Smart Playlist: Limitation or broken iPod?

I have been struggling mightily trying to get my Smart Playlists to sync properly between iTunes and my iPod. One particular playlist that has been a major problem is one with two filters, the first filter is for purchases, and the second filter is for songs played less than 10 times. In iTunes, this Smart Playlist works just as I would expect, with all of the songs filtered out that have 10 or more plays. However, on my iPod, the second filter is completely ignored, and only purchased songs will show up.
Oddly, when I sync iTune with my iPod, for the flash of second, the filters work, but then, it reverts back to only honoring the first of the two filters.
So, the question is: is Plays not a filter that will work on an iPod, and this is expected, or my iPod not working properly with regard to Smart Playlists?
Thanks,
Ryan B
Update: The Playlist works on iPod when Live Updating is unselected. Does not work correctly when Live Updating is selected.

hmm, I thought I was only seeing a porblem with my ipod shuffle on my Mac - starting with itunes 8.1 and hte 3rd gen shuffle, I have to sync my 1st en shuffle twice to even get stuff onto it, sometimes. And of course since it has no clock, everything syncs back with the time I am syncing it, not the time it was actually played.
camoracer may be onto something. I just played a song from a smart playlist on my 5th gen clickwheel ipod, and it didn't sync back OK.
edit - correction, I played it from an On-The-Go playlist. The On-The-Go playlists got synced back, but not the track playcount.
I DO use a complicated playlists on my 2nd gen nano and it syncs the playcounts OK.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the iPod model?
Message was edited by: Katrina S.

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JMcM94 wrote:
Can you increase the song number above 25 on an iPod touch when you create a smart playlist directly on the ipod
Have you followed the notes I gave you two days ago? Although your question then did not refer to changing the Playlist directly "on the iPod", I did let you know what you have to do.
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Can't sync my podcast smart playlist(s) to my ipod

I created a smart playlist to hold my podcasts, which would sync to my ipod when I was using the previous version of itunes, but after installing itunes 9 I can no longer get that playlist to sync to my ipod. I have tried both unplugging and replugging back in my ipod as well as restore factory settings and reloading everything back onto the ipod, still no luck. Does anyone know how I can solve this or if there will be a patch for itunes 9 to resolve this as well as some of the problems experienced with syncing with devices like the apple tv.

Check out this article: http://www.gotknowhow.com/articles/how-to-get-podcast-playlists-to-sync-in-itune s-9.aspx
I was in the same boat and 20 minutes on the phone with an Apple Product Specialist and we figured it out.
Apple changed the sync behavior of iTunes, because what we all have been doing was a workaround for an old bug we didn't recognize as such. We abandoned syncing podcasts using the Podcasts tab because it didn't give us the control that Smart Playlists gave us. We discovered that iTunes would sync our podcast playlists under the music tab.
That was fixed, though I wish it had been covered during the iTunes demo in the Keynote.
Use the Music tab to sync songs and other files you find in your Music library. Use the Podcasts tab to sync podcast episodes you find in your Podcasts library. Both tabs have sections listing all of your playlists. On the Podcasts tab, you may have to scroll to the bottom.
Next, Turn OFF the "Automatically include" option. This is simple syncing. If you want more control, turn this off and select the Smart Playlists you've defined using the bottom section.
I found that all of the playlists I used to sync were still selected in this lower section. As soon as I turned of the "Automatically include" option, everything was back to normal.
FYI, I love having the "Automatically fill free space with songs" option on the music tab. Now as I listen to podcasts and they are removed from the Smart Playlists, I get more music and no wasted space on my device.
Message was edited by: SkyJack

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.

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 on iPod Touch

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Smart Playlists are fixed with iPod Updater 2006-01-10

Hello Podders, Resident Furball here...
iPod Updater 2006-01-10 restores dynamic updating of Smart Playlists on the iPod
iPod Updater 2005-06-26 disabled the onboard dynamic updating of Smart Playlists on iPods older than the Nano and Gen5. This feature can now be restored using iPod Updater 2006-01-10.
We held lengthy debates about this issue on Discussions (here, here and here), as well as the iLounge thread that sparked a dedicated website.
However, we are glad to confirm that the latest iPod Updater resolves this issue, as I was informed by email from Apple Level 2 Support, and as tested by some of our long-suffering Gen4 and Pod Photo users. The Apple KB article on Smart Playlists has also been updated.
Since the threads that I started have now been locked down to reflect resolution, I'm posting this just to confirm that everything now appears to have been resolved, and I would like to thank everyone here on Discussions for their patience and excellent troubleshooting in diagnosing this problem. Thank you to everyone who posted Feedback, those of you who took the time to phone Apple, and also to Apple Level 2 Phone Support for their assistance in escalating this matter up to US Engineering.
Happy Podding everyone!
Kind regards,
Gopha.

Hello folks, Resident Furball again...
Many folks have now reported that Smart Playlist functionality has been properly restored to the iPod.
However, some folks have been reporting that Smart Playlists containing Podcasts are still coming to grief.
From what I have seen reported, the firmwares prior to the Updater 2005-06-26 that broke Smart Playlists had the ability to dynamically update Podcast-containing Smart Playlists, but this functionality has not been restored in the latest 2006-01-10 that has fixed 'simple' Smart Playlists.
I don't use Podcasts myself, so if you would like to know more, please refer to posts from Vibeeen and Tutackhamen who have described the continuing issue in detail.
In the meanwhile, I have drawn the attention of Level 2 Support to these reports, and recommend that you continue to submit appropriate Feedback if you are affected by this quirk.
Kind regards,
Gopha.

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I'm trying to create a smart playlist by limiting songs that have a certain rating. Sounds simple enough.
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Thanks for the response. I had thought of that and "no" I do not (and did not).
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Hi,
Total newb here...I have 1000 or so songs on my iPod and I am trying to create a smart playlist called "80's Music" that will add any song from 1980 to 1989. problem is that it will only put a limit of 267 songs into this playlist. How do I get it to put all of them in there? There are at least 800 80's songs on the iPod...I know how to tell it that I want the years specified.
Any help much appreciated!
Steve

Try this:
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o168/VixenofVenus/smartplaylist.jpg
If you've already tried that and its still only putting 267 songs in the list, then you might want to check some songs that AREN'T in the list that SHOULD be to see if they have the Year tag set correctly.
Personally, I know I don't have the Year tag set in all my music. In the past I have forgotten to set it and I just haven't gone through it all to change all the albums so they have the Year tags set ...

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

ITunes 9 not allowing most smart playlists to automatically sync with iPod

Oh dearie me. This is another major blunder for iTunes 9 - which I cannot see anyone else has noticed yet (but sorry if I couldn't find an existing related post).
Since upgrading to iTunes 9- almost all of my smart playlists (whick worked perfectly before) have disappeared from my iPod. They have also removed themselves from the list in iTunes where I choose which playlists to sync. Yes- I use the 'sync only checked songs & playlists' option (but please don't suggest I manually manage music, as I've been there before).
The problem seems to happen when a smart playlist references 2 or more other (smart or normal) playlists in iTunes. This excludes about 95% of my playlists from syncing in iTunes 9.
Before the upgrade I noticed that iTunes posted an exclamation mark next to any playlist on my iPod that had a rule referencing a playlist in iTunes- but they still sunc perfectly for years. I mean if Apple allowed us to make our own smart playlists only for the iPod- then I would understand- but its the only way I can see to have a playlist for example that plays all favourite but not recently played dance music (regardles of actual genre); nor anything I have moved to a manual playlist called 'not for syncing'.
As a test, I tried an experiment with a new smart playlist which said so long as the song appears in (all) 2 smart playlists- to see when it would become 'syncable'. As would be expected- it was not available to sync. As soon as I deleted the 2nd playlist rule- ie it only had to be in 1 playlist, it became 'syncable'. As soon as I added a 2nd rule again- be it a smart or normal playlist- it became 'unsyncable' again (disappeared from the sync list).
Apple please fix this ASAP. I cannot see this as being desirable behavior in any way, shape or form.
And while you are at it with the new improvements with iTunes 9 playlisting- please add an option to exclude certain 'match' parameters- eg match x and y, but exclude anything that matches z. Besides allowing for much better playlisting, that would (to a degree) also provide a workable workaround to the problem above.
Yours faithfully,
Mike

Cheers for chiming in- but I don't think that will solve this problem. I have no podcasts on my iPod- only mp3s. My problem is I have way too much music in my library- over 300GB. So I have all my iTunes smart playlists- eg genre Dubstep- but then I have an iPod version of each of these eg Dubstep iPod- which says match both criteria- playlist is Dubstep, & playlist is not 'Master not sync'. Every smart playlist on my iPod revolves around this playlist- whose rules are if any of the following 2 criteria match: rating is not between 1&2 stars; playlist is not the normal manual playlist called 'not for iPod sync'- where I drop any mp3s that I don't need on my iPod. This scheme worked perfectly before.
But I am gonna chew on what you said today- maybe there is a clue in there or maybe if I experiment with the 'music' rule. Either way- this is not an improvement- it's about 200 steps back. I still maintain that the problem I am seeing is not intentional coding. Something broke in the codebase & now iTunes 9 has playlist / syncing bugs which need fixing.
Either that, or Apple need to finally release a 500GB iPod- so I can get rid of my iPod specific playlists & sync all my iTunes playlists. Then I would even consider putting podcasts on there as well...;) Heck maybe even some video... crazy idea, I know.

Tip for creating auto-updating Smart Playlists for iPod

Short Answer:
Don't use Smart Playlists that use rules with nested playlists which aren't completely on iPod.
Long Answer:
If you're like me and use nested Smart Playlists, make sure that any Smart Playlist you want to have auto-update on the iPod doesn't use a rule which uses as a criteria a playlist that isn't fully present on iPod (exclamation point next to the Smart Playlist in iTunes when connecting iPod to your Mac).
For example, I have Smart Playlists to exclude certain tracks in other Smart Playlists (Streams, Spoken Word,tracks under 1 minute, etc.). These are tracks that I usually want to exclude in other Smart Playlists but don't want to add those rules each and every time.
The problem is that iPod looks to see if that 'excludes' playlist is present, which obviously it isn't because by it's nature it's designed to exclude tracks. If a nested playlist isn't present it seems the auto-update will not work.
My solution was to create a new Smart Playlist specifically for the iPod, which contained all the rules of my "master exclude" Smart Playlist and any other I wanted specifically for the iPod.
My beef with Apple here is that I can't duplicate a Smart Playlist, which is possible in iPhoto. Being able to do that would make things much easier.
I have since gone about creating 'excludes' playlists so that the playlist itself excludes tracks; previously I was creating a Smart PLaylist that contained (included) all the tracks I wanted to exclude, then using that as a rule (Playlist is not 'Excludes') in other playlists. The second method worked fine on iTunes, since all the tracks are present, but it creates problems on iPod.

I've posted a better version of this thread in the "Using the iPod with color display" forum.
APPLE DISCUSSION ADMINS: Please delete this thread. Thanks!

Ipod smart playlist not sorting right.

I'm not sure if this is because of the iOS 7 update but before the update. I was able to sort my music by Date Added and start my music from newer music I would download. After the iOS 7 update my playlist on the ipod sorts by Date Added but starts from older music and I have to scroll all the way down to the new stuff. If this would be address in a new update that would be awesome!

Thanks. I didn't see the drop down menu to pick "unplayed Podcasts" from. It should do the same thing as the Smart Playlist I created. I did get some of the Podcasts in the Smart Playlist uploaded to my iPod, just not all of them. Now that I look at the ones that were uploaded, it appears that the ones that were uploaded were ones that I had downloaded directly from websites and not ones that were downloaded via iTunes Music Store (subscritions). So it appears that iTunes has a way of identifying them as Podcastats other than the Genre. OK it is done now and it still missed some Podcasts that were in the Smart list. It looks like it may have only picked the ones that I have subscribed to via Music Store (makes sense). This is a PAIN. Why not just let us use Smart Playlists for Podcasts?? Why can't we just use podcasts just like any other "track/song"? Just identify them by Genre.

Smart playlist not working

My smart playlists aren't doing jack squat for updating. The live-update checkbox is checked. I tried unchecking it, then going back and checking it again. No luck. I have lots of new songs on my computer that simply are not showing up. And the music isn't random at all. It's not changing. Very frustrating.
I have a smart playlist limiting size (so it fits on my ipod), checked random, and live-updating. Nothing else. But it won't update.
I'd just recreate it every time I want to sync (which I did once hoping to fix the problem), but it's used in a bunch of other playlists too, so that's a huge pain to recreate all those too.
Anyone know how to troubleshoot this? I am lost, and a bit mad at the software (trying hard not to dislike apple right now).

HappyPants wrote:
Why can't my criteria simply be limit size to 14800MB ...
So I guess checking random just selects random songs, it's not actually a criteria. So really that Should be a criteria....Random. Just that.
I Just want a certain number/size of random songs.
You have to have at least one criteria, which can be something as simple as "Bitrate Is Greater Than 1 kbps" which all your music would meet, then set it to select 14800MB selected at random. iTunes will grab 14800MB worth of songs, selected at random, but the contents won't change unless you include criteria that forces songs out of the playlist to be replaced. Otherwise, the playlist contents will never change. Make sense?
HappyPants wrote:
In my case I really don't want to use the criteria as you suggest, "last played is not in the last 'x' days" because sometimes I like to hear the same songs over and over again ... I just can't fit all my music on my ipod and wanted the nano for it's size. So the best solution for me is to just have it randomize my songs a bit every time I sync.
Then how is iTunes supposed to differentiate between the songs you like to hear over and over and other songs that it needs to select "at random"?
HappyPants wrote:
After some thought, I chose to do: last skipped is not in the last 1 day.
That should change quite frequently before putting a song back into the playlist, and it should keep the songs that I like listening to over and over.
Now you're thinking
I still would like there to just be some way of just limiting the size and having it random though.
You can do this (see my first suggestion in this post). However, what you're asking is for iTunes to somehow know what songs you want to keep on your iPod vs. the songs it is supposed to pick at random.
I would recommend you make a regular playlist (not smart) that holds the songs that you always want on your iPod, then a smart playlist that randomly selects from the rest of your music. In the smart playlist, include the criteria "playlist is not (other playlist name)" so that you don't double up on the same songs.
If you want to manage an iPod that is smaller than your library, I would recommend you spend some time reading an excellent paper on how to do this:
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=1154607&da=y

Smart Playlist: Limitation or broken iPod?

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