Smart Playlist playback issue

When I go to a Smart Playlist that I've created and hit play, nothing happens. I select the playlist, go to Shuffle, and again, nothing. My Genius playlists and On The Go playlists work directly from the Playlist menu when I press play. What gives?

"To play songs from a list - Select the list title (an album title or the title of a playlist, for example) and press Play/Pause".
This is direct from the user's manual but it doesn't work for my Smart Playlists. Is there a setting I need to change? Any suggestions? Please help!

Similar Messages

Smart playlist sort order issue

I'm having an issue sorting a smart playlist. I've searched through other questions on here but can't find the identical issue.
I've created a smart playlist that contains the contents of two other smart playlists. I've tried to sort this list by 'name', by clicking on the arrow in the column heading, but the list still leaves the two playlists separately, ie. it sorts each original playlist separately, and then puts one after the other in the play order.
I have other smart playlists constucted in the same way, and have no issues with them, and I can't see what the difference is with this one!
I'm using 11.0.4.4, on a Windows 7 PC.

I am also having the same problem. Running the newest iTunes and iPhone software my smart playlists are not working correctly. My "Recently Added" is correct in iTunes, and if I look at the playlist on my iPhone info in iTunes it is correct there, but the actual playlist on my iPhone is populated entirely with audiobook files. I have tried deleting and recreating the playlist which gives the same results. I have also specified that items within the playlist should be music files only and still get the same results.
I have a playlist that's Top 50 Most Played that's also not behaving properly (ie correct in iTunes but not on my iPhone).
Any suggestions?

10.4 Smart Playlist Live Update Issue

Hi All,
Among the other challenges presented by the 10.4 series of updates (greyed out commands, disabled shortcuts that come and go for no apparent reason) the smart playlist live update function seems to be broken. I do a lot of tagging and use smart playlists to identify tracks that need particular tags. I used to be able to highlight them all, run a script and they'd all get tagged and clear out. Now it breaks down after a couple and grinds to a halt. Works fine if you turn live update off, run the script then turn it back on, but that kind of defeats the purpose right?
On the smart playlist thread, I've also encountered an issue where I can no longer edit a smart playlist: command-I doesn't work and "edit smart playlist" is greyed out in the "file" menu.
Anybody else know what the deal is, or is it just part of iTunes becoming less of a music player because it's "more than a music player?"

Thanks Leonie - issue with editing smart playlists isn't that I don't know how to do it, it's that it periodically isn't an option (i.e. command-I or file menu drop-down are greyed out & doesn't matter what or where you click). I'm running Snow Leopard 10.6.8.
Not sure how to tell what command is getting stuck, but it's definitely the interaction between the script and the live update feature because it works perfectly when live update is off (and the script is fairly simple - see below).
Thing is that it's not the smart playlists themselves that aren't working, they are all fine, issue is limited to the live update feature. I use SPs to tag particular things (ie dragging to a playlist causes it to show up in the smart playlist if it's not tagged - so I go to smart playlist & run the script to tag all of them in a batch and once they've got the tag they should disappear from the SP). Here's the script, though, slightly modified for me by the author - it's actually pretty ******* if you want to steal it. He wrote one for removing tags too (all using the grouping section):
property okflag : false
-- check if iTunes is running
tell application "Finder"
    if (get name of every process) contains "iTunes" then set okflag to true
end tell
if okflag then
    try
        tell application "iTunes"
            set selected_tracks to a reference to selection
            activate
            if selection is {} then
                display dialog "Please select songs first."
                return
            end if
            try
                display dialog "Enter group to add:" default answer ""
                set dialogInfo to result
            on error dialogError
                return
            end try
            set grouptoadd to text returned of dialogInfo
            repeat with current_track in selected_tracks
                try
                    set current_grouping to grouping of current_track
                    set group_delimiter to ", "
                    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to the group_delimiter
                    set the track_groups to every text item of current_grouping
                    if current_grouping is "" then
                        if (length of (genre of current_track as string)) is not 0 then
                            set track_groups to {}
                        end if
                    end if
                    if track_groups does not contain grouptoadd then
                        set track_groups to track_groups & grouptoadd
                    end if
                    set grouping of current_track to the track_groups as string
                on error trackErr
                    display dialog "Unable to update track \"" & name of current_track & "\"-" & trackErr
                end try
            end repeat
        end tell
        display dialog ((count of selected_tracks) as string) & " track(s) updated."
    on error myErr
        display dialog myErr
    end try
end if

1.2.1 Firmware - Smart Playlist Issue?

Hi everyone,
Those of you who owned the iPod Photo (iPod with Colour Display) a while back will remember the effort we went through when Apple introduced Podcasting via Firmware 1.2, but inadvertently screwed up the Smart Playlist feature (I.E. when updating to firmware 1.2 from 1.1 or before, smart playlists didn't automatically update any more).
Does anyone know if the 'new' 1.2.1 firmware addresses this issue or whether it just fixes general bugs?
If you can get back to me that'd be great.
Cheers,
Edd

The issue was sorted but like already stated you have to come out of the playlist to actually see the songs updated, so say you have a playlist of unplayed songs "0 play count" and your playlist only allows "0 play count" any songs which have been played in it will still be in it until you come right out of it. when you go back into the playlist its gone......
The one good thing about the new update is that the ipod will disconnect after it has updated so you don't have the Do not disconnect symbol on the ipod, so its more plug and play now

ITunes Match, iPad, and smart playlist issues.

I have one particular smart playlist, that iTunes Match correctly syncs to my Macs and my iPhone, but no matter what I try, it shows as "no songs" on my iPad. Both iDevices are running iOS 7.0.3.

Hi zentralorgan,
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
From your post I understand that you are trying to AirPlay from an iPad to multiple AirPlay outputs. This feature requires iTunes on a computer, and cannot be done on an iOS device. Since you have iTunes Match, your music should still be the same on your computer as your iPad.
Listen through multiple speakers
With AirPlay and iTunes 10 or later, you can listen to music through your computer speakers and multiple AirPlay outputs.
The maximum number of outputs is three to six. The number that works for you depends on your environment (such as building composition and local radio interference), distance to the outputs, and available network capacity relative to your other usage.
iTunes: About playing music with AirPlay - Apple Support
Take care,
Alex H.

Smart Playlist issue

I created a smart playlist which only plays songs with 4 stars or more which works fine on my laptop and on my old 4th gen ipod but after syncing to my new ipod the playlist is there but there is only 15 songs in there which appear to be ones i have purchased on itunes. Has anybody else experianced this and is there a solution?
Thanks.

It may help to add an additional rule Playlist is Music.
tt2

Smart Playlist Creation Question - Rule Parameters Issue

I want to have newly imported songs go automatically into a playlist (Recently Added), from which I can move them into a playlist of their own. I then want to be able to CLEAR the Recently Added playlist so that I can then import a SECOND group of songs which will automatically go into the Recently Added playlist, where they will be the ONLY songs there because the first group of songs will have been CLEARED.
I inadvertantly deleted my Recently Added playlist, so that is not available to me - I have to, in effect, create my own Recently Added playlist.
The problem I am having has to do with the Smart Playlist Rule Parameters needed to accomplish what I am trying to do. I have been able to set up a smart playlist that receives newly imported songs automatically. However, I seem to be unable to CLEAR the songs from the smart playlist to make way for a SECOND group of newly imported songs.
I thought I could get the job done by simply deleting the entire Smart Playlist that contained the first group of songs, and then creating a new Smart Playlist to receive the second group. You can do that - but the problem is that the minimum time you are allowed to assign is one day. This means that when the second group of songs goes into the second smart playlist, it will also "grab up" and include the FIRST group of songs, assuming that the groups of songs are all being imported on the same day. I don't want to limit myself to importing only one group of songs per 24-hour period.
(When I import groups of songs, I import them in very, very large groups, which is why I want to be able to deal with them in individual groups, rather than having to sort through the larger, general Library of tunes in order to put them into their own playlists.)
It seems to me the answer lies in being able to set up a Rules Parameter that shortens the time involved from one day to something like 15 minutes or so. I don't know how to do that, even assuming that it can be done.
Or, perhaps, someone might have another suggestion that would help me accomplish my goal here.
Any and all thoughts will be much appreciated!

ed2345 wrote:
You can use playlist membership as a criterion in a Smart Playlist.
So if the list you are moving them to is "SecondPlaylist" (or whatever you wish to call it) then add a rule to your custom-tailored Recently Added that states "Playlist" "is not" "SecondPlaylist."
Not sure I am getting this. You understand that I am IMPORTING new files into iTunes - I am not moving already imported files into a playlist.
I can create a smart playlist with a Rule of: Playlist/is not/recently added (where "recently added" is the playlist I previously used to set aside the last group of songs imported into the music library). But when I click on OK to set it up, then I have to name it. And when I give it a name ("current load," for example) and confirm the name, suddenly, "current load" is filled with the last group of imported files. Don't ask me why - but that's what happened.
Any other thoughts? Anyone?

Smart Playlist "recently added" issues

Hey, I added a new smart playlist on my ipod touch and instead of adding the most recent 50 songs i've put on my ipod, it put 50 random songs on. Pretty much all All Time Low and Goo Goo Dolls... but yea, if anyone has a fix, it'd be really nice! thanks

Of course it's possible, but you'd have to find something to keep the songs seperated - otherwise the two playlists would just contain the same songs, if you know what I mean.
Hope this helps.

Smart Playlists, Last Played, and Playcounts (and some other stuff)

Well, so here's my contribution to piling on with iTunes Match annoyances...
* Artwork doesn't show up during playback on iPhone until I tap <- button and then tap on Now Playing > button.
* Not Played in a year smart playlist shows 3x more songs than the source computer's iTunes library shows. I consider the source computer that synched its library to iCloud to be authoritative.
* Furthermore, the Not Played in a Year smart playlist on iPhone doesn't match what is on my iPad. 300 additional songs on the iPad.
* Repeated attempts to copy 4 songs up to iCloud fail, even though they should've been added. Can other devices see them? Yes, but they're grayed out because the track isn't copied into the cloud.
* Battery is getting chewed through on my iPhone 4. I haven't tracked it too closely, but it does seem like there's something consuming more power, and I can feel that the phone is warmer to the touch.
* Playcounts are not updated when I listen to songs on iOS or even Mac OS X-based devices. This is an absolute dealbreaker for me. While it's great to get song upgrades, I can't use iTunes Match as part of my "playflow" until playcounts and smartplaylists that incorporate last played criteria are fully supported.
It's just sooo close to being great, but without Smart Playlist support and support for playcounts, there's no point for me. I have to revert to no iTunes Match on my iOS devices for now.
C'mon Apple, get this stuff fixed. PLEASE!

Well, the good news is that I sent these list of problems to someone a little bit higher up at Apple and was very pleasantly surprised to get a call from one of the support guys within the iTunes store today.
We went over the smart playlists issue and I've hopefully given him enough detail to help him reproduce the problem internally. He's going to look to get that issue reported to the iOS team. Regardless, I think Apple knows there's work that needs to be done to fix some of these bugs/oddness we're all seeing with Match.

Possible bug with iTunes 11 ?? (with Smart Playlists)

Hi folks
New to Apple Support, but after upgrading to iTunes 11 earlier today (on my Mac Mini) I've discovered a potential bug / difference in the way it operates compared to earlier versions. Can someone else try something similar and see if they get the same result - I think I read somewhere that v11 is not available on Windows yet, so I cant compare what happens there
I've imported all our CD's into iTunes, and we've set up several Smart Playlists (SP). Using the Rating setting for the songs, we can break them up into groups, eg
Rating 0 = not yet processed
Rating 1 = not interested in listening to again
Rating 2 = kids songs (for our children)
Rating 3 = christmas songs
Rating 4 = songs i like, but my wife probably wouldnt
Rating 5 = songs we both like - good for background music etc
Using Home Sharing to our iPad's rocks !!
Now, onto the bug.
Using the SP that has just songs with Rating 0, I could play any song, set the Rating to whatever, and naturally once set, that disappears from the SP
In all earlier versions of iTunes, playback would continue with the next song, so I could set that Rating, etc etc. Worked really well to churn through a chunk of songs in say 15 minute blocks
With iTunes v11, playback stops as soon as I set the Rating.
How can you help ?????????? Set up a smart playlist with whatever criteria you like - make sure you have a number of songs returned and ensure Live Updating is set, have a song playing, and make that song no longer valid for that SP. Anyone doing this in earlier versions of iTunes should have the next song begin, and if this is a bug, then those using iTunes 11 will have playback stop
Sorry for the long post, but in order to determine a potential bug, you need to describe the situation and how to test it.
Thanks for reading
PS I'm on a 2010 Mac Mini with OSX v10.7.x (whatever the current release of that is) and just upgraded to iTunes 11

Soo, maybe it isnt possible bug, but the way Apple have changed iTunes when going to v11. Stooopid
Anyway, found this link about downgrading to an earlier version. I've just completed it and found one or two "errors" in the method, which I'll detail below
http://www.emacconsulting.com/apple/itunes/downgrade-itunes-11-to-itunes-10-7/
In the latter part of the instructions
11) Open your iTunes Music Folder.
If you never moved your iTunes folder it’s located here:
Your HD/Your User/Music/iTunes
Or go to the Finder type: Command + Shift + G
Paste this into the the dialog: ~/Music/iTunes
If you moved it to another hard drive, you will know where to locate your iTunes folder.
12) Open the “Previous iTunes Libraries” folder.
13) Find the most recent copy of the “iTunes Library 2012-xx-xx.itl” file.
Normally it will the last file at the bottom of the list.
14) Drag a copy of the file into the iTunes folder.
15) Delete the “iTunes Library” file.
16) Change the name of the “iTunes Library 2012-xx-xx.itl” to ”iTunes Library” with no .itl extension.
In #11, I simply went to "My HD"/Users/"My User"/Music/iTunes
Copied the latest .itl and moved it up a directory level
The old file in #15 is called "iTunes Library.itl" - which I renamed, and renamed the copied version back to "iTunes Library.itl" = though I do have extensions showing, some people may not and hence wont see the .itl
Anyway all is fixed in my world, and when I launched v10.7, it asked me if I wanted to upgrade to v11 - I said No and not to prompt me again. Playcount issue is resulved, as is changing SmartList criteria with playback continuing
Apple - please correct these bugs before releasing any new versions of iTunes... you've made a very large number of people unhappy

Multiple Artist, Genre... Separator (Semi-Colon) instead of Smart Playlists

In my opinion, one of the greatest features of ID3 tags is the ability to use semi-colons to differentiate between multiple artists, genres, albums, etc... for any given field. This feature has been available since ID3 tags for MP3's were first implemented over a decade ago.
With Windows Media Player 10, it's database was finally able to parse the information separated by semi-colons correctly. What this means is that if I have a song like "Picture" by Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock, in the ID3 tag, I type "Sheryl Crow; Kid Rock", and in WMP, if I click on Artist | Sheryl Crow, "Picture" appears. And if I click on Artist | Kid Rock, "Picture" appears. In fact, when I rip songs using WMP, it places semi-colons in numerous ID3 fields from the album description.
In iTunes, however, when I import a song with a semi-colon in an ID3 tag field, the database reads the artist as "Sheryl Crow; Kid Rock", or essentially, it treats "Sheryl Crow; Kid Rock" as a THIRD artist. The same is true if I have a song that I feel crosses two genres--like "Picture". In WMP, if I put in the Genre field "Pop; Country", when I choose Genres | Pop, "Picture" appears, and when I choose Genres | Country, "Picture" appears.
Does anyone know if a bug fix for this is in the works for iTunes? It seems Apple and iTunes have been trying to push Smart Playlists for this kind of organization, but that's the poor man's way of organizing songs and not nearly as efficient. I don't want to have to create Smart Playlist for all songs with "Sheryl Crow" in the artist field. It should be inherent based on the semi-colon.
Does anyone know if anything smarter than Smart Playlists is in the works that matches the intuitiveness of Windows Media Player's database?
Thanks,
Bill

Whereas in WMP & the ID3 spec. you would use a semi-colon to separate items you will find that iTunes & the Music store use a slash instead. However as you so rightly say iTunes takes the information and construes a new artist entity rather than two artists connected to the same track. (WMP might also respond to slash - I recall AC/DC always presenting issues so they exist as AC-DC in my library.)
If you'd like to make feature request go to: iTunes Feedback.
Working on the assumption that such ideas are unlikely to implemented any time soon however you might like to see my post on Grouping Tracks Into Albums which covers workarounds for this & other quirks.
tt2

My smart playlists are not showing up on my iPhone after turning on Music Match

I have turned on Music Match (iOS 5 GM and iTunes 10.5 r 9) and can see all the songs in my library now across the cloud. The iPhone also has copied over most (but strangely not all) of my regular playlists and my folder structure.
But all the Smart Playlists I created for my iPhone are not showing up so my music is not grouped the way I want it to be.
For example, I have a playlist that selects out all the songs with three stars or more that have not been played in the last 2 weeks (so I only hear songs I like, but have not heard lately).
So what's up??

Isn't iTunes 10.5 r 9 a beta release for developers? If that's the case then isn't there a special web site for developers to discuss issues (and they are not supposed to discuss them on the public forum)? If you're not a developer and have this through unofficial channels then I'm not sure you can expect full functionality.

IPhone 4 Fails to Start Sync Wifi, Smart Playlists Won't Sync Wifi or Wired, and Missing Artwork iTunes Screensaver

Hi all,
I recently deleted a few gigs worth of photos off my iPhone 4. Ever since I've been having trouble with a few things. All software is up to date. So far here are the things I've noticed that seem suspicious.
iPhone fails to start sync using wifi. It times out on Step 1 (starting sync) or Step 2 (backup). I've tried closing and reopening iTunes, restarting the MBP and iPhone, and deleting my iPhone backup. In some cases iTunes loses the connection to phone and won't come back. It syncs fine using a USB cable, but won't get past step 2 using wifi. I hate wires so I would prefer to do this over the air.
My smart playlists no longer sync. I've tried unchecking the boxes and selecting them again, but nothing. Duplicating an exisitng smart playlist and selecting it to sync seems to have worked for now, but I'm concerned about now being able to add my original playlist. Sounds like a larger issue to me.
My iTunes screensaver on my MBP no longer displays artwork. It says there is no artwork to display, but iTunes still has artwork in it.
I've read numerous threads about all these issues. I know there are many people out there having these problems. I just haven't found a good solution for any of them. Everything was working beautifully until I tried to clean up some old stuff on my phone. Apple is playing dumb according to the people that have contacted them.
I'm running:
OSX Lion 10.7.4
iTunes 10.6.3
iOS 5.1.1
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Just nudging this one back to the top in case anyone has some input.

Why are my Smart Playlists so completely out of sync?

I created a smart playlist on my iTunes 10.6 that populates the list with randomly selected tunes that do not contain specific genres nor were played in the last 90 days to fill 3 hours. The songs that populate the list seem to meet those criteria. However, the songs that populate the list on my iPhone look nothing like the list on iTunes and includes songs I listened to yesterday even though I synced last night and this morning.
Any suggestions?

I've seen the similar behavior thing: songs that were supposed to be excluded because of playcount rules being included anyway on my iPhone. The playlist works fine on iTunes. I believe that the fact that the songs aren't matching is by design with randomly selected playlists, as it avoids complicated syncing issues between devices. However, the fact that songs are included which shouldn't be is simply a bug.
Smart playlists have ALWAYS been brain-damaged on iPods/iPhones/iPads in my experience; lots of bugs that don't go away on even major software updates, and when they do go away they are replaced by brand new bugs, often as not worse than the old bugs. So, I wouldn't get my hopes up. I think Apple's team for dealing with smart playlists on post-PC devices consists of three brain-damaged chimpanzees, recently reduced from the old team, which consisted of four brain-damaged chimpanzees plus a lemur.
In short, smart playlist issues are getting close to celebrating their tenth birthday. Hoping that they will get fixed only leads to madness.

Smart playlists no longer update dynamically

I have several smart playlists that have a couple of rules... one based on rating and one based on whether or not it is present in a regular playlist. When I change the rating of a song so that it no longer meets the smart playlist's criteria, it remains in the list. It will not update until I sync with the PC. The other criteria, the "regular" playlist, isn't updated... and is present on the iPod as well in my iTunes library, so that's not the issue. I'm running the latest greatest version of iTunes and the iPod touch is a model PD721LL/A, version 8.2; it has over 15GB free, so space isn't a challenge either.
I suspect that there is some sequence of settings that will allow this to update dynamically, but I'm not sure what that would be or where to even attempt it.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Laura Tieri

My results differ from yours.
With iOS 4.0x, 4.1 and 4.2x my smart playlists with live updating were broken. It would start with track 1 of 5, then 2 of 4, then 3 of 3, 4 of 2, then would generally crash the iPod app. If I left the playlist and re-entered it would have removed the entries already played, but I would find that some of the entries that should have played had actually been skipped in m playlist.
With iOS 4.3, my playlists are properly working for me again. Now they play 1 of 5, 2 of 5, 3 of 5, ... If I return to the playlist while it is playing, I see that the entries that have already played are removed, and if I leave the playlist to return later, it starts over a 1 of 2, 2 of 2...
I have posted another thread of how I have my playlists defined, so perhaps that would help you. I do recall that there were some conditions that used to cause problems if used in a smart playlist.

Smart Playlist playback issue

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