Time constraint in Smart Playlists

All,
I'm having a problem with my smart playlists as soon as I add a time contraint to them. Basically, I would like to make sure that in certain playlist I don't have any song that is longer than 10:00 minutes. As soon as I add a constraint for that to any of my playlists, iTunes starts acting weird by placing songs into the playlists that shouldn't be there (ruled out by "genre" or "My Rating" constraint) or simply by not updating the Playlist anymore. Removing the time constraint will update my playlist correctly again. This result is reproducable.
Anyone else experienced this? Is there a workaround?
Thanks,
Heiko.

Daniel,
thanks for your response, and here's some more info:
- I've use the time contraint in multiple playlists, that have worked just fine before adding the time constraint;
- initially, after adding a time constraint (usually something like "time" "is less than" "10:00") everything seemed fine;
- only a few days later I noticed that my playlist hadn't been updated correctly. For example, one of my playlists consists of songs rated 4 and I limit to 50 songs by least recently played; with over 900 songs rated 4, after a song was played it should disappear from that playlist for a while but some songs didn't; also, sometimes I would see less than 50 songs in that playlist;
- after removing the time constraint the playlist updated correctly again
I know that the fact this only appears after a few days (or that I've only noticed it a few days later) makes it pretty tough to narrow down but that's all I've got so far.
Thanks again,
Heiko.

Similar Messages

Is there a way to create a smart playlist that lists my top 25 plays from a specific time period (i.e. - top plays from the last 90 days)?

Is it possible to create an itunes smart playlist that lists my top 25 most played songs in a specific time period (i.e. - the last 90 days)? It seems that any "most played" list I create counts every spin a track has had in it's history of being in my library.

The challenge is is not to determine which of the tracks that have been played in the last X days has been played most since the beginning of time, but which have been played most in the last X days. iTunes can do the first one but it simply doesn't have the power to do the second.
tt2

Can't delete more than 5 podcasts at a time via Smart Playlists

Can't delete more than 5 podcasts at a time via Smart Playlists, using the Shift+Delete keys to force deleting the source podcast.
Becomes VERY tedious to get rid of old podcasts with certain "smart playlist" filters.
Advice? Bug?

I should add that I face the same problem with Safari and Google Chrome.

Smart Playlists play 1 song at a time

Ever since updating to iTunes 7, my smart playlists play 1 song at a time. this is not only annoying, but problematic. I travel a long distance to work and have to constantly press play. Is this just an effect of the new software or is there a new option that needs to be checked to get this to work?
iBook G3 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Yes - all are checked. Here's my prob in detail:
- I have a smart playlist which includes all unplayed podcasts
- Before iTunes 7.0 (and I just rec'd the first update - no change), my playlist would continue to play all podcasts until I stopped it.
- After iTunes 7.0, it will only play 1 at a time, then return to the main iPod screen.

ITunes (11 I think) in smart playlists and folders won't apply the "Last Played" search criteria in real time. Please fix!!!

The major iTunes recent makeover, generally *****.
It's ugly to look at; it's grey and blue-grey and more grey. god, how drab can you get. You know how in the Finder we can assign colors to files, folders & applications. It would be fantastic to be able to do that to playlists and the folders of playlists within iTunes. Please add some color! And/Or let us choose the color format for our personal copy of iTunes, like some browsers do.
But more importantly I have some rather sophisticated smart playlists; many of which source other (smart) playlists & folders of playlists in my collection. With this current iTunes makeover (iTunes version 11 I think), they screwed something up. None of my smart playlists will apply in real time the "Last Played" search criteria. This is very annoying. Please, please fix it.
And how about the ability to duplicate a playlist, to make new playlist. Not to have two of the same playlists, but so the second one can then be edited to something similar to the first (as opposed to having to build a new similar sophisticated playlist from scratch). This would save a lot of time in some cases.

The major iTunes recent makeover, generally *****.
It's ugly to look at; it's grey and blue-grey and more grey. god, how drab can you get. You know how in the Finder we can assign colors to files, folders & applications. It would be fantastic to be able to do that to playlists and the folders of playlists within iTunes. Please add some color! And/Or let us choose the color format for our personal copy of iTunes, like some browsers do.
But more importantly I have some rather sophisticated smart playlists; many of which source other (smart) playlists & folders of playlists in my collection. With this current iTunes makeover (iTunes version 11 I think), they screwed something up. None of my smart playlists will apply in real time the "Last Played" search criteria. This is very annoying. Please, please fix it.
And how about the ability to duplicate a playlist, to make new playlist. Not to have two of the same playlists, but so the second one can then be edited to something similar to the first (as opposed to having to build a new similar sophisticated playlist from scratch). This would save a lot of time in some cases.

Smart playlists and last played time

If I have a smart playlist, I noticed the last played time of an item does not update if I have launched and played the item from the main area it appears in (like podcasts).
Any solution for this?
Thanks.

Normally the Last Played time updates when the song reaches the end. That should be true no matter where it is launched from. Are you seeing something different?

My "unrated songs" smart playlist plays the same song multiple times

I recently started using iTunes match, and was excited to have my smart playlist that contains songs I haven't rated yet sync from my MBP to my iPhone 4S. While I'm playing that playlist, I rate each song as I listen to it, but after it ends, it's replaying it. I have to hit skip sometimes 4 or 5 times before it will go to a new song in the playlist. Any ideas about what's causing this or how to fix it? Thanks!

Hello there, greenstreetm.
The following Knowledge Base article provides some practical steps to use when troubleshooting an application stops responding:
iOS: Not responding or does not turn on
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts3281
If a single application is not responding or stops responding when it opens, you can force it to close.
If the device is unresponsive or if certain controls aren't working as expected, restart your device.
If the device remains unresponsive or does not turn on (or power on), reset your device.
If there is no video or if the screen remains black, verify that the device has enough charge to turn on:
If you are using an iPad, ensure that it's connected to the USB Power Adapter supplied with the device.
Let it charge for at least twenty minutes, then see if it starts normally.
If there is no image on the screen, press the Sleep/Wake button to attempt to wake the device.
If the screen displays a red battery icon, continue charging the device until the battery is fully charged. Learn more about charging iPhone and iPod touch, or iPad.
If the above steps do not resolve the issue, or the if the screen remains black or shows a persistent Apple logo, try restoring with iTunes:
Connect the device to your computer and open iTunes.
If the device appears in iTunes, select and click Restore on the Summary pane. Learn more aboutrestoring iOS software.
If the device doesn't appear in iTunes, try to force the device into recovery mode, and then restore it.
If the above steps do not resolve the issue, contact Apple.
Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.
Cheers,
Pedro.

Smart playlist based on play counts within specific time period?

I have tooled all around with the smart playlist options, and this is not a possibility, based on the options iTunes gives you. So I'd like to know if there is a posibility that a script can be written for something like this.
What I want is to be able to create a smart playlist that generates a list of songs that I played a lot during a certain time. For example, if I want to listen to a collection of songs that I had been listening to a lot back in October, I would want an option to do something like this.....
Plays (from [10/01/13] to [10/31/13]) is: (greater than) [12]
Meaning I played it more than 12 times in October alone. Could've played it before that, could've played it after that, but I only want the 13+ October plays to be considered.
Using the options "plays" and "last played" isn't going to work, because that's just gonna eliminate any song that I played again after that time period.
So can a script be written for something like what I'm looking for?
I don't know if it's a posibility because that would mean that iTunes would have to log every single play on a song, and I don't think it does that. I think it erases its memory of the previous play date each time the song is played again.

The last iPod update I had is at least 3 month ago (iPod click wheel, system version 3.1). I am pretty sure that the live update at least those based on play count still did work after that. After updating to iTunes 5 it definitely was gone. I don't know if it is iTunes 5, but this is when I realized it and I did not install anything else for my iPod the last couple of months.
I am pretty sure that it worked before, because I used to listen to audio books that consist of 5 minutes track. The live update helped to avoid listening to the same track twice. I would have recognized the missing live update earlier otherwise.

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

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.

How can I stabilise large transfers of data & retain full smart playlists?

Hi,
I hope somebody can help. Now that I have more than 20,000 songs in my iTunes, all of which I want to sync, my ipod classic 160gb goes into the 'infinite reset loop', or, when occasionally appearing to sync correctly, ends up with 0 songs, 0 video, etc. on the iPod.
This is despite supposedly having some 22GB of unused space.
I assumed it was by 2-and-a-half-year-old iPod succumbing to old age and bought a replacement, but the problem occurs on the new machine too.
I have tried various solutions from the Discussion forum, e.g.:
1) procedures for checking for hard-drive errors
2) restoring to factory settings and then re-syncing
3) I found one helpful tip for creating a new smart playlist to introduce the files in stages, which is supposed stabilise the transfer of large amounts of data. While this was helpful, and appeared to stabilise the data, I was left without all my smart playlists (except the one I'd created for this exercise). Transferring back to Syncing the entire library, so as to regain all my smart playlists, merely made the iPod unstable again.
I really want to be able to access my (extensive) smart playlists: I'm presuming it's the very amount of these that is contributing to the problem. Can anyone suggest a solution?
Thanks!

jcannon wrote:
I am using my notebook whch only has 2GB RAm... I might need to try the workstation PC which has 8GB..
I did read all the data using the read from text file vi and displayed it all in a strinbg indicator (reading in x number of bytes/lines at a time)... How can I no plot this text/string data?
8GB won't really help you unless you also use LabVIEW 64bit. 2GB should be OK.
To graph it, you need to decimate it as shown in the link I gave you earlier. Most likely, your monitor has only a few thousand pixels across, so it is not worth to display more points than that. It won't look any different if done right!
Can you show us your code? Can you attach a small sample file that has the same structure, just with less data?
LabVIEW Champion . Do more with less code and in less time .

Stuck on empty smart playlist

In iPod app. Selected a smart playlist which happens to be empty. Now the Playlists panel is stuck on the (empty) list view, and I cant get back to the Playlists list view.
Guessing it's a bug? Anyone else seen it? Any fix? Thanks.

i've found out what was causing the trouble in my case
on a first detect winamp ipod plugin (the one that manages ipod in winamp media library) requests the ipod model and on ANY answer you get this bug when all the playcount data on ipod is erased every time it's plugged to pc. so i had to uninstall the plugin and now everything just works fine for me. you may try it as well

The 10.4 upgrade smart playlist editing has removed the ellipse as the 3rd button option along side the adding or removing a parameter. Why? And can we get it back?

I just did the iTunes update to 10.4 (80) from 10.3 on a MacPro OS X 10.6.8 . I am extremely nervous and saddened by a subtle change to the smart playlist editing features. I have 178.26gb of music, and a very extensive array of playlists and smart playlists taking full advantage of all the wonderful features and complexity someone has taken the time to develop. I have taken years of time developing my library, and this one little change will set me back substantially. The change? Removing the ellipse as the 3rd button option along side the adding or removing a parameter. The button allowed one to create levels or groups of parameters within the dialogue window that could act independently within one smart playlist. For example, songs from artist "A" needs at least 2 stars to be included, while songs from artist "B" need three stars, and they both can be in the same smart playlist which has its first level of complexity. I have lists that go dozens of layers beyond. And dozens more that cross reference. Is there any way we can get the hierarchy back, ie. Reintroduce the ellipse button? Or is there something new I do not know about? Thanks!

I would like to second this.
This subtle yet life-changing removal is a total loss for advanced users that (used to) take full advantage of "logical and hierarchical" playlists. It tremendously impairs the "smartness" of the feature, effectively removing the possibility of mixing "and" & "if" parameters—which was the real beauty of the whole concept of "smart playlists" à la iTunes.
Here's a simple example. I would like to create a playlist combining two genres (rock and electronic) with only songs that have a rating higher than 3. I cannot do that anymore. I need to create two playlists:
a first playlist (A) that displays [Rock] OR [Electronic] (note that this playlist will never be played, it's an intermediary step required for B)
then a second playlist (B) that displays [songs from playlist "A"] AND [with a rating higher than 3].
It's a pain. And it clutters up browsing lists on my iPad/iPhone a lot.
Smart playlists should get the ellipse button back!
Moreover, the possibility of creating / editing smart playlists on iOS via a nice menu would be just… awesome. I would have thought Apple was going in that "smart" direction with iTunes. In hoping it's just a delay… until iOS 5 maybe?

IPod touch / iPhone: Smart Playlists empty / missing after 3.1.3 Update

Dear all,
the following problem is very persistent and it happened to me and a friend of mine (iPod touch / iPhone), in both cases, smart playlists created in iTunes (Mac), latest version, are home to several tracks. These tracks are being transferred to the iPod/iPhone - but the playlist doesn't show up or is shown as empty (both cases happened). The tracks are on the iPod/iPhone if you select them manually.
Re-Creating the playlists helped, but this is not the solution as the problem pops up with other playlists after having done that (however, the re-created playlists work).
The iPods/iPhones have been reset, freshly installed etc., music has been taken off completely from them - the problem remains / comes back.
It seems as if 3.1.3 has a problem with smart playlists and dubious one at that. Annoying at the very same time.
I'm a bit disappointed about having wasted several hours of my life on this problem, that is not what I expect from Apple. :/
Any permanent solutions out there?
Alex.

"Some sort" of solution.
So after having dabbled with Apple's attempt for a solution, I seem to have found one that seems(...) to work for me when it comes to audio books:
- create a new smart playlist
- filter the current cd "Terry Pratchett (Disc 2))
- counter is 0
and(!)
add:
maximum of X hours, sorted by NAME... that actually did the trick.
Of course, you need one more thing: you have to add the track's name to the name of the audio track... (see Doug's apple scripts for that script).
Honestly... I'm a bit disappointed that I had to become smarter than Apple. Don't you want to give me a job, guys?

Smart playlists won't play on video ipod after upgrade to itunes version 7

Upgraded to ITunes version 7 on Windows XP using Video Ipod with firmware level 1.2. Resynced Ipod after Itunes upgrade. Now when I hit ipod's play button on a smart playlist, nothing happens. If I hit play button from itunes, no problems...
Is this a known issue with a solution? I was unable to find a solution in the forum. Thank you for any assistance.
ThinkPat A31p Windows XP
ThinkPat A31p Windows XP

This problem only occurs when podcasts are included in the playlist. Full restoration of IPOD did not resolve problem.
Contacted Apple support after a 45-minutes hold time; the support staff were not helpful. Won't invest in a support agreement with Apple going forward...

Time constraint in Smart Playlists

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for