Change or Merge Play Counts

Does anyone know how to merge or change the playcounts in iTunes 7.3.1.3? I have duplicate songs which I would like to delete but I want the play count from the deleted song to be moved/added to the remaining song

I don't know any way to merge play counts automatically, but you can increase the play count of a song pretty easily. Play it, jump to the last few seconds of the song, then let it end. This will update your play count. Repeat as many times as necessary until the count equals the total number of plays between the two copies. Then delete one of the copies. A little laborious, but it'll get the job done.

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Manually changing dates or play counts?

Situation: I have iTunes automatically compress my songs to 128kbps when copying them to my Shuffle. I've also been manually compressing podcasts to 32kbps mono, effectively tripling the number of 'casts I can carry.
Problem: My manually re-ripped 'casts don't keep the same metadata (dates, play counts) as the originals, which tends to screw up my so-called "smart" playlists.
Question 1: How can I configure iTunes to automatically degrade podcasts to a lower bitrate than songs upon transfer to an iPod?
Question 2: Assuming the answer to Q1 is "you can't", then how can I sync the original metadata with the new rips (increase the play count, change the date added, date last played, etc.)?

I ended up having to write an AppleScript to get the play count and last played date to increment manually. I'm using it from the script menu until I can get a keyboard shortcut to work.
I'll probably also have to resort to scripting to get full metadata duplicates. That one won't be so easy. Any ideas?
Here's the source code for incrementing play count and last played date, if anyone's interested...
Increment Play Count
Tells iTunes a selection of songs was played on an iPod by incrementing the play count and setting the last played to the current date.
Intended to be run from a keyboard shortcut, no other UI.
tell application "iTunes"
if selection is not {} then
set s to selection
set d to (get current date)
repeat with t in s
set t to contents of t
if class of t is file track then
tell t
set played date to d
set played count to (get played count) + 1
end tell
end if
end repeat
end if
end tell
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Merge play counts between work and home?

Hi all,
I use iTunes at work with a moderately substantial library, mostly made up of songs I haven't listened to much at home which I can stick on an SD card and take in. I also use it here but with a library that is about 4x as big.
Basically I'm wondering if I can constructively merge or sync the two playcounts? I want to be able to export a list of what happened at work - probably the library in text format - and fold that in to my home iTunes, without destroying my bigger playcounts but just adding to them as if I was using an iPod. Is this possible?
If it's not, is there a 3rd party tool, script, or plugin that I can use to compare two libraries and merge playcounts constructively (adding two two together?) NB no mac so no applescript.
Thanks in advance - I've been scratching my head for weeks trying to work this one out.
-forwar direktion:

There are programs such as Sync-O-Tunes that can be used to keep two libraries in sync, but I do not think that they merge playcounts.
As you seem to be aware, the thing you want to do would most naturally be accomplished by using your iPod at work. Assuming you will manage your library at home, and be in "listen only" mode at work, that would be easiest. If you need to, equip your office with a set of desktop speakers having an iPod connection.

Itunes 11 change play counts numbers

Is there any way to change play counts or merge two songs play counts when you find out you have the same song twice in your librairie? By the way I subscribed to iTunes match... if this may change something...

I don't know any way to merge play counts automatically, but you can increase the play count of a song pretty easily. Play it, jump to the last few seconds of the song, then let it end. This will update your play count. Repeat as many times as necessary until the count equals the total number of plays between the two copies. Then delete one of the copies. A little laborious, but it'll get the job done.

Just updated my ITunes, Plays fine, but play count and date played do not change. What is going on?

Updated I Tunes 11.0 and all plays well, just the last date played never changes and the play count remains the same no matter how many times I play the song. Not really sure where to go with this.

Hi Liz,
Sorry to hear you are having a similar problem. Last night I went to the tool bar at the top of iphoto, clicked on "File", then clicked "Browse Backups" in the drop down menu.    I have an external hard drive that is set up to Time Machine.   The Browse Backups opened the iphoto pages in the Time Machine. I selected a date one day ahead of the day I performed the now infamous update, and it showed my iphoto library as it had existed that day.   I then clicked "Restore Library" at the bottom right corner of the Time Machine screen.   Roughly 2 hours later my iphoto was back to normal.   When I opened iphoto there was a message saying I need to upgrade my program to be compatible with the new version of iphoto(version 9.2.1). I clicked "Upgrade" and within seconds it had done whatever upgrading it needed to do.
The only glitch in the restoration was that it restored the library as it appeared last week, so I no longer had photos I had imported this past weekend.   I simply went back to the Browse Backups in the drop down menu, when Time Machine opened I selected the page showing my pictures from this weekend and again said to Restore Library.   Roughly 45 minutes later the library was restored including the most recent photos.
I am now a happy camper.
I don't know if any of this will be of help to you because your email says you are having trouble with photos imported after the upgrade was performed.   Have you had any pop up notices when you first open iphoto, that tell you you need an upgrade to be compatible with the new iphoto?     If so have you clicked "upgrade"?
Good luck Liz, if you have Time Machine running as a back up to your library, maybe you wil be able to get help there, by following my instructions above.   Otherwise,   good luck with your investigations.   I'd be interested in hearing how you make out.
Karen

Can you change the way iTunes counts plays?

Ok, so iTunes counts plays by every time you listen to an entire song. In other words, you have to listen to the entire track for it to count as one play. However, the iPod counts plays by how many times you listen to a track regardless of whether you finish it or listen to the first ten seconds. Is there a way I can make iTunes count plays the way my iPod does?

Are you manually managing your music and using lastfm scrobbling?
You can get scrobbling to "count" a song before the end, but with itunes, the last second has to be played before the counter increments, like ed2345 posted. And scrobbling with manually managing has a known bug.
Anyway...I just clicked back and forth and played a few seconds of 2 songs about 5 times each, and their play counts are still zero in itunes. What you're seeing isn't normal.

When I sync my iPad with iTunes it does not update the play count? Is there a setting I need to change?

When I sync my iPad with iTunes it does not update my play counts. Is there a way to make this happen?

Are you using iTunes Match by chance? I had no problems whatsoever with play counts synching between any of my devices until I started using iTunes Match. I turned it off and magically my play counts synced. Once. Hasn't happened again though.

Adding wife to Match. What happens to my ratings/play counts?

My wife and I have been using the same Apple ID for iTunes for years, but only I have been on iTunes Match. Lately, our libraries have diverged enough that it's hard to keep track. I thought I'd just set up iTunes Match on her computer and then we could each see the Amazon.com songs we buy, CDs we rip, etc. The big question has been how iTunes Match would handle playlists, ratings, and play counts...
Question 1: I believe I solved the playlist question by creating a playlist folder on each computer with our first name and then dragging our playlists into it. Testing just on my side, iTunes Match correctly uploaded the folder with all my playlists, so I assume adding her Mac would mean we'd have each other's folders and could just keep the folder that applies to us expanded. Is this correct?
Question 2: How will iTM handle ratings and play counts? My wife doesn't tend to spend much time rating (only about 200 songs), but I spend a great deal. Will her "no rating" songs overwrite my "5 star" songs to be "no rating?" The reverse? How will iTM handle a situation where I've rated a song 4 stars and she rated it 2? How will it handle play counts? Additive?
We both know we can't maintain our own metadata sets, so we're fine if they wind up being merged, but it's important to know what happens on the initial sync when her library is added to mind.
Thanks in advance for your time.

1. Yes, this should work well for you.
2. If it is the same song you're rating, then iTM will use the latest rating. When her library is added if there are any dups they will be seen as the most recent. However it should be a simple matter to change the ratings. Once both libraries get added you can see how things work and come to agreement on what works best for you.

I had to install a new hard drive because my old hard drives boot files became corrupted, and i want to get all of my music files off the old hard drive and regain all my play counts/ratings/playlists

Greetings everyone
as the title says, ive had to install a new hard drive and i want to transfer my old itunes library onto the new drive, maintaining all playlists/play counts/ratings etc, album artwork if possible. The old hard drive is installed as a slave drive and is completely acessible, but due to the boot files being corrupted i cannot use it as the main drive and therefore operate my old itunes. Also, my ipod no longer contains my music library as itunes synced without my permission and wiped it.
The only thing i have tried is copying all of my old music files from the old drive by selecting 'add folder to library' and then the old drive, then replacing the new itunes library.itl file with the one from my old itunes. This restores all my playlists and playcounts but when i try to play any of the songs it says that the files could not be found, and i dont fancy locating 8500 music files individually!
Thankyou for taking the time to read my post, any help will be greatly appreciated.

Ah, my reply was based on the assumption that you had a default installation of iTunes.
i.e you had all your music in the iTunes media folder inside your iTunes folder.
If your iTunes folder is so small compared to the amount of music you have, you must have a different arrangement.
This complicates you situation considerably.
iTunes can cope with moving around as long as all the music is in the iTunes media folder, not not if it isn't.
Your first step should be to get iTunes working on the old drive. This will involve editing the xml library file so that the drive letter is correct and then rebuilding the library from the xml file.
Then you will need to consolidate your library which moves everything into the iTunes media fodler. After that you will be able to use my first suggestion.
Step 1
Find the iTunes folder on the old drive and copy the two library files somewhere else so you can find them again. That's iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Library.xml.
Now open the copy of iTunes Library.xml with WordPad.
Look for lines starting:
Location
These contain the paths to tracks.
You will need to use a find/replace to change the drive letter so that it is correct.
Make sure that you include enough in the "find" so that you only change the right thing.
Maybe /c:/ and replace with /d:/ or whatever.
After that, tell iTunes to use the library on the old drive with a shift key start.
Hold down the shift key and start iTunes, keep holding the shift key until you are prompted to choose a library. Navigate to the iTunes folder on the old drive and choose iTunes Library.itl.
Then use the method in the following article to rebuild your library;
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451
Unfortunately the date added will be today for all tracks.
If iTunes works correctly after this, consolidate your library
File>>Library>>Organize>>consolidate
This copies all tracks into to iTunes media folder and could create a problem if you do not have disk space so don't do it if you are unsure about free disk space.
Check that iTunes works OK and then use the first method.
Message was edited by: polydorus

Play count on one song didn't register today?

Hello,
Play counts are very important to me for a few reasons, but today I listed to the same song at least 4 times today at work and when I synched my iPod with iTunes the song said "Last played - 7/5/07" when clearly that isn't the case. I do know that you have have to let the song play all the way through as i've been using an iPod/iTunes for a few years now, but it's this one song that didn't work (at least, I think it's only the one - if I can remember what I played today correctly). So, first thing I did was unplug my iPod, play the song again, and synched it with iTunes - and it worked. So what could have happend today? This happend with my 20GB iPod color I keep in the car - I usually only update the play counts and iPod itself once a month, and the last time I brought it in, I couldn't see anything that played at the times I would have been using it (while driving). Lately that one has been fine though as i've kept an eye on it. I do know that if I play a song at a later date or time on the other iPod it would wipe out the play I would have had in the car (not the number of plays, but the last time).
Any ideas? Suggestions? anything would be appreciated.
Thanks.
I'm using the latest version of iTunes also, if that helps.

Prior to syncing today, is there any chance that you went into iTunes and changed anything about the tag for this song? It would have had to have happend prior to today's sync, but after the sync prior to that.
If you do anything to a song's tag in your iTunes library (like adding artwork, updating artist or album name, add lyrics, etc.) then your iPod will not update the playcount of that song on your next sync to the library.

Got a new Mac, my iTunes is whack, (No Play Count or Date Added)

Hello, everybody. It's been a rough night.
I currently own a G4 iMac and I just got a brand new Macbook. The Macbook is very nice, it's extremely speedy and I am sure I will grow to love it. We've got just one hurdle to get through together: the organization of my music in iTunes. Now, I've had the iMac for five years, and not long after I got it adding music to it became something of an importance, it was my music player. Over the past five years I've not only added thousands of songs, but meticulously and very specifically organized them into playlists based on the number of spins they have and when they were added. To a lot of people I know this sort of thing isn't a huge deal, but for me this organization became, and I kid you not, a huge, huge part of my life.
So I get the new Macbook, fire it up and use Migration Assistant, (with the iMac in Target Disk Mode), to move my data over. When it's done I open the iTunes and am greeted with... nothing. Well, okay, all of my music is there, that's nice, (it's what iTunes is for, etc etc), but NONE of my play count or date added information remains. I weep inside.
Being that this is my first new computer in five years, (a long time!), you might be able to tell that I was hesitant about upgrading. Before getting my Macbook I asked experts at the Apple Store if this method would work, and even received assurance from several people online that everything would be preserved. So, I did my homework, but my Macs and I both apparently failed the test. Here's where we are now:
1. The iMac, (running Tiger), still has iTunes on it, with all the information, nothing seems to have changed on that end.
2. The Macbook has a hard drive full of music with no playlist, play count or date added data.
3. I do own an iPod where I backed up the music before the move. I know that the data information on playlists, play count and date added is on the iPod. I do not dare plug it in to the new machine for fear of the unknown.
Which brings me here, is there some way, any way of rectifying this? Here is what I would like:
1. For the Macbook iTunes to look EXACTLY like the iMac's does.
2. For it to work with both my old iPods without question.
This has been long, and I fear that some may pass it over as something too much of an banality to be needed help with. But like some collect shoes or hats, I collect music. It's a lovely collection and it's a large part of who I am. I could start all over, but that's sort of like saying the world could start over if it by chance happened to forget how to turn. It would take a lot of effort, and there would be some (more) tears, but I could move on. But I really, really don't want to. I just want things to be the way they were. I'd very much like to have this information present, and I thank you all for your time.

ADDED:
Now that I look at it, appears that nothing except for my applications transferred over. My old computer is listed in the Hard Drive, but I can't access any of the folders because I don't have that "level of privileges" or whatever, (odd, considering they're both my computers, do they need to be hooked up for this?). I don't really need for my old applications to be there, (Hello, iWork '06 Demo!), so can I just go and erase them, or am I better just starting all over again?

Is it possible to show play counts in Artists or Album view in iTunes 11?

There are some beautiful new changes to iTunes 11, but also some things I really like have been taken away. One of them is being able to see my playcouts as I browse. Not just in the playlist or songs list view.
Does anyone know if there is any way to show play counts in Artists or Album view in iTunes 11?

Post Author: kcornett
CA Forum: General
typo... sorry
I have 3 product codes that I want to report on - Mold, Repair, and Production. For Mold and Repair, I want to print out only the top 1 job for each order. For Production, I want to print all jobs. I have GH1 to group by ProdCode. GH2 groups by Orders. Detail A section has a formula to suppress if ProdCode = Production. Detail B suppresses if ProdCode is not Production. I can get the suppresion to work but I don't know how to get the Top 1 to show when Detail A is shown.
Obviously I'm new at Crystal Reports - about 3 weeks.
Thanks for your help...
Keith
ps: what are the Tags for when posting?

Sync play count, last played, and rating with iOS 5

From other threads (https://discussions.apple.com/message/16563011#16563011 and https://discussions.apple.com/message/16505730#16505730 for example) it is clear that there are some problems with play count, last played, and rating information updating and syncing under iOS 5. I have at least a partial solution. I am posting it here instead of under one of the existing threads because 1) some discussions seem to be confusing the difference between updating the iOS 5 device data and syncing the updated data to the computer, and 2) some of the discussions are focused iPhone, and though the problem appears similar I only have an iPod touch to test the solution on.
First of all, this is not a new problem. Prior to iOS 5, I would plug my iPod Touch into the computer and not see any play count or last played data for songs I knew I had just listened to. I discovered that if I clicked (in my computer's iTunes display of the iPod) on one song that I had recently listened to, it would suddenly display play count and last played for all the songs played since the last update. I could then transfer this playlist data (more on this in a minute) to the corresponding songs on the computer. Under iOS 5, this no longer works, and in fact causes the new play count and last played data on the iPod to be lost. However, under iOS 5 there is a way to get this information to update, even though you don't see it when you first connect to the computer.
To make this work, you have your iPod set on Manually manage music and videos under the Summary tab of the iPod settings in iTunes. I have messed around with this for hours, including several restores and resets of my iPod touch, and have found no way to get this to work under various Sync Music options. I have been using the Manually manage mode for years because I use my iPod with numerous different iTunes Libraries on several different external hard drives.
Here's the trick: Manually manage must be in effect before you connect the iPod to the computer. After your iPod shows up in the iTunes interface on your computer, in the main view (where it shows the different tabs at the top and capacity at the bottom) there is a Sync button at the very bottom right. Click on this and wait for it to go through the Sync steps (don't worry, you're not losing anything), and, voila, when you go to the songs (on the iPod) you have listened to since the last time you connected to the computer, the play count and last played data will be there.
Unfortunately, it's not a simple matter to get this data synced to the computer, but it can be done. At first I thought that once I got the data to show up on the iPod I could go to the Music tab and Sync Music to get the playlist data to the computer, but this does not work. It will sync the play count and last played data that are on the computer to the iPod, overriding the newer data. The way I have been getting my playlist data from my iPod to my computer without ever changing the Manually manage setting is by using the Copy Tag Info Tracks To Tracks script from Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes <http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=copytinforackstotracks>. This isn't hard to download or install or use and copies playlist information very quickly.
I have never had a problem with play count or last played on my 2nd generation nano, which still works beautifully. As far as I can tell, play count and last played have never worked well on the iPod touch; there are threads in discussions complaining about this from years ago. It would be nice if Apple would recognize that these are extremely important features to many users and make it a priority to make these basics work before (or while) adding a lot of other fancy features.

Just for posterity in case anyone else ever has a similar problem.
I found out I can work around my problem, but I have limitations. The only time it'll update the correct songs is after I restore it and then add the initial songs on to the Shuffle. The key is to not ever have a situation where I reshuffle the order of those songs. If I ever shuffle to better alphebatize or categorize things, the sync updating screws everything up. If say Song #3 on my Shuffle's playlist after the intitial transfer gets moved around to being anything other than the third song played, my Shuffle/iTunes will still think that song has been played although the Song #3 I actually listened to after the sync update will be different. Now I have to carefully compose and place what songs I want loaded on since I can't mess around with the playlist setup at all.
I know Apple support would likely blame my Shuffle for the problem (it's over 6 years old now). But it's funny how this only happened right after I installed 11.0. The update to 11.0.2 did nothing.

My iTunes doesn't keep track of my listening history anymore. It doesn't update play counts and default "Recently Played" playlist.

My iTunes doesn't keep track of my listening history anymore. It doesn't update play counts and default "Recently Played" playlist. But it still tracking plays from my iPhone and syncing them.
I've tried to repair it with setup file. Nothing's changed.
Can you help me with that?
NOTE: Now I tried disabling the crossfade feature and it worked, started to count again. But I like crossfade, I don't want to keep it off.

I think I got this figured out. The playcount does update, but not how the previous iPod models update their playcount. Instead of immediately updating the playcount right after you finish the song like the older iPod models, iPod Touch keeps the updates in memory. The next time you connect to iTunes it'll sync those playcounts in memory to the actual songs itself, effectively updating the playcount of the songs only after connecting to iTunes. I have set my syncing manually. That's why after connecting to iTunes, my playcounts are updated. BUT it doesn't solve the mystery of my Smart Playlist. Even though in iTunes, the correct songs are listed, in the iPod Touch, it shows the old playlist.
Don't you just hate that? It was working fine before on non-iPod touch models. Now we have to live with this new bug. I just hope when they release software 2.0 it fixes these bugs and that they *give it for free!* People shouldn't be charged on something they should have gotten as a support!

Can I get my music collection (play counts and playlists inc.) from my iPad to my PC?

I had a problem with iTunes where I couldn't add songs to the library because I didn't have sufficient permissions to edit my iTunes library (even though I did). After a few days of tweaking administrator permissions and the like, I got really annoyed and tried re-installing iTunes to see if it would make it go away. Whilst the iTunes64Setup.exe file was downloading, I was fiddling with the .itl and .xml files in my iTunes folder and when I re-installed iTunes I had lost all my play counts and playlists. When iTunes opened, I assumed it must have overwritten the two files because when I looked at them in Windows Explorer they were both a lot smaller in size.
Obviously, I didn't sync my iPad or iPhone after this had happened, so I still have the playlists and play counts stored on them. Is there any way I can:
a) Recover a previous version of the .xml and .itl files on my laptop and use them to restore my plays?
or
b) Use iTunes Match to restore them onto my laptop?
I'm not sure about b). When you subscribe to Match, does it analyze your current library and then save it to the Cloud so you can redownload it?
I'm going to buy the new iPhone when it is released in the next couple of months so I'm willing to jailbreak my iPhone 4 if need be.
Thanks for any help.

Empty/corrupt library after upgrade/crash
Hopefully it's not been too long since you last upgraded iTunes, in fact if you get an empty/incomplete library immediately after upgrading then with the following steps you shouldn't lose a thing or need to do any further housekeeping. In the Previous iTunes Libraries folder should be a number of dated iTunes Library files. Take the most recent of these and copy it into the iTunes folder. Rename iTunes Library.itl as iTunes Library (Corrupt).itl and then rename the restored file as iTunes Library.itl. Start iTunes. Should all be good, bar any recent additions to or deletions from your library.
See iTunes Folder Watch for a tool to catch up with any changes since the backup file was created.
When you get it all working make a backup!
Or see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

Change or Merge Play Counts

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