Google Music Limits Device Deauthorization

We may earn a commission for purchases made using our links.

For those who use Google Play Music often, you probably already know about the eventual need to deauthorize devices on your Google account when it fills up. This is especially true for the flashaholics out there who flash a ROM every other day and have to go into Google Music twice a month to get rid of the older “devices.” That’s problematic for a couple of reasons—namely because your Google Music is authorizing the same device over and over, and calling it a new device. And more importantly, because Google has now limited the number of times you can deauthorize devices.

XDA Senior Member Amphibliam posted a thread to alert users of the change, which has apparently been rolled out over the last 60 days. While the first few comments weren’t very affirming, reports began to roll in of the telltale banner stating that a particular user has deauthorized too many devices.

This has serious implications. First and foremost, flashaholics are gonna have to quit flashing things cold turkey to avoid hitting the 10 device limit because once that limit is reached, you can’t deauthorize your devices to add more. There have been some reports that you can email Google support and they’ll deauthorize the older devices for you; but if it’s true, it’s hardly convenient. Currently, there are only two ways around this new rule—either create a new account and re-upload your music to the servers or restore a Nandroid backup from a ROM that was working before. Using Titanium Backup (or any other app-specific backup) has been shown to not work, unfortunately.

With all the talk of Motorola further locking down devices, users and developers alike were hoping that Google would have an influence over Motorola’s decision to unlock the bootloaders. However, with Google locking up Google Music against flashers and root users, it seems as though Google is taking a page out of Motorola’s book. It’s a slippery slope from here. Let’s hope Google either undoes this decision or stops while they’re ahead.

To learn more, head on over to the original thread.