Itunes does not maintain play count

Question

Since I was forced to ?up?grade to 11.0.5 two weeks ago play counts on my shuffle have not updated.  Syncing apparently is brain-damaged and does not take into account overhead for the database in determining what songs could be copied to the iPod.

Answer 1

What are you talking about...  At best, my test shows that it works in the simplest scenario.  If it failed, it definitely confirms what you described, and that probably means there's a bug.  But it did not fail.  That's how testing is done.  You use the simpliest test conditions first. 
What I wanted you to do is is duplicate my test.  Did you do a Restore on your shuffle, to see if data corruption is the cause, as I mentioned in the last reply?  If not, do a Restore.  Then, manually load ONE song.  Play that song on the shuffle until it starts to play a second time.  Note the Plays number for that song in your iTunes library. Connect the shuffle and see if the Plays number increases by 1.  If it passes that basic test, THEN use Autofill to fully load the shuffle, and see if it's still working properly now, or not.  If it fails that basic test, it means that "capacity" is not relevant; it doesn't even work with one song loaded.  And since you just did a Restore, there is no data corruption involved either.
Since my shuffle is now fully loaded using Autofill, I tried another test just now.  I played my shuffle and skipped forward until I found a song that I definitely knew by name and artist.  I played that song all the way, until the next song started to play.  I found that song in my iTunes library and noted the Plays number.  When I connected the shuffle, the Plays number increased by 1.  Test passed.