Live Updating smart playlists not updating properly

I have been using some live-updating playlists since I first got my iPod. They had been working fine until just last month. I have a Smart Playlist set to be Live Updating, that follows the rule of playcount is 0. It used to work properly; after playing any song on that list, leaving to the menu screen, and going back to the playlist, the song will disappear from the list.
For whatever reason, this playlist will now only update when I sync my iPod with iTunes. It used to update on the fly in the iPod itself, but no longer.
I have not downloaded the updates for iTunes or the iPod, so I don't see what could have caused this change.
And just now, I synced the iPod with iTunes and while the "Yet to be Played" playlist in iTunes shows only four songs, when I go to that same list on the actual iPod, I get 15 songs. I just don't get that at all.

Annoyed,
You might find our little Discussion of this whole Smart Playlist issue:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1514307#1514307
interesting.
In particular, Smart Playlists containing Podcasts have yet to have their functionality restored as I have been discussing with Level 2 Support:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1683550
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1536677#1536677
Kind regards,
Gopha.

Similar Messages

Smart playlists not updating live after 3.1.1 upgrade

Same discussion started back in February about the 3.0 update (http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9937797)
I thought for sure live updating would work properly with such an update from 3.0 -> 3.1.1, but no luck! I guess it takes more than 7 months to fix this.
As a refresher -- if you have a smart playlist that includes a "not played in the last xx days" condition, the old OS (2.2.1) would automatically remove a played song from the smart playlist on the iPod so your playlist is always valid. However, in 3.0 and 3.1.1, the iPod does not automatically recalculate the smart playlist and you have to sync with iTunes to get the song to be removed.

I have discovered a workaround for this issue. As with most workarounds, it's not too pretty, but it gets you there.
Knowing that live updating smart playlists that refer to other playlists won't properly update on the iPod, and taking advantage of the fact that iTunes 9 now allows for nested logic in smart playlists, we can make a complex nested logic smart playlist that live updates on the iPod as long as it doesn't refer to another playlist. In place of referring to another playlist, refer to some metadata instead. The cleanest metadata tag in my opinion is "Category." It is metadata that does not by default display in playlist view (you can enable it under the View menu), and is not visible when selecting Get Info on a track. You can use the excellent "Enter Category Text for Selected v1.1" script to enter Category tags, available at http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=entercategorytext . Just enter the name of the playlist the track is contained in for the Category tag.
I'll give an example of how this works. Let's say you have a long playlist named "day" containing certain tracks you like to listen to when the sun is out. You want to create an intelligent and self-updating megamix playlist of tracks only from the "day" playlist that will play songs you haven't heard, as well as songs you've heard and have rated. As an added smartness, you want to hear the tracks you've rated higher more often than the tracks with a lower rating. You want this new "day mix" playlist to live update properly on your iPod touch.
First you'll need to tag all your "day" playlist songs. Download and install the "Enter Category Text for Selected v1.1" script mentioned above. Select all the songs in the "day" playlist, run the script, and enter "day" for the Category.
Now you can make the smart playlist. In iTunes 9, create a new Smart Playlist. Using the new nested logic in iTunes 9 smart playlists, select the following conditions:
) Match any of the following rules:
) all of the following rules:
) Category contains day
) Playcount is 0
) all of the following rules:
) Category contains day
) Rating is *
) Last Played is not in the last 6 months
) all of the following rules:
) Category contains day
) Rating is **
) Last Played is not in the last 5 months
) all of the following rules:
) Category contains day
) Rating is *
) Last Played is not in the last 4 months
) all of the following rules:
) Category contains day
) Rating is **
) Last Played is not in the last 3 months
) all of the following rules:
) Category contains day
) Rating is ***
) Last Played is not in the last 2 months
) Live updating
You should find that the new "day mix" smart playlist properly live updates on your iPod touch.
As with any workaround, there are troubling aspects. One is that you'll need to constantly update your metadata tag of choice (Category, in my example) each time you add new tracks to a source regular playlist on your iPod. I'm also unsure about overloading the metadata with a number of tags in the case where tracks co-exist on multiple playlists. Also be aware that smart playlists like this tend to hang the iPod for several minutes with the "Updating Library" screen, so be prepared to be patient.
I hope this is of use to someone. Please post any streamlining suggestions for this workaround.

Smart playlists not updating without syncing

I've had the 30GB video for over a year. All the latest iTunes software and Vista OS. I probably have over 100 playlists of both kinds (static and "smart"). Some time in the past few months (maybe a year), the smart playlists stopped updating dynamically without a sync. I've been an ipod freak for over 3 years and I own a shuffle, nano, and a very old paper weight.
Simple playlist:
Playlist IS "static playlist name"
Last played IS NOT in the last 1 day
Songs should drop off after they play. They don't. I've scanned the web for a real answer and haven't found anything helpful.
Please help me before I start doing crazy things like backing everything up, removing all my playlists, and starting all over!
Life started when the ipod was born

I have a smart playlist of podcasts syced to my iPod Touch that has worked with iOS 3 and works with iOS 4, using the settings described here: http://bit.ly/c9GoOF . The key is to check "Live updating". Once the podcast finishes playing it drops off the playlist as expected.
I had the "bright" idea of also including a playlist identical to the first but with "Live updating" not checked (see http://bit.ly/922a2L ). I did this so that I had a playlist containing the already-played podcasts in case I wanted to go back to listen to them again.
The trouble is that this playlist doesn;t sync properly with iTunes. The only fix I found was to sync twice: Sync once, right-click, edit the Smart playlist, make no changes and press OK, and sync a second time.
Has anybody seen this behavior?

Live updating smart playlists not actually updating

Apparently, this was a common complaint back in 2007. Well, I am still having this problem.
iPhone 4, iOS 4.3.3
I have a static playlist filled with music called "MUSIC". I have a smart playlist "DYNAMIC" that references "MUSIC", which filters only songs rated 3-5, and not played in the past week. These playlists are just used as a source.
I then have a smart playlist for each genre (e.g. "RAP", "ROCK"), which reference "DYNAMIC", and simply filter the appropriate genre.
All of these smart playlists have "live updating" enabled. They all work as expected in iTunes. They all work as expected on an 5.5G iPod.
However, on the iPhone, when I completely play a song in "RAP", the song is not immediately removed. I expected this, since this is the same behavior on my 5.5G iPod. However, on the iPod, I would simply exit the playlist, then re-enter, and the playlist would be regenerated, removing the played song. This does not work on the iPhone. No matter what I do, the played song is still shown, despite the fact that the DYNAMIC smart playlist should remove the song.
I also tested by playing the song directly from DYNAMIC, and it still does not update. I created a new, basic smart playlist which does nothing but reference the static playlist "MUSIC" and filter out songs played in the past day. It still does not update.
I will note that none of my smart playlists reference a playlist that is not synced on the iPhone. I know that a smart playlist referencing a non-synced playlist can turn the smart playlists static. I doubled checked that this is not the case here.
I will also note that I verified the songs are being marked as played via iTunes.
Hjalp!

Annoyed,
You might find our little Discussion of this whole Smart Playlist issue:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1514307#1514307
interesting.
In particular, Smart Playlists containing Podcasts have yet to have their functionality restored as I have been discussing with Level 2 Support:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1683550
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1536677#1536677
Kind regards,
Gopha.

Smart playlists not updating live after 3.0 upgrade

I have a smart playlist: 'songs I've not played in a while'. Before the upgrade, if i had 100 songs in the playlist and played one, the playlist would update and the next time I'd access it I'd have 99 songs in it. however, after upgrading the playlist is not updating itself. It will stay at 100 songs and the only way to make it update itself is to sync with itunes. The placounts etc are all being remembered, but my playlist is no longer updating by itself.
Help! What can I do to fix this?

First, downgrading the firmware is not something that Apple will support, so if something does go wrong (not likely, but remotely possible) you could end up with a device that does not work.
Second, in order to downgrade to an earlier version of firmware, you have to already have it on your computer. If you never did a firmware update prior to installing 3.0, then you don't have a 2.x firmware on your computer to install. While you might be able to find a copy of 2.x, there have been reports of problems with the copies people are finding. But if you ever did a firmware update, say from 2.2 to 2.2.1 then you would have 2.2.1 on your computer already. If that's the case, then follow these instructions:
1- Connect your Touch to your computer and put it into "DFU mode" (Google that for instructions). Getting into DFU mode is a little tricky to get the timing just right, so pay attention to the instructions and what to look and listen for.
2- iTunes will tell you that the Touch needs to be restored to factory conditions (this is expected). Instead of clicking the Restore button, hold down the SHIFT key as you click Restore (on a Mac I think it's Option-Restore). You'll see a navigation window for you to locate the firmware. Navigate your way to where the firmware is stored on your computer, which on a PC is:
C:\Documents and Settings\(account name)\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPod Software Updates
(on a Mac these files are located at: ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates)
Select the proper .ipsw file for your device. For 2.2.1 the file is "iPod2,12.2.1_5H11aRestore.ipsw"
3- Your Touch will go through the Restore process. When you get to the point where you choose to re-load your last backup or set up the Touch as a new iPod, choose the new iPod selection since the backup contains 3.0-specific information that may not work with earlier firmware.
4- You'll then have to re-load your Touch's contents, including music, video, web links, settings preferences, etc.

Smart playlists not updating on touch

Since i upgraded from an ipod video to touch, my smartplaylists with "last played is not in the last X days" criteria are not live-updating on the ipod. I read on several posts that this is a known bug and apple chooses not to fix it. How is this possible? This functionality is at the core of the product in my opinion. How can a newer product be worse? Why did i buy it?
I also heard that you have to report these bugs in order for them to get attention. I looked for hours on the apple site to find where i could send this feedback and i still haven't found anything.
Its so incredibly frustrating and unacceptable. They're busy releasing all kinds of new things wihtout making sure the old things which gave the prodcut value still work.
Now i am forced to keep listenting to the same songs over and over in my playlists because they don't get removed automatically. Not cool

I have a smart playlist of podcasts syced to my iPod Touch that has worked with iOS 3 and works with iOS 4, using the settings described here: http://bit.ly/c9GoOF . The key is to check "Live updating". Once the podcast finishes playing it drops off the playlist as expected.
I had the "bright" idea of also including a playlist identical to the first but with "Live updating" not checked (see http://bit.ly/922a2L ). I did this so that I had a playlist containing the already-played podcasts in case I wanted to go back to listen to them again.
The trouble is that this playlist doesn;t sync properly with iTunes. The only fix I found was to sync twice: Sync once, right-click, edit the Smart playlist, make no changes and press OK, and sync a second time.
Has anybody seen this behavior?

Smart playlists not updating on iPod Touch

Smart playlists based on "Play Count" or "Last Played" don't seem to work on my iPod Touch. I've got a smart playlist setup to list the tracks of an audiobook that have a play count of 0. On my iPod Classic, I could listen to this playlist and when a track finished, it would be removed from the playlist, making it easy to get back to where I was on the audiobook. On my iPod Touch, the smart playlist doesn't update until I sync with iTunes.
Anybody else having this problem?
Scott

I have a smart playlist of podcasts syced to my iPod Touch that has worked with iOS 3 and works with iOS 4, using the settings described here: http://bit.ly/c9GoOF . The key is to check "Live updating". Once the podcast finishes playing it drops off the playlist as expected.
I had the "bright" idea of also including a playlist identical to the first but with "Live updating" not checked (see http://bit.ly/922a2L ). I did this so that I had a playlist containing the already-played podcasts in case I wanted to go back to listen to them again.
The trouble is that this playlist doesn;t sync properly with iTunes. The only fix I found was to sync twice: Sync once, right-click, edit the Smart playlist, make no changes and press OK, and sync a second time.
Has anybody seen this behavior?

Smart Playlists not updating

Yesterday I added two new songs to my library. One of them should have gone into Smart Playlist "A," one of them into Smart Playlist "B," and both of them into Smart Playlist "C."
For reasons that I am unable to understand (after reviewing the conditions of all three playlists), both songs went into Smart Playlist "C," but neither "A" nor "B" was updated with new music.
I was running iTunes for Mac 5.0.1, and in desperation I decided to check Software Update for a new version of iTunes. I took version 6, but it didn't help. (I guess it was silly of me to think that a new major version would fix this problem; I wasn't thinking about the new video iPod!)
Any thoughts? Has anyone else experienced similar problems?

Yep, the Live Updating checkbox is selected for all three of these playlists.
Here's more detail, which I didn't include for fear of boring everyone to death:
Song 1 is The Proclaimers, "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," no genre (I removed it thinking it could be interfering with the Smart Playlist), date 1988, my rating 5 stars.
Song 2 is The Dandy Warhols, "Bohemian Like You," genre also removed, date 2000, my rating 5 stars.
Playlist A is "1980s Music" with the following conditions:
- Year is in the range 1980 to 1989.
- My Rating is greater than 3 stars.
- Genre is not "Books & Spoken."
- Genre is not "Classical."
Playlist B is "2000s Music" with the same conditions as playlist A, except:
- Year is in the range 2000 to 2009.
Playlist C is "My Top Rated" with the following conditions:
- My Rating is greater than 4 stars.
- Genre is not "Classical."
In all three playlists, the top checkbox is set to Match all of the following rules, and neither the "Limit to xx songs..." nor the "Match only checked songs" checkbox is selected.
Song 1 fits the conditions for playlists A and C, while song 2 fits the conditions for playlists B and C. But only playlist C has been updated with these songs.
Ideas? I'm grateful for any help.
Best,
Tim

Smart Playlists not updating to my iPod

I've got a few Smart Playlists set up. They select by "Least Recently Played". The tunes that are listed for the Smart Playlists seem to follow the rules I created. When I listen to a bunch of tunes on my iPod and then Sync to iTunes, I don't get the Smart Playlists copied to the iPod.
I've got "Sync music" checked, the "Selected playlists" button is popped, and I've checked the Playlists I want to copy to my iPod.
Smart Playlists seem pretty cool, but if they only work once, they're not very helpful. What am I missing?
Thanks.
Mad Dave
Windows XP

Patrick,
I listened to "Chocolate Jesus" by Tom Waits on my way home from school tonight. I just synced up to my desktop. In iTunes I see the "last played" field has been updated with tonight. It isn't showing up in my smart playlist, but it is still on the iPod and on the iPod selection playlist in iTunes.
I don't know how to paste an image onto this posting, so I'll describe what's on the smart playlist window when I'm editing GenInfuser.
[Checked] Match [all] of the following rules:
Play Count is less than 5
My Rating is not **
My Rating is not *
My Rating is not ***
Playlist is GenCore
[checked] Limit to 1750 MB selected by least recently played
[] Match only checked items
[checked] Live updating.
Here's what I see for GenStation (the smart playlist that is supposed to be synced to the iPod):
[checked] Match any of the following rules:
Playlist is GenInfuser
Playlist is GenSprinkler
[] Limit to ...
[] Match only checked items
[Checked] Live updating
I just tried checking "Limit to" 1750 MB least recently played on GenStation and it didn't start copying over new music. Actually it copied over 9 tunes. There's at least a couple hundred tunes that have been recently played on the iPod and several times that many on iTunes that have never been played.
I guess the other pertinent info is that I've got a 4 GB nano and I'm running iTunes 7.0.2.16.
Thanks for your help, Patrick.
Mad Dave

Smart playlists not updating to iPod in iTunes 7

I've just upgraded to the latest iTunes 7 on my home PC - which runs windows XP. After completing the upgrade, and synchronising to my 3G ipod, not all smart playlists have come over. This seems to be any smart playlist that are based on some kind of date - such as date last played, or date added. Has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas on how to fix this?

Patrick,
I listened to "Chocolate Jesus" by Tom Waits on my way home from school tonight. I just synced up to my desktop. In iTunes I see the "last played" field has been updated with tonight. It isn't showing up in my smart playlist, but it is still on the iPod and on the iPod selection playlist in iTunes.
I don't know how to paste an image onto this posting, so I'll describe what's on the smart playlist window when I'm editing GenInfuser.
[Checked] Match [all] of the following rules:
Play Count is less than 5
My Rating is not **
My Rating is not *
My Rating is not ***
Playlist is GenCore
[checked] Limit to 1750 MB selected by least recently played
[] Match only checked items
[checked] Live updating.
Here's what I see for GenStation (the smart playlist that is supposed to be synced to the iPod):
[checked] Match any of the following rules:
Playlist is GenInfuser
Playlist is GenSprinkler
[] Limit to ...
[] Match only checked items
[Checked] Live updating
I just tried checking "Limit to" 1750 MB least recently played on GenStation and it didn't start copying over new music. Actually it copied over 9 tunes. There's at least a couple hundred tunes that have been recently played on the iPod and several times that many on iTunes that have never been played.
I guess the other pertinent info is that I've got a 4 GB nano and I'm running iTunes 7.0.2.16.
Thanks for your help, Patrick.
Mad Dave

Smart Playlists not updating after iTunes upgrade

Since updating to iTunes 7.5.0.20, my iPod Photo no longer updates my Smart Playlists automatically
Any reasons, fixes, suggestions?

Hi, I'm having a similar problem. I recently switch back from MediaCenter (on windows to iTunes). I did a fresh install of iTunes, reformatted my iPod and began using it.
I have smart playlists based on playcount. I notice that when I sync my iPod, the play counts do not change most of the time in my iTunes library. I just listened to a few songs and songs I listened to last night at 11:00pm were listed however, songs I listened to yesterday morning were not.
I'm gradually remembering why I moved off iTunes to begin with. MediaCenter may have the occasional crash but at least they can manage this simple task.

Smart Playlists not updating on iPod

Hi,
I have a couple very simple smart playlists, basically one for each podcast i listen to the smart playlist picks out the podcasts of a specific name that are unplayed.
if I look at the smart playlists in the platlist pane of iTunes they contain the proper contents (say 3 episodes of TWIT I haven't listened too) but on my Nano they will be empty or cotain only a partial list of correct content.
I have Itunes set to auto sync, even tried manual sync still no luck.
Any ideas?
BTW, I'm using the latest version of iTunes and OS X on a dual 2.0 GHz G5
pete

Ross93 wrote:
If I didn't keep bumping it my thread will have went unnoticed and I wouldn't have received a reply. It's not cool but I would have never otherwise received a response.
Well -
- I was being polite. It's not only "not cool", but its goes against Apple's Terms of Use. It is also not necessary to bump after just two hours. This is a worldwide forum and it's possible that someone with the answer to your question is asleep on the other side of the world to you at the time you posted and repeatedly bumped.
If you had browsed throught the other threads here, you would have noticed that you're not the only one to be having issues with Playlists changes not transferring to your iPod. In fact, the number of posts about it suggests to me that there is a problem as a result of iOS7.
So you can do two things, should you wish:
Look through recent discussions about Playlist update problems (rather than the "more like this" section, which will give you results prior to iOS7) to see if anyone has figured out a solution;
Wait for the next update to iOS7 and see if that fixes it.

Why are my smart playlists not updating?

I tried to create a new smart playlist, and could not get even the simplest one to populate with any music. I then noticed that my current smart playlists are not updating. For example, I have an UNRATED smart playlist (Rating is less than *), and it used to update whenever I would rate a song in the list. It currently has rated songs in it. This is the first time I've been working in iTunes since I accepted the iCloud update. Is there a known problem?

Created a similar post about 1 month ago - with no response...its driving me crazy too! Would love a fix!

Why do my smart playlists not sync properly?

Hi,
For some reason some of my smart playlists sync properly from my win pc (latest itunes) to my iphone5s and others don't.
The playlist '0 play' syncs fine while the playlist '0 star' doesn't. The only difference between those two is 'play' 'is' '0' and 'rating' 'is' ' '. I also tried other settings, but they all did not work. Googling the issue didn't offer any solutions either.

Hi John,
I don't really want to switch my method of filing simply for sharing purposes.
Perhaps a solution for now could be to revert a document to Numbers '09 before emailing?
When Numbers 3.0 was released in November 2013, many people were stunned that a so-called upgrade had lost so many features. But slowly (through this forum working together) it became clear that Apple had provided several safety-nets.
- Numbers 3 did not replace Numbers '09 on any computer. Numbers '09 was moved to a folder named iWork '09 inside the Applications folder. It still works on OS X Mavericks just as it always did on previous versions of OS X.
Numbers 3 did not replace the icon on the Dock. That icon continues to point to Numbers '09.
Wayne Contello has written a User Tip for working with the old and new versions of iWork:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6991
- Documents and templates created in Numbers '09 will carry many of the "lost" features into Numbers 3.
- A document "stolen" by Numbers 3 can not be opened in Numbers '09. Numbers 3 has Menu > File > Export To > Numbers '09... to revert that document. However, reverting a document created in Numbers 3 will not magically install lost Numbers '09 features. They are gone (for now).
- Numbers '09 and Numbers 3 run happily together at the same time. Just be sure which version you use when opening a document. Use Menu > File > Open or Menu > File > Open Recent.
With each update (Numbers 3.0 to 3.01, 3.1 and now 3.2) many features have been restored. They may now live under a different menu, button, or Inspector (Format Panel).
This forum has helped me and other users to find out where our cheese is now:
Who Moved My Cheese?
http://www.spencerjohnson.com/Book-WhoMovedMyCheese.html
Regards,
Ian.

Smart Playlists not working properly

Have a 5G iPod classic 30gb. I've created some smart playlists, but they're not synching properly. When I go to the playlist and set it to shuffle, each song is coming up as "1 of 1", as if it is a separate playlist... Any suggestions???

To an extent thank goodness, I thought I was going mad.
I too have this issue with iPhone & Itunes 9.
All my smart playlists on my iphone are in random order, but the one which is bothering me the most is my 25 most played, which contains stuff I don't think I have ever played.
Looking at smart playlist on my itunes or on expanded tree for iphone when connected to itunes has the correct listing but random on my iphone.
Let hope they fix this soon.
John

Live Updating smart playlists not updating properly

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