Apple Music - Device not compatible error

[JasonKarol]

My wife and I both have Samsung Galaxy S10+ devices. Mine is a black model, purchased at Sam's Club and performed as an upgrade there to my old Galaxy S7 Edge device. My wife's is also a Samsung Galaxy S10+ device, in blue, but purchased at Best Buy and oriented as an upgrade there to her old Galaxy S7 Edge. (We always get identical model phones when we upgrade, but this time blue was out of stock at Sam's Club so her phone was done at a different store.)

We are both on the same unlimited plan for our two lines, and both plans are supposed to come with free Apple Music. When I use my phone to go in to the My Verizon app, or I log in to the Verizon website on my computer at home, my device shows as able to enroll, but my wife's phone shows in both places as "This phone is not compatible" and I cannot enroll her in Apple Music.

I'm baffled how identical model phones (except for color and the store that sold them to me) are showing as differently compatible. There's absolutely no way that her S10+ isn't compatible, but I cannot get any method to give me an enroll option for her line. Even our previous phones were the same model (and even same color), and those were purchased and upgraded at the same store (Best Buy at that time).

I've read suggestions that say I should just put her SIM card in my physical device and that may work, but I'm unsure if that would cause issues with my enrolling afterwards for my phone, plus I'm a little leery about doing a swap like that with the SIM.

Is there any other option to try and get the Verizon system to understand her phone is compatible?

[vzw_customer_support]

We certainly want to see you both rock out with the free Apple Music option! When you access your My Verizon account through the app or nline at http://www.vzw.com/myverizon does the system recognize the phone model on your wifes line and show the picture of the device?  YaleK_VZW

[JasonKarol]

Yes and no. When I use the "My Verizon" app on my phone, and access "Devices" under that app, my wife's phone image appears with no issues. If I navigate to her phone, it lists the SIM #, the IMEI#, and states the Device Model as "SAM GALAXY S10 PLUS BLUE 128GB". If I use the app to go to add on Apple Music, it lists the same description for the model as well right above saying "Decide is not compatible."

If I go to the Verizon Wireless web page, though, and navigate to the Devices there, my wife's phone image is NOT showing up. If I navigate to her phone online, it shows nothing for the Device Model, shows a Device ID entry (which matches the SIM #) and a IMEI entry (which matches the app), but that's it. Going to the Plan section to add Apple Music again shows her device as not compatible.

[vzw_customer_support]

JasonKarol, thank you for these details. We definitely want your wife to enjoy Apple Music. Typically, when the device image is not showing up, this could be that the device is not a Verizon Wireless branded device (unlocked version). This can cause issues with it stating that something is not compatible, even when it is. When you purchased the device from Best Buy for your wife, did you purchase an unlocked version or is it a Verizon Wireless branded phone? AliciaD_VZW

[JasonKarol]

The phone was a Verizon phone, and not an unlocked device, unless Best Buy made a stock error when they activated it for me. The unlocked units were more expensive, and I had gone in to process a device upgrade on her line.  Since her phone was essentially the same price as mine, and mine is detected as compatible, I would have to assume hers is a Verizon phone as well.

[vzw_customer_support]

JasonKarol, Apple Music is an awesome feature to have, and my goal is to make sure both of your phones are able to accept the feature. Let's try something. On your wife's phone go to the Play Store the then search for Apple Music. When you find it, download the app to her phone. Once it has been installed open it up. You will then select the option to enroll through Verizon. If she doesn't have an Apple ID already it will ask you to create one. You will then be enrolled via the Verizon offer. Let me know if this works. 

DiaS_VZW

[srahoosier]

I have the same issue.

My iPhone XS MAX is the primary line on the account, but it shows device is not compatible when I try to activate apple music.

Apple Music has been activated on my second device with no issues (an a separate apple ID).

The apple id is NOT the issue. It's verizon that does not recognize my device.

If I try to activate two-factor authentication, I also get an error message that the device is not eligible.

Both my phones were purchased at a Verizon store and both have SIM cards. I need a way to re-activate my line so that Verizon will recognize that IT IS COMPATIBLE.

How do I get Verizon to recognize my device?

[vzw_customer_support]

Music is a big part of my day and we want to ensure you can take advantage of your Apple Music subscription, srahoosier. Let's take a closer look into what's going on. We're glad to hear both phones were purchased at a Verizon location. Do you by chance know if this was a corporate or authorized location? When you view your device details through your My Verizon account, does your device model show there? 

DanielleR_VZW

[srahoosier]

The Verizon Authorized retailer was: 

TCCCarrollton

2519 Hwy 227Unit B

Carrollton, KY 41008

(502) 732-5343,

I purchased both devices on the same day.

When I view my device details through my My Verizon account, it DOES NOT show the device model or a picture of my phone, but it does show them for the other device.

[srahoosier]

I should also mention that the device was activated straight out of the box at the store.

[vzw_customer_support]

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

[JasonKarol]

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.

[vzw_customer_support]

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

[Note10_user]

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

[JasonKarol]

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.

[vzw_customer_support]

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

[vzw_customer_support]

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

[JasonKarol]

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.

[JasonKarol]

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.

[Salem3671]

I am having the same exact issue with one of our phones, Samsung Galaxy Note 10. Worked, then stopped. Same issue, device not compatible. Have worked with numerous reps, called Apple, now working with corporate trying to get the issue fixed. Did you ever have any such luck in getting it fixed or did you just downgrade the plan?

[jloandi97]

I switched from Sprint to Verizon in late May 2020, porting four lines over.  Two of my lines are enrolled for Apple Music and two have the exact same "device not compatible" message.  I spoke to a Verizon rep for over an hour on June 8th who opened an "IT ticket" because she could not figure it out.  No one called me back, so I spoke to another Verizon rep for several hours on June 21.  After multiple conversations with that rep AND Apple, they were still unsuccessful.  The rep on the 21st opened "AOIS" ticket.  He said he would call me on June 24th with an update, but here we are on July 8th and no one from Verizon has called me back with an update or solution.  I've even texted the rep from the 21st twice and have not so much as gotten an acknowledgment.  

The phones not "compatible" are an iPhone XR and 11 Pro Max.  All of my phones were purchased outright at an Apple Store, and I made sure to load the proper SIM card to each device.  Everything else works.  Very frustrating, HELP!!