Missing songs in Smart Playlists on iOS

I use smart playlists a lot. For example I have a playlist like this:
"Rating" IS "5 stars"
"Last played" NOT WITHIN "6 months"
"Media Type" IS "Music"
"Last Skipped" NOT WITHIN "7 days"
When I start iTunes I have 447 songs in this playlist, on iOS I only have 430 songs. Where might this difference come from? Although the iOS list shows less songs, I found at least 2 songs which should not be on iOS as they were played 2 weeks ago. Can I cause the Music Player on iOS to refresh the playlist? On iTunes I have a flag "Live updating" set.
By the way, I tested this with iTunes on a mac which does not have my main library, so iTunes only show songs which where matched correctly. So it is not a matching problem!
Any idea?

Ok, it is a monologue up to now, but when I search at google for my problem I already find my own thread, so I will also share my latest findings:
The problem is definately caused by the "last played" field. This is not synced correctly between two iTunes Libraries (and I guess it is the same on iOS, but there is no way to check the "last played" information on iOS). The same song has different dates on my two macs. So in my opinion no smart playlist using "last played" will work correctly when using iTunes Match.
The only way to get the "last played" field in sync again, is to deactivate and activate iTunes Match on each device. But they are only in sync for short time. As soon as I start playing songs, they are not updated correctly via the cloud.
I also found this thread, which is pointing out the same problems:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16739537#16739537
Let's hope there is an update soon...

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Can't delete or clear songs in Smart Playlist

Guys,
I'm creating a smart Playlist to isolate my mini from my 20gb. I cannot for the life of me delete or clear any songs from a Smart Playlist, and it is REALLY annoying me. Can anyone please help? Everything is current versions BTW.
Thanks,
Todd

The reason you can't delete songs from smart playlists is because they are in fact "smart" playlists - whatever goes into them is totally dependant on the "rules" that you set in the "edit smart playlist" area. Smart playlists are completely automatic by these rules that you set, and songs can't be manually added or deleted in any way.
If you want to be able to manually add & delete songs from a playlist it has to be a manual playlist that you use.
Hope that clears it up a bit

Any way to create a smart playlist on iOS of songs that have been downloaded from the cloud?

Of my 72gb library it's hard to remember what has been downloaded from the cloud to my iPhone. It would be great if there was a way to have my tracks be dumped into some sort of playlist to easily access what has been downloaded. Anyone know of way to do this? Or recommendations on an easier way to keep track of downloaded tracks?

These all work fine on my mac but again, I was wanting the smart playlist on my iphone. I could download songs from the cloud on my mac (which wouldnt make sense anyways since it's where my entire library is) but this defeats the whole purpose of accessing my music through my phone and icloud and not having to sync or make playlists on my mac.
Let me ask you guys this, every time you want to listen to something on your iOS device, do you wait for it download? Do you remember everyhting you've downloaded and only listen to those tracks? What's your method for listening to music on your device?
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Smart Playlists on iOS

Still not working properly for me. How about anyone else? It's an improvement - I see a few songs in them now, but in some I am only seeing one or two where there should be hundreds.
Haven't been able to check the play count / last played yet but will experiment further with it tomorrow.

iOS 5.1 did not fix all the problems related to smart playlist in the iPad 2 with iTunes Match subscription.
Smart Playlists based on dates are not syncing across all devices and Macs/PCs. For example, Recently Played.
Smart Playlists based on play counts are not syncing across all devices and Macs/PCs.
Sorting of songs in iPad2 is out of whack. iPad2 music app seems to ignore the sort order in smart playlists. this is very annoying since I have a lot of classical music in my library in which track arrangement is very important. I'm not having this problem with my iPod Touch though, just in the iPad2.
iOS 5.1 did fix one of my problems: the Smart Playlists in the iPad2 that are based on the "Comments" field. My smart playlists are now correctly populated with songs.
These are my observations, so far.

Can't add songs to existing playlists with iOS 7.1

Yesterday, I downloaded the new iOS 7.1 update. Tonight I tried adding songs to an existing playlist, and they aren't there. I went though the steps. From Playlists, I tap edit, tap (+) to add songs and then tap on the songs I want to add. Then I tap Done. When I go back to the playlist, they aren't there. Is this a glitch with the new update? Or is there a step I am missing? Please help!!

TGill wrote:
thanks for the info on the checkboxes. They just seemed redundant to me
If you use this feature, as shown in my previous screenshot, then unticking a song will cause it to be removed from your iPod at the next Sync, but left in your Library. Leave the ticks turned on.
TGill wrote:
"By the way, on the right-click/Add to Playlist, the Playlist Folders are also listed, but you cannot add a song to a Playlist Folder." If that's the case, what function does that option on the menu perform?
The Playlist Folders are a method of grouping Playlists together, making them easier to find. The reason they are shown in the right-click is to make the Playlists easier to find. Look at the screenshot below, all the "Sleep" Playlists are in my "Sleep Time" folder.
TGill wrote:
As to dragging a track to a playlist, what view lets you see the playlists and songs at the same time?
If you have the Sidebar on (CTRL+S), the Songs View:
... and simply drag the song to any Regular Playlist.

Adding more rules, makes less songs in smart playlists?

Every time I add a condition to a smart playlist, the song count drops, instead of increases, I want to make sure I get all of a certain type of song, and my music collection is far too big to go through and edit all of them. There was a trick to this, but I've forgotten it, can anyone help me out?

You use match all to narrow down a selection with multiple rules, or match any to join the results of several rules together. Sometimes to get exactly what you want you need nested combinations of both options.
E.g.
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tt2

Getting more songs in smart playlists?

Ok, so lets say I am trying to create a smart playlist of all of my classical concertos, I'm wondering how do I actually get the most songs out of this? If I add more selections to the playlists, I get less songs. Example: Name (contains) Concerto + Grouping (contains) Concerto = 898 songs however just Groupings (contains) Concerto = 901 songs. I'm slightly confused, shouldn't the extra tag get me more hits?

You use match all to narrow down a selection with multiple rules, or match any to join the results of several rules together. Sometimes to get exactly what you want you need nested combinations of both options.
E.g.
Match any
     Match all
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          Rule 2
     Match all
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tt2

Possible to exclude double songs in smart playlist?

I made a smart playlist based on a category. However the list contains a lot of times the same song. Is it possible to automatically exclude doubles that will be added by itself during time?
André

I have about 600 songs that I have put in the genre of "chrismas" I have also rated them. I created a smart playlist in iTunes for 4 stars and up tunes within the christmas genre. From that in iTunes I get about 500 songs in that smart playlist (I like christmas songs). I sync it with the iPod. When I go to that smart playlist I get about 166 songs not the 500 that shows up in my iTunes.
Now I did discover one more thing today. I like to play my playlists in shuffle song mode. That is where I see this problem. Well today I turned that off and.... the 500 songs are shown ( what I mean by this is when a tune is playing you get the message that this is " 1 of 500. Same playlist in shuffle mode I get "1 of 166"

ICloud Adds Unwanted Songs to Smart Playlist

I have set up a Recently Added smart playlist on my Mac limited to include albums/songs I added in the past 30 days. It synchronises fine from iTunes to iPhone when I do so manually. But a day or two after switching on iTunes Match I get a welter of other songs (each time it seems to be the same songs) added to the playlist on my iPhone, while the playlist on my Mac remains as it should be.
The only way to remedy this is to switch off iTunes Match on the Mac and iPhone and sync manually again.
Most perplexing and bloody irritating.
Any ideas what might be going wrong?

You change the parameters of the list. There's no way to add songs directly to a Smart Playlist.
Regards.

Missing songs in my playlist

Hi!!
I recently got myself a new Xperia Z.
I synced my iTunes playlist, which consists of English and Korean songs onto my phone, and some songs are missing.
And I realised, only songs that starts with a Korean alphabet doesn't appear. What should I do?

Let me try to explain. Haha.
1) I transferred my iTunes playlist to the Xperia using Sony Bridge for Mac
2) After transferring, I used the stock music player, which is the Walkman app
3) I realised only songs that starts with the Korean alphabet is not in my iTunes playlist
4) So I looked for it by using the search function in the app, and it is in the phone
Here's a screenshot of iTunes playlist
This is the screenshot of the playlist in my phone
After seeing that some songs are missing, I used the search function to look for it.

After downloading Itunes on a new computer the number of songs in my library is smaller than the count on my old computer. How do I restore the missing songs and my playlists on the new computer?

I have downloaded Itunes on to a new computer. The number of songs listed in the library is less than the number of songs on my old computer.
How do I restore the entire library to the new computer? I do I restore the playlists that I created on my old computer?

Copy everything from your old computer, or your backup copy of your old computer.

IOS 8 - Where did option to add song to a Playlist Go?- Did they remove this?

I used to be able to add a song to a playlist with iOS 7. I've spent hours searching for a way to do this in iOS 8 with no luck, Does anybody know how to do it? I can't find a single example using Google! It's driving me nuts. Did they take it away? Why make it so complicated?

Hello, flashkube2.
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
The playlist option is still available in iOS 8. Here are the steps on how to create and edit playlists.
Playlists
Create playlists to organize your music. View Playlists, tap New Playlist near the top of the list, then enter a title. Tap to add songs or videos.
Edit a playlist. Select the playlist, then tap Edit.
Add more songs: Tap .
Delete a song: Tap , then tap Remove. Deleting a song from a playlist doesn’t delete it from iPhone.
Change the song order: Drag .
New and changed playlists are copied to your iTunes library the next time you sync iPhone with your computer, or through iCloud if you’ve subscribed to iTunes Match.
Clear or delete a playlist you created on iPhone. Select the playlist, then tap Clear or Delete.
Remove a song from iPhone. Tap Songs, swipe the song, then tap Delete. The song is deleted from iPhone, but not from your iTunes library on your Mac or PC, or from iCloud.
Playlists
Cheers,
Jason H.

The 10.4 upgrade smart playlist editing has removed the ellipse as the 3rd button option along side the adding or removing a parameter. Why? And can we get it back?

I just did the iTunes update to 10.4 (80) from 10.3 on a MacPro OS X 10.6.8 . I am extremely nervous and saddened by a subtle change to the smart playlist editing features. I have 178.26gb of music, and a very extensive array of playlists and smart playlists taking full advantage of all the wonderful features and complexity someone has taken the time to develop. I have taken years of time developing my library, and this one little change will set me back substantially. The change? Removing the ellipse as the 3rd button option along side the adding or removing a parameter. The button allowed one to create levels or groups of parameters within the dialogue window that could act independently within one smart playlist. For example, songs from artist "A" needs at least 2 stars to be included, while songs from artist "B" need three stars, and they both can be in the same smart playlist which has its first level of complexity. I have lists that go dozens of layers beyond. And dozens more that cross reference. Is there any way we can get the hierarchy back, ie. Reintroduce the ellipse button? Or is there something new I do not know about? Thanks!

I would like to second this.
This subtle yet life-changing removal is a total loss for advanced users that (used to) take full advantage of "logical and hierarchical" playlists. It tremendously impairs the "smartness" of the feature, effectively removing the possibility of mixing "and" & "if" parameters—which was the real beauty of the whole concept of "smart playlists" à la iTunes.
Here's a simple example. I would like to create a playlist combining two genres (rock and electronic) with only songs that have a rating higher than 3. I cannot do that anymore. I need to create two playlists:
a first playlist (A) that displays [Rock] OR [Electronic] (note that this playlist will never be played, it's an intermediary step required for B)
then a second playlist (B) that displays [songs from playlist "A"] AND [with a rating higher than 3].
It's a pain. And it clutters up browsing lists on my iPad/iPhone a lot.
Smart playlists should get the ellipse button back!
Moreover, the possibility of creating / editing smart playlists on iOS via a nice menu would be just… awesome. I would have thought Apple was going in that "smart" direction with iTunes. In hoping it's just a delay… until iOS 5 maybe?

ITunes Match smart playlist item count

after creating a smart playlist in iTunes that is supposed to limit to 50 items,
I can see the playlist on my iphone. But the item limit does not exist. The playlist is thousands of songs long instead of 50.
This REALLY needs to be fixed.
I truly hope more effort is put into properly supporting smart playlists in iTunes Match
I've attached an image that shows my smart playlist rules

This is a well known shortcoming of iTunes Match, it does not handle Smart Playlists on IOS devices well.
Current workaround involves use of standard playlists and 'download all' options - it is not neat and this capability is one of several needed in later versions of the service and IOS capability.

Cannot drag songs into a playlist in iTunes

hmmmm... for some reason i cannot drag songs into a playlist in iTunes. what th.....

Into any playlist, or a specific playlist?
You cannot drag songs to smart playlists - that's what the "smart" is about; it does it itself

Missing songs in Smart Playlists on iOS

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