Why does playlist on iPod keep repeating and repeating even though play count rule is 1

Question

Hello, everyone!
I have a smart playlist of about 100 songs.  The play count rule is set to play songs with a play count of less than 1.  A few days ago, I reset all of the songs play count to 0.  If you ask me, the way I have it set up, when the iPod is playing with my headphones on, the iPod should automatically update each songs play count to 1 after each song plays.  After I have listened to all 100 songs, the playlist on the iPod should be empty.  The reason is is because since each song was updated from their play count of 0 to 1 after each one played the play count rule in the playlist should show no songs in the playlist.  Like I said before, the rule says to play any songs with a play count of less than 1.  Since all of the play count of the 100 songs are now 1 and not less than 1, the playlist should be empty.
The problem is, when I'm listening to my iPod and the 100 songs have played, the playlist is not empty.  It just keeps repeating songs and it will never stop.  When I go to iTunes, the songs are randomly with play counts of 3 or 2 or 1 or however many times they have been repeated.
Does anyone know why this is?

Answer 1

The reason the songs don't delete themselves after playing from the playlist on the iPod is because your iPod is not smart enough to do that. It's only when you re-sync your iPod to your iTunes library does the smart playlist in your iTunes library delete the played songs. Then the playlist on your iPod will adjust to the number left unplayed in that playlist.
So as long as you don't sync back to your library the number of songs in that playlist will never reduce to zero.
CDJunkie