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.

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Smart Playlists no longer updated with iOS 4.3 on iPhone 4

I've run into an issue with the latest iOS 4.3 update: my smart playlists are no longer dynamically being updated on my iPhone 4.
All of my main playlists are smart: they exclude songs that I've played in the past week. Earlier today when I'd play a song and it went to the next one, it'd immediately remove the song from the playlist (so I was always on track 1 of XXX). With 4.3, this is no longer happening and the smart playlist only dynamically updates when I sync my phone with my computer. This is annoying because it means that I can end up hearing the same song again if I switch playlists.
Anyone else run into this? Any fixes? I tried rebooting my phone to no avail.

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's not updating dynamically

Hi,
There seems to be a little glitch in the smart playlists (SPL) on my touch 2G. I used to manually manage the music on my device and I noticed no issue with the SPL's being dynamic. However I started syncing the music recently and I observed that the SPLs wouldn't update dynamically on the device.
For example, I have a SPL called Unrated that contains random songs that are not rated by me yet. When I rate them on the device, I expect them to disappear from the Unrated SPL, which is not happening (used to happen when i was manually managing music).
Am I missing something? Please help!
Thanks - iDeer

Dynamic update of smart playlists when playing music untethered on an iPod touch 2G set to manually manage music is broken with the latest iPhone 3.0 Software Update for iPod touch. Here we go again on this issue. It seems to be broken or purposefully disabled on every other update for the iPod.
On a side note, I noticed that my iPod now occasionally displays a wait screen when opening Music. I found this happens when I alter my playlists in iTunes.app, then disconnect the iPod for a session of untethered listening. Perhaps the iPod is actually building the smart playlists then, perhaps not, perhaps a smart developer will take advantage of this to trigger the smart playlist updating.

Smart playlists are not updating since the upgrade

4 days ago I upgraded to the new version of iTunes. Now my smart playlists have stopped updating and when I try to add new ones they are completely empty. These are vital to my work and contain information it would take a long time every single day to replicate and check. Please help.

Perhaps it would help if you set out exactly what you have in your "Edit Rules" box and also what you are trying to achieve.

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.

Manually and quickly updating smart playlists with 'Live Updating' off?

Hi,
I have a quite large music library (13,000 songs) and use a multitude of nested smart playlists that change often because I don't want to listen to the same song every day and I want to listen to good songs more often than bad songs. I'm also splitting up by genre, because not all my friends appreciate all of my musical tastes, and I myself am not always in the mood for every genre.
The consequence of this is that from time to time, iTunes stutters when playing a new song, presumably because it's updating all the smart playlists when the previous song ended.
Now, I had hoped that turning 'Live Updating' off would cause iTunes to update the smart playlists at startup instead of updating continuously. However, it turns out that though the performance improved dramatically, turning off 'Live Updating' caused the smart playlists to never update. Obviously I don't want that, since that means all my smart playlists are static.
Is there a way to have both good performance and easy updating of the playlists? There are a bit too many playlists to manually update very day by forcing iTunes to update the playlist.
An 'Update all smart playlists now' button or a 'Update all smart playlists at startup' feature would be nice...
Any hints, tips, help, suggestions?
Thank you so much.
Greetings,
Tijl Kindt
Athlon64 3800+ 2GB RAM Windows XP iPod Nano 4GB Black

Using the SDK, you (well, I) would do something like this:
1. Get a list of all the playlists in the iTunes Library.
2. For each playlist, test if playlist is a Smart playlist (Playlist->Smart() returns a boolean)
2a. If it is a smart playlist, select it by setting a property value for the BrowserWindow object (basically BrowserWindow->SelectedPlaylist(playlist object)) (for example perl code, see http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.perl.misc/browse_thread/thread/1248563d 743795d8/be1a88fc6eeab0e4?lnk=gst&q=itunesperlselectedplaylist&rnum=1#be1a88fc6eeab0e4)
2b. Using keystrokes (Alt-F,G), select "File..Get Info". Then keystroke Alt-U to toggle live updating, then Enter to click OK.
2c. Repeat above, which should toggle live updating off again. (unfortunately there is no way to be sure whether the starting state was off or on -- I'm assuming it will always be off)

Smart Albums don't update dynamically

Smart Albums don't update dynamically. I have to open each Smart Album individually for it to update.

Be sure to send a bug report to Apple via http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html. I've experienced the same problem. The albums have updated sometimes when I go to another album or event and then back to it but not consistently.
OT

How do you update smart playlists with live update turned off?

If I create a smart playlist in itunes and deselect live updating then how exactly does the smart playlist load up?
The reason I ask is that started setting up Smart Playlists for all of the artists on my computer and they're all set to live update which is consequently slowing down my itunes. I realize that I may not necessarily need that. My question is though...how exactly would I go about manually updating a smart playlist that has live updating turned off?

Well, the problem is that I have smart playlists for every artist in my library (which is literally hundreds). With every live update turned on, every time I edit tags for a new single or something it'll scan all the smart playlists for matches. The reason I'd like to have smart playlists instead of regular playlists is that I tend to add a lot of singles, and, especially in the hip hop genre, they tend to have a lot of guest appearances so I'd like the smart playlists to do tehir job.....I'd just prefer to not have it set to live update so I can avoid delays during tagging.
Apparently this is a known side efffect of having many smart playlists in your itunes. I realize my way of working with them might be slightly unconventional in comparison to how they are typically used but it's great for me. If I could leave live update on without any performance degregation then I would but it seems I have to pick.
I read somewhere that if you shut down itunes and restart that it'll refresh all your smart playlists (if live update is turned off).

Smart playlists no longer live update

I wrote in about this once before but got no solution. I use a smart playlist on my ipod touch to give me only podcasts with less than 1 play, so that I only get the new ones. When I got the ipod for Christmas, and until about late January it was working fine. All of the sudden it stopped live updating, and now only does it when I sync. This really ***** because I listen to about 25 podcasts a week, so it can be very confusing as to which I've heard and which I haven't. Is there any solution for this? I've tried using podcast = true and genre = podcast, but neither will smart update. As I said it worked fine previously, so it's not that podcast = true is completely broken, as I've heard it said elsewhere.
Any help much appreciated.

Sorry about that, I must have misunderstood.
This is the situation in detail.
When it worked:
A podcast would download. It would instantly appear in my smart playlist labeled "podcasts".
The playlist has the rules "podcast = true" and "playcount = less than 1".
I would sync my ipod.
I unplug the ipod.
When I listened to a podcast on my ipod completely (until the very end), the podcast would be removed from the smart playlist immediately, even though my ipod wasn't plugged in.
Now:
A podcast downloads. It appears instantly in my smart playlist.
I sync my ipod, and it appears in the smart playlist there too.
I unplug the ipod.
I listen to a podcast (every second of it) through the playlist. When the podcast is over, that podcast remains in my playlist, despite having a playcount greater than 1.
When I listen to podcasts on my computer directly via the smart playlist, it IS live updated. That is to say that when the podcast ends it is immediately removed from the playlist. That's what I want to happen on the ipod when it isn't connected to my computer, just like it used to.

Smart Playlists no longer working on my 4G iPod

I have a 20GB 4G Mono iPod that is running the latest firmware version (3.1.1) and I have several Smart Playlists I use frequently with it.
Before I upgraded to iTunes 7 last week these playlists would dynamically update on the iPod itself without the need for me to synchronize with iTunes (this was also a bug introduced in firmware 3.1 and corrected in 3.1.1). Now the "smart" playlists on the iPod act just like static playlists: if I play a song that is supposed to be removed from the playlist once the song finishes, it doesn't until I sync with iTunes.
Is anybody else experiencing this issue?
I have tried restoring my iPod just in case.

Well, 7.0.1 doesn't fix this for me, but downgrading to 6.0.5 did. I followed the first four steps here:
http://macslash.org/comments.pl?sid=6335&cid=112858
Then, while keeping the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file in ~/Music/iTunes, I made a new "iTunes Library" file (instructions at the bottom of this link):
http://www.mani.de/en/software/macosx/ivolume/faq.html
Then installed 6.0.5 and dragged the xml file onto the new program file to import. The new groupings (movies, podcasts, etc.) turn into playlists at the bottom, but can be easily deleted.
This will allow downgrade while keeping play count, ratings, etc. intact; I did lose artwork for all the songs for which I had downloaded the art from iTunes store, and iTunes is recopying those songs to the iPod, but I'd rather have the playlists update on the iPod than have the artwork.
iBook G4 1 MHz Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Smart playlists are not updating properly

on itunes 12 i've noted that smart playlists are no longer updating with new podcasts properly. Only only podcasts are added to the smart playlist. Please fix this.

With more testing, it turns out to be just Wow Hits 2012. All my other iTunes-Store-purchased music is updating properly.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/wow-hits-2012/id462986937

Live Smart Playlists still not updating?

One of the things I had my fingers crossed for more than anything else with the update to iOS5 was that Apple would have finally remembered that the iPod (and by extension the iPhone) started life as a music player and that they would have fixed the bug with smart playlists not updating on the device, so meaning you have to rely on syncing with iTunes on the computer to get it to update. But unfortunately my smart playlists still don't seem to be working. Has anybody found a work around to this?

Every time they update their iOS or iTunes, I complain about it, and each time I (falsely) believe that they will do something about it!
Apparently not with the latest updates (iTunes 10.6 and iOS5.1).
One work-around is to uncheck Live Updating for the smart playlists you want to sync, and recheck it when you no longer want to sync it, or to update it between syncs.
Hope this helps

Smart Playlists Won't Update

Since I updated to iTunes 6.0.3 I can no longer change the Date Added section of my Smart Playlists. So I tried creating a new Smart Playlist and it won't let me save a Date Range - no matter what I enter, it beeps when I close it and then when I check again the Date Added has reverted to Date Added is <today's date>.
Are other people having this problem? And if so, how do I get around it? Is it a bug in 6.0.3? Or is it just me?
(I know this sounds like a minor problem but I organize a lot of my music this way...)
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

No problem on my system.
I suppose the format has to be the same as you have set in System Preferences>International>Formats.
Can you check that?
Hope this helps.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

Smart playlist doesn't update

The latest iTunes version will no longer allow smart playlist to update using playcounts and "last played" fields. Bring back the prior version....it worked.

See this thread.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread/4554632?tstart=60

Non-Live Smart Playlists harder to update in iTunes 8

Hi,
I have a smart playlist which shows me songs I have listened to a certain number of times, but which I have not yet rated. I have "Live Updating" disabled on this playlist, as I want to be able to rate songs as I play them without them dynamically disappearing from the playlist when I rate them.
Periodically, I used to update the playlist by opening the "Edit Smart Playlist" window, and then just selecting "OK".
Since iTunes 8 however, it seems that I have to turn on "Live Updating", and then turn it off again (a task which takes 6 steps {Edit, Turn On Live updating, OK, Edit, Turn Off Live Updating, OK} instead of the previous 2 {Edit, OK}).
Does anyone know if this was deliberate, or know the reasoning behind this change?
Many thanks,
bigmealy
Message was edited by: bigmealy

I want to use Smart Playlists to backup my non-smart playlists so if I accidently delete my playlist, a copy will be preserved in the corresponding shadow Smart Playlist, but the results are disappointing. The Smart Playlist has just one line: "Playlist is <name of playlist>" and I initially turn on Live Updating to make a copy of the playlist that I want to backup. I exit the Smart Playlist, then go back in and turn-off Live Updating. The Smart Playlist should then preserve a copy of the playlist that I want protected. So, I can add or delete from the regular playlist or even delete the playlist and the mirrored copy in Smart Playlist won't be effected because Live Updating isn't turned on. This works as expected until sometime in the near future (maybe a day later) when the Smart Playlist will inexplicably become a mirror of the playlist even though Live Updating is off!! It doesn't occur when iTunes is exited and restarted and because the playlists are apparently included in the iTunes library database, I can't see a date-time stamp to see when Smart Playlist was last written to as a clue to when it got changed. This is most definitely a bug.

Smart playlists no longer update dynamically

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