Hollow/Outlined Stars and Play Count (Plays) Updating behavior explained.

I couldn't find the answers to these questions so I did a bit of experimentation and am posting my conclusions.
First, regarding those hollow/outlined stars that show up and seemingly can't be changed: I noticed all my recent NPR podcasts were downloaded with three automatically-assigned hollow stars which really messed up my playlists and organization. Clicking on these things wouldn't get rid of them (unless I added my own, normal (solid) star ratings). I discovered that these hollow stars are actually "album" ratings that are calculated based on average "track" ratings and then projected onto all future tracks (the ones I just downloaded). I also discovered that I could remove them (at least from individual tracks).
To do so, display all your podcasts in the Album List view (instead of the normal list, grid, or cover flow views). On the left, where the albums show up, you'll see the album's rating. Click on this to change the rating to the unrated (no stars) status. If you've rated any of the individual tracks on the album, hollow stars may immediately reappear on the album itself, indicating an average of those ratings, but all the hollow stars that were previously projected onto individual tracks should disappear.
Second, regarding play count updating (the little blue dots and the "Plays" column in itunes). A podcast is considered unplayed (solid blue dot) until you've listened past the first 10 seconds of the track. So, if you have an hour long track, and you listen to the first 10 seconds then stop, the track will be marked as partially played (half a blue dot). Even if you start the track somewhere in the middle and only listen to it for two seconds (so long as the place you start listening is after the first 10 seconds of the track), it will be marked as partially played.
If you have the "remember playback position" box checked in your preferences, that position will not be remembered during those first 10 seconds. So if you listen to 9 seconds, then stop, then go back to the track later, playback will start at the beginning of the track.
I believe this behavior is designed so you can listen to the first 10 seconds of a podcast to decide if that's the one you're looking for, or one you want to listen to, and if you decide against it, iTunes will not modify that track and instead consider it "unplayed".
Now, concerning play counts updating (the blue dot disappearing). This occurs quite simply when you've listened past the last 2 minutes of the podcast. For example, if you listen to 57 minutes and 59 seconds of an hour-long podcast, then stop, the play count will not update and the blue dot will not disappear (instead remaining half a blue dot), because there are three minutes left on the track. However, if you listen for 58 minutes and then stop, the play count will increase incrementally (say from 0 to 1) and the little blue dot will disappear.
So, if you decide to quit listening to a podcast early, but you still have ten minutes left, and you want iTunes to register that it has been played, you must fast-forward to any point within the last two minutes of the track for play count to register.
Hope all this info is helpful.

My iPhone 5 on iOS 7 seems to be syncing my play history via iTunes Match with no problems. I have not synced my phone with iTunes on my computer, so it isn't from device syncing. I was definitely at work at 1/8 at 11 am...

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HT1386 Play count wont update between iTunes and iPod Nano 7th Gen

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If you want to make song files from your iTunes library available on your car audio system, and it connects using a USB port, a new iPod nano is a very expensive way to do it. If that's the only reason for getting the iPod nano, you should return it and get a cheap 8 or 16GB USB flash drive instead, which costs less than $20. Here's one that barely sticks out of the USB port.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/SanDisk/SDCZ33016G/
You can then leave it connected in the car all the time, except for when you want to update the songs. An iPod is more fragile (especially screen and battery), and you'll have to always remember to remove it, in case the car overheats or freezes. It would also be a target for thieves.
For the audio file format, I can't believe any car audio system would ONLY play Window Media files, and not the most common type of audio files, MP3. Songs purchased from the iTunes Store, and those ripped from music CD (using the default settings), are in AAC format. It's possible the car system does not play AAC. So, I would try songs from your iTunes library that are in MP3 format.
You can use iTunes to convert songs from AAC (or any iTunes supported format) to MP3. So, if MP3 works, and you need details on how to convert audio format using iTunes, please post back. You cannot convert to WMA format (which is Windows Media audio) using iTunes.

Play count wont update between itunes and ipod nano 7th gen

I have an iPod nano 7th generation and have the latest version of iTunes on my MacBook Pro... when I play music on my iPod and connect it to my computer, the play count doesn't update on my iTunes... The same can be said for when I play music on my iTunes...the play count wont update on my iPod... any ideas how to fix this? AK

If you want to make song files from your iTunes library available on your car audio system, and it connects using a USB port, a new iPod nano is a very expensive way to do it. If that's the only reason for getting the iPod nano, you should return it and get a cheap 8 or 16GB USB flash drive instead, which costs less than $20. Here's one that barely sticks out of the USB port.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/SanDisk/SDCZ33016G/
You can then leave it connected in the car all the time, except for when you want to update the songs. An iPod is more fragile (especially screen and battery), and you'll have to always remember to remove it, in case the car overheats or freezes. It would also be a target for thieves.
For the audio file format, I can't believe any car audio system would ONLY play Window Media files, and not the most common type of audio files, MP3. Songs purchased from the iTunes Store, and those ripped from music CD (using the default settings), are in AAC format. It's possible the car system does not play AAC. So, I would try songs from your iTunes library that are in MP3 format.
You can use iTunes to convert songs from AAC (or any iTunes supported format) to MP3. So, if MP3 works, and you need details on how to convert audio format using iTunes, please post back. You cannot convert to WMA format (which is Windows Media audio) using iTunes.

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Play Count not updating

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Hello,
I have downloaded iTunes 11 and have found that it does not seem to record a play count for songs (audio-book) that are under 11 seconds in length. Is there a way to amend this so that it does record a play count for these? I am playing songs directly from iTunes.
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Hi Steven -- thanks, your fix works for me too. I hadn't even known about iTunes' File > Create New Version.
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For any others:
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> (This doesn't explain why the play count updated fine for a year, though ...)
>
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ITunes deleted my play counts after update. How do I get them back?, iTunes deleted my play counts after update. How do I get them back?

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Me to on my ip5. Then i noticed all accounts were gone in mail.
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IPod Classic updating ratings and not play counts in iTunes

I am currently using an iPod classic purchased in 2010 with iTunes 10.5.3.3. however I encountered the same issue on 10.6.1 which made me think that if I downgraded that it would solve my problem but it hasn't.
Here is my problem. Over the past two weeks, I noticed that when I synched my iPod my recenlty played playlist number went from 835 to 720. I typically listen to over fifty songs throughout the course of the day. I have playlist set up to select songs based on a last played date. Last played not in the last 14 days. I last synched my iPod yesterday and I recently setup a new library that is less than 2 weeks old.
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I noticed that if I do a hard reset (Menu+center button) and resync then the playlist update from the point of the last. I have not encountered this problem until upgrading to 10.6.1.
I even went has far as deleting the itl files and letting iTunes create them again based off the XML and still the problem persists. I even created a new library and added new songs and the problem persist.
I would like to know a good way to getting the sync functionality to work properly and not just sync my ratings. Has anybody encountered this problem?

The rules for my recently played list is as follows:
Last Played is in the last 2 weeks
Kind does not contain video
Live updating
Oh and I forgot the Match all is checked.
I have changed my playlist from Apple's default playlist of:
Match all
Last Played is in the last 2 weeks
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I have found that Media Kind balloon breaks live updating on iPod Classics but the Kind or Genre balloon does not. In the past I could go two to three weeks without syncing as I have over 100 Gigs of music and sometimes could go into recently played to find a song quicker because it would be at the top. Now that isn't the case. Most of my smart playlist start with Last Played is not with a certain range so I can listen to new songs and I rate songs as I play them so I can get rid of 1 & 2 star songs off my library at a later date. However when I sync my device the songs reappear on certain smart playlist with no play counts but updated ratings. Like Mix Rap or 4&5 star unplayed.
For example, Mix: Rap
Match all is checked
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any
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I am going by the recently played list because I wiped the entire library as of April 3, 2012 so everything I play is still within the two week window. I have a few other playlist that are not updating after syncing. Meaning they are updating on the device and revert after syncing with iTunes.
After writing my post last night I did a clean install of 10.6.1.7. By clean install I mean I deleted all information from my Users\AppData folder related to Apple Computer in Local, Roaming, and LocalLow. I also deleted my .itl, itdb, and sentinel files and imported my Library xml file. I also performed a super fix on my iPod classic as well. I played a few songs last night and they seem to be running fine. But that's how it always starts out.
Any feedback would be helpful....Thanks for the response turingtest2 by the way
Message was edited by: dontreallycare4apple

Play counts and "Last Played" not updating on short songs?

It looks like a lot of people have had trouble with play counts not updating with crossfade turned on. I've never used crossfade, so this doesn't bother me. However, I do have a plethora of very short tracks in my library (owing to there being many video game soundtracks with short fanfares as tracks), and I've noticed that when playing any song that's 10 seconds or less, it will show up in the "History" tab of "Up Next", but "Plays" and "Last Played" remain the same. Any other song in my library, whether it's 11 seconds long like "Got a Star Piece (part 1)" from "Super Mario RPG" by Yoko Shimomura or 11 minutes long like "I Am" from "As the World Bleeds" by Theocracy, will update its play count properly when played. Why is 10 seconds enough time to play a song and add it to my history, but not enough time to update when I last played it and make it appear in the smart playlist of recently played songs? Is iTunes 11 so obsessed with 11 that if a song isn't 11 seconds long, it doesn't consider it to be worth tracking?

I am having this exact same issue in iTunes 11 running on OSX 10.6.8.
Short tracks (less than 10sec) do not update their metadata to increase the play count. However if I play a short track on my iPod or iPhone and then sync with iTunes the play count and last played info is updated.
This really messes up my smart playlists that use playcount limiters.
I hope there is a fix for this soon.

Last Played, Play Count, Ratings fields not updating

iTunes 6.0.1.3, 3rd Gen iPod, iPod Shuffle 2005-09-23 firmware
After updating to iTunes 6.0.1.3 I was forced to also update my iPod firmware to 2005-09-23. Since then, the last played, play count and ratings fields associated with music tracks no longer updates when I re-synch my 3G iPod. Ive tested with ripped AAC, ripped MP3, older (FairPlay 1) purchased music as well as new (FairPlay 2) tracks. No matter what Ive tried, the dates, counts and raings remain frozen in their pre-update state.
However, these fields are updated for Podcast tracks!
I also ran a test with my Shuffle. Music file play counts are updated as usual. I do notice that the Last Played field within iTunes is updated with the date and time of re-sync. Has it always been this way? I havent paid attention to this since I first purchased my Shuffle but I thought it only updated play count, not Last Played.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Found the problem. After my iPod didn't update after purchasing new songs, I checked my iPod options. For some reason my iTunes iPod Options changed from "Automaticaly update ..." to "Manually manage ...". Once I set this back to automatic everything updated fine.
It is interesting that even when "Manually manage" was selected, a new Podcast trak was downloaded to the iPod and, after listening to it, the Last Played and Play Count fields were updated.
Also, regarding my question about the Last Played update with my Shuffle, I learned that iTunes 5 implemented a change to update this field with the current date and time once the Shuffle is re-synch'd.

Hollow/Outlined Stars and Play Count (Plays) Updating behavior explained.

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