Update 10:02am CT, Sept. 12: According to a Meta spokesperson, the company was “aware that some people [were] having issues with music in Instagram Reels. The issue has been fixed.”
The company also apologized for any inconvenience.
The original article appears below.
If you’ve been on Instagram over the past week or so, it’s a much quieter place. That’s not because hordes of people are leaving after it pivoted to being a TikTok clone, but rather because its Reels seem to be beset by an apparent bug that notes “This song is currently unavailable” on a great number of posts.
Swipe through your stories, head to someone’s page, or search on the site, and you’ll be met with silence and a pop-up telling you you can’t hear what’s supposed to be served up.
The problem is rampant enough that Twitter is flooded with complaints.
Head over to Reddit, and you’ll see the same angry concerns. While Instagram often loses the rights to songs after a while, and older Reels may not have music, this problem appears to be happening with songs that are available to use, as it is new Instagram Reels that are not playing audio.
It definitely appears to have cropped up recently, with many of the complaints on Twitter beginning around Sept. 1.
It’s unclear if it’s a bug, glitch, licensing issue, or something else. Meta, which owns Instagram, did not respond to a request for comment. We will update this piece if we hear back.
