Syncing smart playlists

zi have a 2nd gen nano and created smart playlists and genius playlists in itunes, but they don't sync to my ipod. does anyone have any suggestions?

Have same problem...Smart Playlist syncs to iPod Touch but not to nano, also doesn't display in the playlist section of the iTunes when I look to sync using selected playlists rather than entire music

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Thoughts on syncing Smart Playlists

Like many other people, I've seen odd things happen when I sync Smart Playlists. I have a theory, but first...
My most recent example occured using a playlist that pulls songs I haven't played lately:
Media Kind is Music
Limit to 100 items selected by Least Recently Played
Match only checked items
Live Updating
I sync the playlist to my Shuffle, play some songs, and sync back. Sometimes the playcount and Last Played date updates are applied to the wrong songs.
THere have been other examples. I haven't been able to reproduce the problems reliably, but searching the fourms and the Intertubes show that similar problems have been going on for years. Apple says disabling "Live Updating" helps, but that defeats my main reason to use Smart Playlists.
My theory is that things start going screwy when the Smart Playlist rules are affected by activity on the iDevice. If the playlist collects "all songs rated 3 stars", playing the songs doesn't affect membership in the list, so syncing works properly. But if the playlist picks least-recently-played songs, and you play the song, when you sync pack, the song is removed from the playlist on the computer because it doesn't belong. That breaks the other database updates in some fashion.
Does this match up with your experience? Do you only see problems with smart playlists that change based on playcount/playdate info? I suppose if you change ratings on an iPhone, playlists based on ratings could also be affected, but I mostly notice the problems with my Shuffle.
If this is the problem, there's an easy fix for Apple - anytime a device is about to sync, disable all live updating in iTunes on the computer. Since the option to disable updating already exists, this shouldn't be difficult. Maybe it's not elegant, but it'd be effective if my theory is correct.

I synced the same playlist with Live Updating turned off after playing 5-6 songs on my Shuffle. Some of the playcount/date data was updated correctly, some wasn't. Importantly (?), the wrong data is on both the computer and the Shuffle(of course, I can't see the data on the Shuffle before I plug it into the computer)
There was something in a post about using "Copy to play order" to resolve syncing problems. So I sorted the playlist on my computer by name, then "Copied to play order", then synced, then sorted and "Copied" on my shuffle. Let' see what happens...

ITunes won't sync smart playlists

So I have 8 smart playlists plus 6 normal playlists in my iTunes, it's all been working well and it's been syncing all of them until about a week ago. After I synced it, I noticed that only the normal playlists were on the ipod, not the smart ones while they are still showing in itunes, I tried re-syncing but it didn't work, I still only have normal playlists.... PLEASE HELP!

After some experimentation I have a solution that I find satisfactory for a smart playlist containing only podcasts, and not referencing any other playlist, AND still leaves the "Live Updating" checkbox selected.
What I did was...
- removed any references to other playlists in the Smart Playlist options.
- changed it to "Genre" "IS" "Podcast"
- added "Plays "Is Less Than" "1"
- Selected "Limit to" (in my case 25) "items" checkbox. (I coincidentally, also chose "by Artist" but it didn't matter.)
- Unselected the playlist, under the Podcasts tab, while the iPhone was connected...
-- Sync'ed the iPhone once without it selected.
-- reselected the Playlist under the Podcast tab of the iPhone options, and
--- re-synced with the playlist now selected again.
I have to say I am more than pleased that it not only is keeping the same order in iTunes as well as on the iPhone, but it also removes ON-THE-FLY! the podcasts as I completed listening to them - in the iPhone, without any sort of syncing enabled. I had always hoped that would work someday.
Thank you Apple.

Sync "smart playlist" without song-titles?

Is it possible to synchronize only a smart playlist without all the song-titles what are included?
A example; In i Tunes i have a very large song library on my mac. Then i have synchronized some titles, with "Check Selection" mode. Now i have a "Smart Playlist" on i-tunes, that includes only song-titles, that i haven't "rated" before. Now, is it possible to import/sync only the "Smart-Playlist" without all the song-titles that are included on Itunes?
So i want only have the smart-playlist on my ipod-touch, to hear the unrated songs, that are already synced.
Other example, i have a smart playlist that includes only the song-titles, rated from 1 till 3 stars. Now i want that smart playlist on the iPod, to hear only the songs, rated from 1 till 3 stars, i already synced on the IPod.
Problem is this..: When i sinc a smart-list like that, the memory on my IPod is prompt overloaded...
I hope you understand what i mean, and would be great to have a solution for that...
regards...

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3044
2. Deselect the option for "Live updating."
Solved.

Cannot sync Smart Playlists anymore

I have two smart playlists that don't even show up as an option to Sync on my iPhone anymore after the 9.0.2 update.
I have tried recreating the playlists multiple times and yet the result is the same.
Here is a screenshot of the problem with arrows noting which lists aren't showing up and where they should be.
http://www.natemc.com/temp/itunes-sync-bug.png

After some more testing, it appears it only won't show up when I select the option for "Playlist, is not, Don't Put on iPod" if I remove that option I can then select the playlist, but now it has gigs of songs I don't want it to have.
It appears that if I select anything other than "Music" for the playlist, the Smart Playlist will not show up as an option for sync.
This means there must be a bug in the system as this is not normal behavior.

Syncing smart playlist

I am having trouble with syncing my smart playlist to my ipod. I sync the smart playlist fine, and then when it goes to my ipod the songs on the smart playlist dissapear. I didnt have any trouble before, until I updated my ipod to the newest version.

I use smart playlists all the time. More specifically, I use a "Recently Added" playlist all the time. Within iTunes, the contents of the playlist are exactly what I expect to see. However, when browsing through the playlist on the iPod Touch, the content is wrong - some songs are there, others are missing.
Glad to see I am not the only one with this problem. Hopefully someone has a fix.
Thanks.

Syncing smart playlists with location set to "on this computer"

I have a ton of playlists with multiple creitera that after the upgrade to iOS7 just stopped working entirely. It turns out that when I added "location - on this computer" as a filter to avoid seeing everything in my icloud, that no longer applied to media synced to iOS devices.
I guess that makes sense, except the precedent was set when it worked in iOS6, and more importantly there isn't a filter setting for "on this computer and/or synced devices". There's just "on this computer" and "in the cloud".
I can't be the only one annoyed with this. Can anyone think of a filter that would work for me?

Bump? This is still driving me nuts.

ITunes Match Smart playlists refering to other playlists sync

Is it possible to sync smart playlists refering to other playlists in ITunes match?
This was not possible 1 year ago.

beans; everyone has this seeminlgy, and no one has a fix (smart lists accessing smart lists doesnt sync over Match, iTunes tells me. So best bet appears to be disabling match, canceling the Match renewal, and wait for io7...

Podcast Smart Playlist Sync - Fix

If your iPhone and iPad can't sync Smart Playlists:
I figured it out after a few hours in the One-to-One classes where they told me it couldn't be done.
1. Go to "Edit Smart Playlist".
2. Turn off "Live Updating".
3. Go to Device then Podcasts.
4. Option should show up to "Include Episodes from Playlist".
If "Live Updating" is on then the option to sync the playlist disapears from the device setup.
You just need to manually update the smart playlist every time before you sync it.

I found a potential work around. I am still testing it. Works via usb or wifi sync.
In music, make sure "Entire music library" is not selected. If you want music to sync pick the playlist you want.
In podcast, make sure "automatically include all unplayed" is not selected. You will need to pick select podcast only playlist to sync over.
I am suspecting the music sync is screwing up the smart playlist for podcast when you choose "Entire music library" or "automatically inclue all unplayed" is screwing up the music. Sometimes all my podcast playlist are removed from itunes, other times only a few of them. So by separating the sync out by their individual playlist I haven't had any problems yet, but i am still testing. There could be other unknown variables causing it to happen I haven't discovered.
But if you do find yourself with missing playlist and don't want to painstakingly re make them. Go into your <Previous iTunes Libraries> folder. There should be some previous backups of your past library to restore from.

Smart playlist not making it to iphone

i use itunes on a mac. for some reason one of my smart playlist (latest music which has the albums bought in last month) does not appear on the iphone. it's got only 220 titles. strangely enough, another smart playlist with more titles does make it to iphone...

Sadly, there are lots of bugs syncing Smart Playlists on iPhones. Sort orders are lost, sometimes they don't come over, etc.
One thing that I've found is that if I sync and immediately unplug my iPhone, content is sometimes missing. I've found that leaving my iPhone plugged in for a minute or two after sync often fixes the problem. (!!)
If your stuff still doesn't come over, some people report that adding a rule to your smart playlist that says "Playlist is music" (or whatever) helps. Other people report that adding additional rules causes problems. I don't think there's a clear consensus, but, in short, try playing around with your smart playlists, either adding that "playlist is music" rule, or, if you've already got a bunch of rules, try simplifying them if you can.
Sorry I don't have a good answer. If you want to join us who have reported the bugs to Apple, please visit:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

How do i make a smart playlist on my iphone 6 without having it synced to my pc?

I recently switched back to iphone from android and i am pretty lost in the new iOS, Where did the smart playlist go off to? like recently added, recently played, top 25 most played etc etc. I can't sync my phone to a pc because i have a couple i use and i have a bunch of amazon mp3s on it as well that i don't want to lose. I tried to make one in itunes using the file-new-smart playlist and it is grayed out. Not a fan of the new iTunes.

No. The music app on the phone does not support creating smart playlists.

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 Playlist is not syncing onto my iPod

I have a smart playlist of recently added songs on my iTunes. I just got the 3.0 software for my iPod touch and now my recently added playlist is not showing up as the songs that are on my iTunes. The songs that are supposed to be in that playlist are correct on the iTunes, but are totally different songs on my iPod after I've synced it. I've tried restarting my iPod, restoring it and I've made a new smart playlist for my new songs and it still comes up as the same set of different songs as before on my iPod. How can I fix this playlist to have to right songs in it on my iPod?

im in the same situation.. i recently switched over to the 3.1.3 version and what a mistake that was. i wish we could go back because half the things dont work anymore. like the smart playlists... it says i have them correct on both itunes and my ipod but i check it ON my ipod and its random songs...

Not all of my playlists will sync?? not smart playlists??

Hi, so i made a playlist on my itunes, it's not a smart playlist, and it wont sync to my iphone 3G. it's not just that one that wont sync its one or two other too. Also, i just bought some songs on my itunes on my computer and those songs wont sync either. anyone else having the same problem or have any advice??
Thanks
...also i think it may have something to do with the new itunes 4 update since my phone is only an iphone 3G
Message was edited by: victoriajane

We are having same problems...I updated both our phones yesterday and can't get any of our ringtones to sync back on the phones..Now this morning I have played around a bit with mine and somehow got two of my ringtones back on but cant get the others on. This is confusing, we update our phones like they tell ya and then lose things we have paid for.

Syncing smart playlists

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