiast - Level 2

You can disregard my problem. I found the following page: https://www.verizonwireless.com/vzw/browse/devicechange/home.jsp?

and re-activated my current device on Verizon. Then I just powered the device off and on, and voila everything works. I didn't lose any data or have to restore my device.

For some reason, the SIM card had not activated correctly. It seems to be activated now.

Re: Apple Music - Device not compatible error
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

Thank you for your patience, srahoosier. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. I want to make sure your issue has been resolve. To clarify, are you able to see the device model and picture on My Verizon?

 

GersonG_VZW

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Re: Apple Music - Device not compatible error
JasonKarol
Enthusiast - Level 3

I never got the Apple Music activated on my wife's phone. It's been a while since I had the reply come back suggesting to install Apple Music from the Play Store and use it to verify, so I finally got time to try that and there IS a button in the Apple Music app to verify with Verizon, and when I tap that it gets to a point where it looks like it is asking me to provide a 4 digit code, but then the app quickly changes and has me tap another button to log into Verizon's site to activate Apple Music there.

Well, of course that won't work because THAT is where the site refuses to acknowledge my wife's phone as being compatible, which is ridiculous because Apple Music is installed on it! I wanted to hope that the previous user's suggestion above about activating the phone again would help, but the link provided doesn't exist on Verizon's site any more, or I cannot use it, and I can't find any way to even try that.

It's just inane how a Verizon phone cannot use this feature, and there is apparently no way to make it be recognized on Verizon's site to activate the subscription. I guess I'm going to have to literally switch SIM chips from my wife's phone to hers to activate this, but I don't really want to.

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Re: Apple Music - Device not compatible error
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

We're terribly sorry about the whole ordeal with the Apple Music service. We would love to help you get this corrected. Please reply to our private note. 

 

AaronS_VZW

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Re: Apple Music - Device not compatible error
Note10_user
Enthusiast - Level 2

My Samsung Galaxy 10+ is having the same issue. Was there a solution in the private message? Did this ever get resolved?

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Re: Apple Music - Device not compatible error
JasonKarol
Enthusiast - Level 3

To be honest, I never saw that there was a private message sent to me. Despite all of my Gmail settings and whitelists, apparently that went straight into my spam folder and is now long gone.

 

I've basically all but given up on getting this working. Every Verizon response has been unhelpful in resolving this, as you can see, ranging from trying to make it sound like I didn't buy a Verizon phone (I did), to buying an unlocked phone (it's not), to having me try multiple apps like the Verizon app, the apple music app, etc (none work). I simply don't understand why they (Verizon) cannot get this straight...unless it's convenient malfeasance so I cannot get the advantage of the free apple music subscription even while I'm continuing to pay for the unlimited service which should include it.

 

Honestly, I've given serious consideration to dropping the unlimited plan we're on over this. If Verizon wants to get less money from me per month because they are unwilling to get this service working for me, that might just be what I have to do. That, or waste my time with an arbitration effort because they are engaging in false advertising by claiming I can get a service on a Verizon phone, bought from an authorized Verizon retailer, activated on a valid Verizon plan, that I am unable to get.

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Re: Apple Music - Device not compatible error
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

Have you tried deleting the application, then re-installing it? EstevanC_VZW

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Re: Apple Music - Device not compatible error
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

We want nothing more than for this to work for you, JasonKarol. As this is a public forum, in order for us to assist further we will need access to your account. To do this, you will need to reply back to our Private Note. You can access this through your community login. If you prefer a different option for reaching out to us for support, you can find those options here: https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/contact-us/ We will be standing by.

 

ChristopherM_VZW

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Re: Apple Music - Device not compatible error
JasonKarol
Enthusiast - Level 3

Yes, multiple times. It makes no difference. On the VW website itself, if I go to Add-Ons in my account area, it refuses to recognize my wife's phone at all (no picture or model name shown), and continues to not even allow me to try and activate Apple Music on the VW website because it thinks it's an "incompatible device". IT IS NOT. It is the same model phone as mine, on the same family plan, bought on the same day, just at Best Buy. Identical model internally with a different color bezel.

Now I have VZW_Customer_Support people trying to tell me to call Apple and discuss it with them. I was not aware that Apple ran the Verizon Wireless website, and that Apple was in control of the page in the VZW website where you can select Add-Ons to your account plan, such as Youtube TV, Disney+, and Apple Music.

It's just incredible to me that no one at VZW has any solution to this. I was able to add Disney+ (also offered as a promotion from VZW) last year in a matter of minutes, but Apple Music has been a fight now for months and months. I'm not the only person who has had this happen, as this very own thread can attest.

This should be incredibly simple to diagnose: Why isn't an identical model of phone being recognized properly in VZW's records? The online billing clearly shows the right amount of money being billed for the phone on the installment plan, and the SIM chip clearly works in the phone, so it seems particularly likely that this is a configuration issue in the account information somewhere that isn't identifying her phone correctly. This isn't a problem with the Apple Music app itself, which I should note is working fine on her phone, and in fact, takes me DIRECTLY to the VZW website in order to activate this offer, at which point it fails to work because the VZW website thinks her phone on the account is not compatible. The VZW "My Verizon" app also does not work to activate this offer when run on her phone, likely for the same underlying reason: because it's on VZW's side.

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Re: Apple Music - Device not compatible error
JasonKarol
Enthusiast - Level 3

I wanted to further add some supporting images to document this for the future, to help illustrate what I believe to be the source of the problem. Despite some VZW support people wanting to tell me this is an Apple issue, I believe it is not because all of the problems seem to stem from the Verizon side. (I've redacted personally identifiable information from all of these images.)

Item #1: Notice how in this image which comes directly from the "My Plans" page, there are stock images for both my phone (left) and my wife's phone (right). In fact, notice the stock images are slightly different, and I believe the one shown for my wife is the one for her "model" (recall, same as mine but in Prism blue). Curious item, but probably not relevant: my name appears here for both phones.

Picture #1 

Item #2: This comes from the "Add-Ons" page of Verizon's website. Notice how my phone is listed as compatible for Apple Music, but my wife's phone is listed as not compatible. Curious item: my wife's name appears here for her phone, where it didn't above.

Picture #2 

Item #3: This is the "Devices" page for my account. Notice how my wife's phone's stock image is now missing on this page. This is the first sign of something amiss in the account records:

Picture #3 

Item #4: This is the "Manage Device" page for my phone. I have the displayed stock phone image, and the model information is shown here. I've redacted the full Device ID and IMEI, but they both list on this page.

Picture #4 

Item #5: This is the "Manage Device" page for my wife's phone. Again, notice the lack of a stock phone image, and the model information is conspicuously absent. Although I've redacted the full Device ID and IMEI again, they do appear on the page on the site.

Picture #5 

My final interesting element. If I go to Verizon's BYOD page, where you can check to see if your phone is "compatible with the Verizon network" by entering your IMEI into the site, and I enter the IMEI for my wife's phone, I get the following result. Notice that not only does it correctly identify her phone as the correct Galaxy S10+ Prism w/ 128GB model, but it shows the stock image, and moreso, it is the same stock image shown on the "My Plans" page in the very first image. (This is why I think that page is recognizing the phone correctly.)

Picture #6 

It's my belief that some pages of the Verizon website likely use different databases for their information. The "My Plans" page likely (obviously) references your actual phone plan account data, which likely has entries that reference your model of phone. In this case, I think my wife's phone is there correctly.

Other pages, such as the "Add-Ons" section and the "Devices" section likely use a different database of values, perhaps those recording SIMs, activations, or other data. In that database, I think my wife's model information is missing, and this explains why those sections are not recognizing her phone, and therefore of course not allowing her phone to activate the Apple Music offer. As a developer, I'd expect that; if you cannot verify the phone is compatible, you wouldn't offer the option. Further, the IMEI page likely accesses an externally available master database of known device IMEIs and naturally her IMEI is in that database and recognized correctly.

I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to request that someone with the technical knowledge look into the disparities I've documented here and determine the issue. I believe once this mismatch of information is resolved, this will fix the Apple Music activation issues completely. I also believe this is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that this is not an Apple issue, despite what some are trying to tell me.

Thank you.

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