Genius Not So Smart?

I've had this problem on both my Mac and iPhone in iTunes. I choose a song to build a genius playlist off of and get this message:
Try Again
This song does not have enough related songs to create a Genius Playlist.
The song was from an album, ("Amazing Grace" from the "Spirit of the Century" album by the Blind Boys from Alabama). You'd think it would at least pick other songs from the album, or the other version of "Amazing Grace" I have by Judy Collins.
Yet when I pick another song it builds a list of songs that have nothing to do with each other, for example, I picked "Bird On The Wire" by The Lilac Time on the "I'm Your Fan" album. It gave me Suff by the Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Traveling Wilburys, The Beatles, Neil Young, Dire Straits, The Doors, and more. I didn't see any connection.
The song I picked was a Leonard Cohen cover. I've got other albums of his music by him and other covers of his music. It does not seem like it picked music related to the performing group or the composer.
Where does iTunes get its data for making connections between songs? Does it look at what I have played or does it look at what other people have played, or does it look at its own database of what performers played on various recordings?

I've noticed the same....

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Genius not working with some songs

why does genius not work with some of my songs?

For songs which the genius can't come up with a play list it seems the artist is either too small, too new, or the metadata doesn't match. For example, I had "Cardigans - Love fool" selected and I noticed iTunes had it in my "Songs your missing". I changed it to "The Cardigans - Lovefool", and then selected "Update Genius". After this iTunes removed it from the "Songs your missing", and was able to create a playlist.
The problem is I don't know how many songs iTunes can't figure out. I wish I could create a smart playlist of all the songs which the genius couldn't figure out. The problem isn't so much that I can't get a playlist from a song I selected, but I know if the genius skips a song, then it won't include it with other recommendations. While the genius feature is great, I'd hate to find out in six months that it's been ignoring 75% of my library.
In order to get some of my indy music to play with the genius playlist, I create a smart playlist which includes a genius playlist, and then a list of artists which it can also choose from.
While it's great that the genius can figure out information from the cloud, it could spend more time looking at patterns within your own library. If I create a playlist of New Jersey rock bands, it should be able to figure out that my indy artists are related to the mainstream artists in the same playlist.
The good thing about the Genius is it understands that people listen to multiple genres. I like to listen to classical when I'm studying, and folk music when I'm surfing the web. Last.fm will create a recommended playlist of half classical and half folk. The genius doesn't look at your whole library and come up with something that tries to match all your tastes. As a result of it using genres to cluster music, it doesn't mix holiday music in with your playlists like other recommendation services do.

After upgrade to iOS8 on my iPhone5, I do not see smart keyboard options while typing message or email text

after upgrade to iOS8 on my iPhone5, I do not see smart keyboard options while typing message or email text

Go to Settings>General>Keyboards>Predictive Text>ON. If it is on, you can toggle it off and then back on. The other method is to check in the typing area of the Messages app and it could be minimized. You would see a small line in the center just below the typing area. You would just need to put your finger on that small line and swipe upwards. But either should bring it back.

Smart Album not so smart?

Hi. A few months ago I upgraded from iPhoto to aperture. It's all rather confusing but I've been willing to overlook it because of the usefulness of aperture as an advanced photo editor.
Now however all sorts of weird things are showing up. The Smart albums in particular are bizarre. Even the ones that come pre-made in Aperture. In particular the “in the last month” and "in the last week" etc. contain images from all over the map, as it were. Yes, there are images from in the last month, week or what have you—but there are also random images from all sorts of other time frames, projects, albums and folders.
This is particularly annoying because it also seems to have messed up the way photos are synced with my iPhone which (much to my surprise) is one of my favorite things to do on the iPhone: display my photos. Albums on the iPhone contain images often repeated 75 times or other such bizarre problems.
I assume something is corrupt somewhere but I don't know how to “reboot” my libraries without losing precious information.
Can anyone tell me what is wrong with my smart albums and what is wrong with the syncing.
Many thanks…

As a new Aperture user myself, I had a similar issue. Maybe it's related to yours.
Smart Albums have many options to choose from, and I was a bit confused at the beginning. While setting the Smart Album, you need to be sure you're marking the options you really want/need, and nothing else. For example, my "In the last month" Smart Album showed only one photo, and that wasn't correct.
But the reason was simple: I had written some text in the Search/Filter field (upper right), and obviously that was filtering the not-so-smart results in my folder.
Hope that helps.
JJ

HT4366 my sony bravia HDTV is not a smart tv. I want to add an apple tv to my cable box and HDTV. I understand to connect the HDM1 cable from the TV to the back of the apple tv devise but what cables do I use to reconnect back tho the comcast cable box?

My Sony Bravia HDTV is not a smart TV. How do I setup connection between the Apple TV, Comcast HD box and the Sony. I believe the HDM1 cable goes from the Sony to the back of the Apple TV, but what cables connect the Sony back to the Comcast box?

Welcome to the Apple community.
The HDMI cable goes from the Apple TV to the TV.

Smart Groups not so "smart".

I have noticed that within Smart Groups I can not Edit Distribution List email addresses. After I change, they do not stick. Editing Distribution List works on regular Groups no problem.
Anyone have this issue or answer?
Also isn't it funny the Smart Groups do not sync to MobileMe or iPhone, once again not so "smart".
Any suggestions?

I'm not sure what you mean about editing distribution list addresses, but what you need to understand is that Smart Mailboxes are not actually mailboxes. Think of them more like saved searches - they remember what you're searching for and do a new search for those items when you view them. This is why they don't behave like regular mailboxes in many ways.

SMART Not So SMART?

Some weeks ago my PowerBook hard disk showed some bad sectors. Trying to repair it with Disk Warrior, TechTools and Disk Utility all had mixed results. THEN Disk Utility reported that SMART had reported a Fatal failure. After that none of the utilities could repair the disk. I could not even format it anymore in Disk Utility. Disk Warrior had nothing to repair. I was ready to go buy a new hard disk (read separate thread on using 160GB internal to replace 80GB original).
But, before spending almost $400-500 I was able to force mounth the disk, and use one of the utilities to write zeros in all the blank space. That worked. THEN I reformatted the drive and used Erase space with Zeroes option (hoping to remove/lock out bad sectors). THEN I cloned data back and have been using the machine since then and SMART reports the disk is Verified and Healthy.
So, I am not sure if I am just pushing my luck (though backing up my data every 24 hours) or if SMART is just not that SMART and can report FATAL failures while the disk may be fine....
Opinions, experiences? Let me know... Will report if it actually fails.
Imran

Imran--
c- TechTool Pro DOES show bad blocks in a surface
scan, but I believe that utility shows what is on the
physical drive, and not what the OS makes available
for use. In other words, TechTools will probably
always tell that Bad Blocks Exist.
Actually, from reading around, and from experience, I think this is not such a good sign. On the PowerBook I had, once I reformatted and wrote zeros, neither TechTool Pro nor smartmontools showed any bad blocks any more. smartmontools just showed the previously re-allocated sectors in its report. So I think that the fact that TechTool Pro still shows bad blocks is a sign it's still shedding magnetic media.
The reallocated sector information is actually stored in the drive's firmware, so any attempt to read or write to the bad sector just sends the drive's head to the spare sector. So, if it was able to remap all the bad sectors, a surface scan shouldn't show any bad blocks.
d- I slowly started moving my data back to the
PowerBook and am backing up everything, everyday. So
far, no problems, except the dreaded nightmare of mds
spotlight process having taken over the machine for
24 HOURS. Even looking for a specific file by
specific name in Finder that I typed in 4 HOURS ago
is still spinning. I HATE MDS and I hope the creator
of the obnoxious behavior of mds/spotlight suffers
pain of some sort or the other... curses on them...
note to self, buy voodoo dolls and pins.
Ah, but if your drive isn't healthy, then that could explain the Spotlight problem. My PowerBook doesn't stall out and get taken over by Spotlight's indexing. I don't remember it taking more than an hour or so to index my drive. I frankly never notice it except when I attach an external FireWire drive that's never been attached before.
f- I am comfortable compiling stuff, though never had
the opportunity to do that on Mac OS X.
Well, if you have Xcode installed, if I remember correctly, it's just the usual download the source, unpack the archive, then ./configure, and make steps. I don't remember anything unusual about it, anyway.
SHOULD have bought 10000 Apple shares at
$7 back then
Heh, heh, yep. I remember saying almost exactly the same thing.
h- I would love to try to compile this smartmontools
app, but would it give me any more info/utility than
I already see in TechTools?
I don't remember what TechTool shows, but this page has an example report (with a drive failing because of a reallocated sector count).
charlie

Captivate 7 Master Slide Placeholders - need to not be Smart Objects

Hi,
We are trying to use the Print output for our storyboards so that editors can proof and edit all text captions in the course. The output templates do not recognize smart objects and it seems that the only placeholders that work for titles and subtitles are smart objects.
Does anyone have a suggestion or work around?
Thanks
Kris

Hello Sreekanth,
That would be great if only the Handouts would actually output the slide images. They don't for and none of the suggestions in the forums to get the conversion in Word to work correctly has helped.
We need the slide images, notes (or closed caption since handouts don't work for us), and all text captions. Would be great if we go the smart objects to display with handouts but we must have the slide images and Word 2010 with Captivate 7 on a Windows 7 64-bit computer does not output the slide images in handouts. It does output the slide images with the Storyboard template so we have been trying to use the Storyboard template and add the tags for CC and text captions.
Any other suggestions?
Thanks
Kris

I have 111 files to send. Why only 50 files. You are not very smart to do it this way.

I have 111 files to send Why only 50 files. You are not very smart to do it this way.

Hi,
If you want to send more than 50 files, you can zip them up into a single file and send them that way. (Note that zip files aren't previewable by the recipient. They need to be downloaded.)
You might want to check the thread: Re: Is there any way around the limit of 50 files in Adobe Send?
The feedback has been sent to the engineering team to consider.
Regards,
Rave

HT204380 How can I make my iphone4 call my contact's email on her ipad and not her phone (which is not a smart phone) when both info is in my contact list

When I use my iphone4 to call a contact on her mini ipad it seems to use her phone number from my contact list and this is not a smart phone or in use where she is. How can I make my phone use the e-mail address to call her on her wifi connection.

pdroth wrote:
You're off base... I know what this problem is, and I provided the workaround for her.
Then why was the OP able to make the facetime calls before, with both items in a single contact then (if I am reading his posts correctly)? I know I do not have to separate my contacts like that, and I do facetime with a couple of relatives with wifi only iPads (usually from my own iPad 4 or MBP, but I've done it once or twice from my iPhone 5 - all of which use the exact same contact entries).
Is this a quirk specific to an iPhone 4?

Genius is not so smart

No music released after May of 2010 can create a genius playlist - why? The galling part is today I'm watching a commercial and it shows a genius recommendation in the iTunes store from Brandon Flowers last album and it recommends Arcade Fire's last album - neither of which can generate a genius playlist.
So if it helps them sell product - it's updated in a timely fashion - if it helps you with music you already own - forget it.
Message was edited by: Spencer Lewis

Not to be rude, but does anyone actually bother to read about new versions of software before they upgrade. I have no need for Genius, but I understand the concept behind how it works. Genius is built on a learning algorithm and is therefore expected to improve over time. As [Macworld reported|http://www.macworld.com/article/135451/2008/09/itunes8.html?t=229] the day iTunes 8 was released,
Jobs said that the more people submit their information to Genius, the smarter the processing will get.
Genius is not supposed to be perfect at this point because it is operating on limited information. As more people use the feature, it should be able to better assess what constitutes a good suggestion not just based on similar purchases but also based on an individual user’s listening tastes and habits using information from the usage tags (e.g., last played, play count, skip count, ratings, etc.) that iTunes updates as you use the software.

Apple genius not helpful, maybe posters will answer my questions

I recently went to my local Apple Store to talk to a 'Genius' about my 80gb ipod classic that will not sync more than 200 songs before freezing. My 'Genius' asked if I had a Mac or PC at home and I said PC and without missing a beat he smugly suggested that my PC might have a 'bad driver' that corrupted either the software or hard drive of my ipod. He promptly told me that I can either buy an refurbished ipod of the same model for a discounted price or buy another, newer model with 10% off with the trade-in of my corrupted ipod then sent me off angry that I just wasted almost an hour waiting after my appointment time.
My question is in three parts. If you only want to answer one that is fine.
A.) If it was a bad driver that caused the corruption on the ipod, how can I avoid this issue in the future if I chose to purchase another Apple brand Mp3 player? Just by keeping up with driver updates and avoiding sites that might contain malware?
B.) The ipod started acting up on my last pc, which I dropped on a brick floor pretty hard and went on questionable sites on. But I've since gotten a newer model laptop pc with tons of space and the ipod is still acting the same way. There is no corrupted warning when I plug it in, it just will not sync all of my library and after syncing a couple gigs the screen changes from the 'syncing' screen to the 'connected' screen and itunes freezes. Then I cannot eject the ipod through itunes or even through the windows 'safely remove' feature. This is on the new laptop. What does this mean??! Corrupted software or hard drive??
C.) Has anyone had a positive experience with an Apple genius? My experience was very horrible and the genius was a jerk. Is this common?

From your description my first concern would be for the health of the iPod's hard drive. <hr>
*iPod Diagnostics*
Take your iPod and place your right thumb on the centre SELECT button and your left on the top MENU button. Press down both thumbs for about 6 seconds until your iPod reboots. Immediately move your left thumb around to the rewind button |<< on the left and hold this down together with SELECT for a further 6 seconds. Your iPod should now switch into Diagnostic Boot mode. Press MENU for *Manual Test*, then select *IO > HardDrive > HDSMARTData* to reveal your stats. For comparison here are mine for my 2 year old 6th Generation Classic:
Retracts: 889
Reallocs: 12
Pending Sectors: 0
PowerOn Hours: 2202
Start/Stops: 894
Temp: Current 24c
Temp: Min 10c
Temp: Max 50c
Take a note of your results. When finished press *SELECT & MENU* for 6 seconds to reset the iPod again.
With modern disc drives sectors are no longer marked bad by a disc scan, if the SMART firmware detects a sector it has trouble accessing it will attempt to invisibly reallocate it to a spare area of the disc.
Note that I've only 12 remapped sectors and none pending. To help explain what the numbers mean here is an extract from the Wikipedia S.M.A.R.T. article:
*Reallocated Sectors Count*
Count of reallocated sectors. When the hard drive finds a read/write/verification error, it marks this sector as "reallocated" and transfers data to a special reserved area (spare area). This process is also known as remapping, and "reallocated" sectors are called remaps. This is why, on modern hard disks, "bad blocks" cannot be found while testing the surface – all bad blocks are hidden in reallocated sectors. However, as the number of reallocated sectors increases, the read/write speed tends to decrease. The raw value normally represents a count of the number of bad sectors that have been found and remapped. Thus, the higher the attribute value, the more sectors the drive has had to reallocate.
*Pending sector count*
Number of "unstable" sectors (waiting to be remapped, because of read errors). If an unstable sector is subsequently written or read successfully, this value is decreased and the sector is not remapped. Read errors on a sector will not remap the sector (since it might be readable later); instead, the drive firmware remembers that the sector needs to be remapped, and remaps it the next time it's written.
Large numbers of Reallocs or Pending Sectors would suggest your drive is failing and that you may need to repair or replace your iPod. Check your stats after another attempt to update your iPod. If the numbers increase that again points to hard drive failure. While it won't be good news at least you'll know it isn't some random software problem and you can decide what to do next.
<hr>
Turning back to your post:
A.) While an incorrect driver/driver conflict might cause the wrong data to be written to the iPod, hence corrupting it, if you then update the drivers, remove conflicting devices etc. then it should be possible to restore the device on subsequent occasions. A USB device infecting virus is unlikely to actually disrupt the normal operation of an iPod, even if it manages to add viral code onto the device, as this code will target the Windows operating system. Obviously avoiding contact with malware and impacts with the envionment will be a "good thing" for both your computer and your iPod.
B.) Software corruption should be cured with a Restore. Hardware problems will only tend to get worse. Your symptoms & history would suggest problems with the iPod's hard drive, but hardware issues on the source drive could also produce a similar effect. If the iPod gets a clean bill of health then check the laptop's drives using the Windows disk scanning tools.
C.) I've not had any contact with Apple Geniuses but I would like to think that your experience is atypical. I've certainly heard better reports about Apple's support than say PC World.
tt2

ITunes 9 Genius not updating - iTunes Store Error

Using iTunes 9, I am trying to update my Genius so that I can have the Genius Mixes however it seems to always be stuck on "Sending information to Apple…". I've let it run for 3 hours with no success and twice have had it say the there is an error with the iTunes Store. It doesn't seem to be sending anything as there is no bandwidth use.
Anyone else having this issue or know of a fix?
*Fixed*
Following the instructions on post #12 of this thread http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=8454874
I was able to fix it.
Quote:
"**** it! That was a tough cookie to crack!
Cookies!! Quit iTunes then go to your /user/library folder and move the Cookies folder to the desktop or delete it.
Turn on Genius. It works!
There must be some weird setting saved in cookies with an incorrect URL to send the info to Apple."
Message was edited by: cosmo2

Hi, im sorry to post in here, as i know im wrong, but no one in the windows forums is having this problem so i thought maybe you guys knew of a solution?
i have this exact problem, but im running windows 7 RC... i never had it with Itunes 8, and i dont have in in another 2 pcs i have running itunes 9...but for some strange reason im having this annoying timeout problem in my main pc...and it has a HUGE library...and since i cant delete the files you guys mentioned in here, cause im not on a mac, im begging you guys if you know how can i fix this....
...and yes, i know macs are better, i just dont have the money to buy them yet, lol!
Message was edited by: mjolimpia

Genius not updating - stuck on 'Delivering your Genius results...'

iTunes has stopped updating my Genius results on my PC, both automatically and manually, for the last few weeks now. This has never been a problem in the past.
Not sure if it coincides with the latest iTunes update (12.0.1) or my new router from my new internet provider.

I stopped it and restarted it (which I was reluctant to do out of fear that a long job would just start over) and found that it had really been performing step 2, but the user interface wasn't updating properly. Once I restarted the process, the UI updated and then I could see what it was doing.
Since I restarted, it has completed step 2 and is now working its way through step 3. Of my 15,000 or so songs, about 13,000 were matched and the remaining 2,000 are now uploading.

ITunes 9 : Genius not working/updating

Ever since I upgraded to iTunes 9, I am unable to update Genius nor Am I able to use the Genius Feature.
I am getting this error "We could not complete iTunes Store request ...."
http://www.grabup.com/uploads/82a73dd34b02c875debeda4d7500389c.jpg?direct.
I am using Snow Leopard.

Well got it working -- turned off genius first then did all the above except deleted the whole cookies folder then turned off home sharing (not sure if it had anything to do with it) then restarted my iMac
Thanks again for all the help on here always the best place for info
Karl

Genius Not So Smart?

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