Smart Playlist "My Rating" problem

I rather new to iTunes so please forgive me if this is a noob question. I just tried to create a smart playlist and my 2nd condition is "My Rating". However the 3rd field, which is where I imagine I should be able to put the number of stars, is a white box with a large black bar in it. I can't set or change the number of stars the rating should be. I can post a pic if needed. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks!
-Adam R.

Thanks for the tip, you were right.
I switched my screen refresh rate from 40Hz to 50Hz. The black bar went away and the stars showed properly. Switched the refresh rate back to 40Hz, still saw stars and no black bar.
So it appears that any tweaking of graphics options causes iTunes to shake itself out of its stupor and display stars properly.
Strange iTunes bug.
By the way, I'd never had this problem until I upgraded to iTunes 7.4.3.1 today.

Similar Messages

ITunes 6.0.1.3 smart playlist and rating problem

I noticed my iPod playlists don't update live anymore, so I checked their settings in iTunes and found that, for some reason, there are no stars listed in the smart playlist.
I deleted them all and tried to start fresh. I click File > New Smart Playlist. In the first combo box I choose "My Rating", in the second combo box I choose "is", and in the third field, I can't do anything--not even click to set a rating. It's just blank.
Does anyone have any idea what is going on?

Okay, apparently the stars are still there, I just can't see them. If I click where the 5th star should be, then it adds songs rated with 5 stars.
I do see the stars in the regular library listing. Why can't I see them in the smart playlist?
This doesn't explain why my iPod doesn't do live updating anymore. Hmm.

6.0.2: not able to make smart playlists with rating criteria=3 stars!

hi there,
installed 6.0.2 and wanted to make a smart playlist of all songs that match the criteria "rating is from 3 to 5 stars".
wasn't able to drag the first ("from") stars box to three stars with the mouse! it always snapped to 2, 4 or 5 stars! entering 3 stars is not possible!
can anybody confirm this? is it a known bug?
thx,
Stefan.
p.s.: entering one star isn't possible either!
p.p.s.: mac os x 10.4.4 (not available in the dropdown list here...;-)

well, that's nice of Apple but just for those guys who want to make a smart playlist with rating=3.
doesn't solve my initial problem to make a playlist with 3<=rating<=5.
but they say they'll update as more information comes available.
I'm quite sure we'll see iTunes 6.0.3 soon. This is not the only bug according to the postings in this discussion board.
What's going on at Apple? QuickTime 7.0.4 had critical bugs, too. And Aperture 1.0 was a huge flop, too. (And 1.0.1 is snail slow on my dual g5 2.7 GHz PowerMac...)
I guess all the money went to the hardware departments to speed up the Intel switch...
oh, but I'm off-topic. sorry!
just my $0.02.
Stefan.

Bug in iTunes 6.0.2 - Smart Playlist - music rating criteria

There's a bug in the smart playlist music rating criteria. It's impossible to select stars. if you choose one, iTunes selects two. If you want to reduce stars, you will go mad.
iTunes 6.0.2 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

This bug is known and discussed in this Forum.
Apple has published an article about it:
iTunes 6.0.2: Wrong number of rating stars when configuring Smart Playlist rule
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

Smart Playlist Song Order Problem on iPod Nano 6th G

recently i got an iPod Nano 6th G after years of using my iPod Classic 5.5G, and so far it has been a bliss actually if it wasnt for one small thing
i have a somewhat large collection of music that i have - with a few exceptions - put in one big smart playlist with the rules provided in the pic to fit my needs
on my old iPod Classic when i sync it i find it in the ipod in the same ordered that shows on my iTunes, but with my iPod Nano that is no longer the case.... even the the same playlist in my iPod have the songs in the exact order as it is in my library on iTunes, once i unblug it the play list on iPod becomes arranged alphabetically by artist and obviousely that is my problem
so if anyone could guid me to correct it or even the cause of it i'ld be very thankful

Can someone point me to a forum somewhere where I can get help with this? I'm obviously posting to the wrong place. Thanks!

Smart Playlist - My Rating unavailable

Hi
For some reason the "My Rating" option is not available to fill on my Smart Playlist.
- Uninstalled iTunes and installed but not solved.
- Up to date version
- Used Repair option.
Old Smart List with "My Rating" filled are still working fine but not able to see values or change the "My Rating" options.
Other options when creating Smart Playlist are all working fine.
Hope for some help here
Thank you

Not sure if you've gotten an answer...
The way the field works (when working properly) is you click somewhere in the field and either 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 stars will appear.
In our case, when we click in the field we are, in fact, specifying a rating even though the stars don't show up.
For example, if you click all the way to the left, you will wind up with 1 star, and the smart playlist will work the way you expect it to.
If you click all the way to the right, you will wind up with 5 stars.
After you get good at it, you can figure out where 2, 3, and 4 stars are.
My understanding is that this is a video driver issue, but I have no idea what that means or how to solve it.
I don't have this issue on my two Mac's. It only happens to me on my Windows laptop.

Smart Playlists Disappearing-

This is incredibly frustrating… Any new smart playlist that I create will appear in the iTunes 11 sidebar as you would expect. However, it will not show up in the Playlists pane (the one where you select the playlists that you want to sync to your iPhone) when I select the iPhone in the sidebar.
And, I've just noticed, that if I edit any of the Smart Playlists in the sidebar, then they will also disappear from the Playlists pane.
I deleted and recreated the Recent Podcasts SP - it disappeared from the Playlist pane. Then I edited the Recently Added and My Top Rated SPs – they disappeared, too... extremely frustrating. Am trying to go back to iTunes 10.7... good luck with that...

Right... I've done a bit more hunting... I CAN add Playlists / Smart Playlists, but the problem is, if I change 'Media Kind' to 'is Podcast', the playlist disappears. *** is going on?
This has only started happening today, and it's happening for any iPhone I connect and it's happening with iTunes 10.7 as well...

Smart playlists for file location?

I have half my music on my powerbook hd, and half on an external drive. I want to create a smart playlist of all the music on the internal drive, and one of all the music on the external.
Is this possible? Perhaps I need something else though... I want to avoid the situation of click on a song, and getting the 'not found' prompt, and only see music that is available to me at the time.
Thanks!

Chris CA wrote:
Both correctly include 2 1/2 star songs when one of their criteria is "greater than 2 stars".
Are you sure the songs are not getting includes as part of other criteria in the list?
Very. Each playlist has just two criteria (both of which must match): "Rating is greater than 2" and "Playlist is ___". In fact, I've used those two lists (which between them include essentially all of my rated music) to create a "Rated 2.5" list (which correctly contains all of my 2.5 rated songs and nothing else).
the Smart Playlist option "Rating 'is greater than'" is not mathematically correct, since it does not treat 3 1/2 as greater than 3
It is mathematically correct. You mean it does not work in adding 3 1/2 rating to the playlist.
Yes, that's what I meant, so perhaps I should rephrase: the actual behavior seen after choosing "is greater than" is not the behavior described by the mathematical inequality "A is greater than B" (since some songs with ratings that are greater than B are not included).
On a technical note, the behavior seems to be in "iTunes Library", not in "iTunes Music Library.xml"...
iTunes does not use the iTunes library.xml file. It is created by iTunes only for other applications to access the library.
Ah, thank you! That's good to know. Interestingly, when I look inside the XML file to compare one of my two "especially smart" playlists to what ought to be a perfect duplicate of it (but isn't) there /is/ one small difference in the "Smart Criteria" section (in the next-to-last line of data there, the better-behaving list has a "Bk" in a place where the worse-behaving one has an "A7"). Is there any way for an ordinary user to edit the internals of the actual iTunes Library database?
Have you looked over at dougscripts.com for something on this?
Yup. There are two or three scripts there for setting half-star ratings, but skimming through all search results for 'half-star' or '"smart playlist"' didn't turn up anything relevant.

Why don't non simplistic smart playlists work with my iTouch?

I like listening to my podcasts in the order they were released.
So I have a smart playlist that say:
genre=podcast
ignore these podcasts
include only podcasts played < 1
This smart playlist appears in the sync list but does not sync with my iTouch (2nd gen i think).
Other smart playlists like
rating >= *
do sync.
I thought this worked with my 2nd generation classic.
What gives?

Good questions, looks like the limiting number is just broken on iOS devices. For the second, you'd have to try it out. Do they update as songs are played? And if they update do they download the new songs automatically or just put the "cloud" listing in the list?

Problem with ratings-based smart playlists in iOS5.

I use ratings-based smart playlists to organize my music. For example, a typical smart playlist will include all songs from a given genre rated 3 stars or better. Playlists work perfectly on PC/iTunes and iPad (and used to work perfectly on iPhone/iPod before iOS5), but on iPhone 4S (iOS5) and iPod touch (iOS5), only the lowest-rated songs show up; higher rated songs omitted from the smart playlist. However, I also always have a playlist that has the higher ratings. So the songs are on the iPhone/iPod, but just not in all the correct playlists. Anyone have help for me? Thanks.

I'm having the same problem-- my "Smart Playlists" don't seem to update. I created a new smart playlist with a single artist, and nothing comes into it-- so if I make one just for artist=devo, for example, no tracks come through despite their being hundreds.
I also employ smart playlists on my podcasts-- so when plays=1, it disappears from the list. These are not updating, despite my making no changes to them other than upgrading to iTunes 10.
My "recently played" list DOES seem to be updating, and I don't understand why I'm seeing this despite making no changes.

Smart Playlist Problems (Since Ver 5)

I have come across a problem, which I believe started when I installed Version 5.
I have many SMART playlists set up that are really for my iPod usage. They are set to pick certain tracks that have not been heard in xxx amount of days, and usually set to a certain number of songs, or a particular amount of time.
The ones I use most often:
SLEEP MUSIC - a playlist of random songs not played in the last 5 days limited to 90 minutes. I listen to this when I go to bed.
WORK MUSIC - a playlist of 100 random songs not played in the last 5 days. I play this through my inMotion dock at work.
Previously, all the smart playlists worked fine. When the songs were played, the playlist would update on the iPod and the next time I would enter that playlist on the iPod, the tracks would be different.
It still works this way as long as I don't connect my iPod to my PC and sync with iTunes. If I do, it always resets the iPod playlists to the songs that appear in the iTunes library. I rarely use these playlists on the PC, so they almost always stay the same.
It seems like in previous versions, iPod would update the iTunes library and the smart playlists would also be updated in iTunes, so that the iPod versions of the playlists would continue to be random. But now, if the playlist is different on the iPod, it will not transfer over to iTunes. Instead, the iTunes playlist is copied back over to my iPod, and I keep getting the same playlists over and over.
This is a major annoyance, as I usually sync my iPod every day since I am constantly updating my library.
I've also noticed that when I synch my iPod, it is copying over songs that are already there, and it always seems to be copying songs I recently played in the iTunes library.
I know that if the tag info is changed, or I add album art to a track, it will be copied over to the iPod again, but I am not making any changes to these tracks, just playing them in iTunes. I don't know if this is related to the smart playlist problem or not.
I thought about unchecking LIVE UPDATE on those playlists that cause a problem, but that doesn't work, as now I'd ALWAYS have the same playlist.
So, my next thought is to use the "Only update selected playlists" option in the preferences to exclude those playlists that have this problem. If I do this, will new music I add still be copied over to my iPod?
Has anyone else encountered these problems?
FYI - I have not updated to the latest iPod update because of smart playlist problems people were having. I have version 1.1 on my 60GB photo. Would updating perhaps fix this problem?
My bottom-line thought on this is that iTunes updates the iPod, but the iPod no longer updates the iTunes library as it previously did. My reasons for thinking this are 1) The playlist problems I am having as stated above, and 2) I notice when I change the ratings on the iPod, they are not changed in iTunes. I am going to do a test and change the rating on a track on the iPod, then I will synch my iPod to see if the track is updated in iTunes, or the file is copied back to the iPod with the old rating.

Reagrding tracks being copied over again, I've seen another post in iPod Lounge where that person indicated the same thing. He stated that the play count was not being updated between the iPod and iTunes, but that the tracks were being copied over again. This sounds like a good explanation of this problem.
I have now noticed many of the tracks which I know I have played in the past show a "0" play count. Are the play counts kept in the iTunes library files (iTunes.xml and iTunes.itl)?
I always save the library files, so that when I reinstall iTunes I can just copy these 2 files back to their proper locations and I have my entire library intact - playlists and all. My music library is on a different drive.
Anyway, I KNOW I have played these tracks on the iPod, and yet they show unplayed on iTunes. This is probably another symptom of the re-copying tracks problem.

Problem with smart Playlist after Upadte to 10.6 - PLEASE UPDATE SOON, Backup not possible

Apple, Apple, Apple... (again)
Is it so difficult to let things, that are quite good, just there where they are??
After updating my iTunes, OS Lion and some other stuff 2 days ago, I have now a big problem with a smart Playlist in iTunes 10.6. Before updating all things was right.
The problem: Now, AFTER UPDATE, my Playlist ist totally empty!
Before they were over 2000 songs in it.
And because this is my major-smart-Playlist, which is established to my whole other Smart-Playlists, the other ones are also empty.
And this is not the first time Apple.
It´s good, if you - apple guys - just added something like new categories to sort of music (like "iCloud-Status" or some others).
BUT WHAT DID YOU THINK, WHEN YOU DELETED THE OPTION "VALUATION" - mh??? (I hope in english this is the word that used in Itunes - my iTunes is in German)
So I don´t mean the "lines" - I don´t know the right english word - when you see the music. There you can fade in "Album-Valuation" - new - AND "Valuation" - old.
But I mean in the options of the smart-playlists - THERE ARE ONLY "Album-Valuation"!!!!! What the heck....
EVERYONE NEEDS THE NORMAL Song-"Valuation" - and not the album (because normaly you decide by each track how good he is and not by the whole album).
You can let the Album ones in it, BUT PLEASE BRING THE NORMAL ONE BACK.
So, in my case, I tried to go back to iTunes 10.5.3 with my nice Time-Machine-Backup. So, but I couldn´t because there came a bug-message that said something like "It is not possible because OSX need the Programm".
What is that?
I also couldn´t delete the iTunes app from my app-folder.
So, and now?
I had to totally restore my volume !
What is that for a solution?!
So please think before you delete any functions, who is needed by many people.
And if you did, maybe ask some users, that uses for example smart-playlists alot, if there is a problem about some changes, you want to add.
I hope anyone from Apple read this and also answer me. Because I´m upset about that.
In every iTunes-Update I am concerned about what will be after the update.
For example in the past, there was more than one changes in iTunes with the Valuation. First, there was just whole stars to set for every song. Than, after a long time, Apple decided to give the options for also half stars. So I said to myself - hey that´s great, that I don´t have to use external apps anymore to set these. So I did this to many of my songs (and that´s many).
Than - after an Update - wow, all half stars rating are gone ! Great Apple, really great.
I was VERY upset.
So after an other update, the opportunity to give half stars are back.
I thought, my god, it is so difficult to talk with other guys, that worked before on iTunes if I am new or just to look if there was already a change in that part of the app???
So, apple guys, please don´t think that I want to attack you. But please be more carefull in the future. I hope that I don´t have to worry too much about so stuff. I really have better things to do with my time.
So, have a nice weekend.
Greetings from Germany.
Marco Blum

Hi..
Use Lion Recovery to reinstall the Mac OS X.

Smart Playlists using My Rating

I'm currently using v6.03, but this problem has happened with earlier versions as well: stars do not appear when composing a Smart Playlist using My Rating. Different Google searches, etc. have led me to experiment and discover that clicking in the stars box(es) does actually select them, even if they are invisible.
I just updated iTunes to 6.03 this morning and I noticed that the stars did appear in the Smart playlist dialog then, but now they do not.
Does anyone have a remedy for this situation?
Thanks.

It's not an iTunes problem. Update your video driver and/or DirectX to the latest versions. This usually fixes it.
While you're at it, you should go to Windows Update and install all available updates. It's amazing the number of problems this solves.

Smart playlists problem!!!

So, I've adressed this problem partly in another thread but since that one seems dead I'll start a new one. Got a new ipod touch to replace my ipod classic, and to be honest I'm very disappointed. Not only is synching MUCH slower, when I change the rating of a song on the ipod, it's immediately reset when I connect the ipod to the computer!
This means that my system of rating songs, creating playlists for certain numbers of stars is totally worthless now.
Edit:
I'm getting really angry that Apple is selling these, I can't use live update on any playlists and I can't even change the rating on my own songs, what am I paying for?!
Message was edited by: mikael.kallin

Has your ipod been set up to manually manage music?
That would stop the ratings and play counts from syncing back to itunes, if it's not set up to sync.
A bigger problem is if you can't even change a rating in itunes itself. That would most likely be due to windows permissions not letting itunes edit the iTunes Library.itl file. And could also be the reason your smart playlists aren't working properly.
In Windows Explorer, right-click > Properties on your top-level itunes media folder. Go to the security tab and give your windows userID full control and ownership of that folder, and all its child/subfolders. Restart itunes so it will see the new permission settings, and see if it starts behaving as you expect.

Has anyone found a solution to the smart playlist problem.

Hello,
After many calls to Apple regarding my smart playlists not syncing correctly I figured I'd try the forums. Since iTunes 9 (back in November) my playlists have not been syncing correctly, at all and it's not just a case of the songs being out of order, the entire playlist/s is incorrect, with songs I didn't even add to the list.
I only have 16gb to play with on my phone, my entire library is over 40gb, so I depend on smart playlists so that only selected songs (4 star rated or better) make it to my iPhone.
Other then unchecking live update, is there any other solutions that actually work? I'm way beyond frustrated with this issue and the fact that they STILL haven't fixed it.
iTunes 9.0.3
iPhone 3.1.3
Both were just updated this week, the iPhone this afternoon.
Thank you for any help!
Regards,
Eric

Don't know if my problem is same as yours..after Lion install, frozen cursor in password field when logging in after starting up, beach ball. Couple of trips to Apple store, a number of phone calls to troubleshoot with Applecare. The last fellow who helped me found a workaround, just can't log in. He said engineers have reports of others with this problem so it's not just my machine but fix would probably come in software update. Been dealing with this since first week of Lion download. Hopefully they'll fix it eventually. I can use macbook now, but don't like not being able to have a screen login via password. No plans to ever again download a new op system on a mac...had no trouble installing win7 on older dell from vista.

Smart Playlist "My Rating" problem

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for