Itunes 9 breaking iphone smart playlists?

[Farplaner]

I updated to Itunes 9 last night, and everything was fine (the only thing I noticed was that Itunes U is now a separate category from podcasts). The smart playlists still exist in itunes, but after syncing with my iphone today...

I noticed that all my smart playlists on the iphone are gone.

I haven't had a chance to play around with the problem yet, but this is a huge bummer as I put all my podcasts in smart playlists so I can listen to them while driving (the ipod/iphone integration in the car only works with playlists).

[daihard]

I noticed that all my smart playlists on the iphone are gone.

I haven't had a chance to play around with the problem yet, but this is a huge bummer as I put all my podcasts in smart playlists so I can listen to them while driving (the ipod/iphone integration in the car only works with playlists).

Sounds like you have a Bimmer. :)

As for the problem, I still seem to have my smart playlists intact on my iPhone. Some might be broken or gone, as I have a lot of smart playlists and can't check all of them now.

[rssfed23]

Not sure if it's related, but for the life of I can't seem to keep the play list order matching in iTunes and on the phone after updating!

For example, I have the smart playlist "recently added" ordered by newest songs first, but when synced over to the phone it has them all in a completely random order!

All shuffle functions are off.

Any one have any ideas?

Thanks

[Farplaner]

Well, I found out what my problem is.

Apparently itunes 9 will not sync podcasts in any type of watchlists anymore.

It's easy to test:
- Create a smart playlist containing podcasts. Doesn't show on iphone.
- Create a smart playlist containing regular songs. Shows on iphone
- Create a regular playlist containing podcasts. Doesn't show on iphone.
- Create a regular playlist containing regular songs. Shows on iphone
- Create a regular playlist containing both regular songs and podcasts. Only the regular songs show on iphone.

WTF, Apple?

[Deadman64]

Not sure if it's related, but for the life of I can't seem to keep the play list order matching in iTunes and on the phone after updating!

For example, I have the smart playlist "recently added" ordered by newest songs first, but when synced over to the phone it has them all in a completely random order!

All shuffle functions are off.

Any one have any ideas?

Thanks

Same here! How can I fix this? I always like to listen to my newest added songs first, so this is really annoying.

[mrkgoo]

For smart playlists, UNCHECK live updating.

For podcast playlists, you need to have playlists checked in the podcast tab of your device.

[NekoFever]

I have a 'new podcasts' smart playlist that worked fine on 3.0.1. The podcasts were arranged by release date and if they go in this order in iTunes...

1
2
3
4
5

...it now does this on the iPhone...

4
1
5
3
2

With this and the lockup issue, 3.1 has been a great update so far...

[yetanotherdave]

Is this itunes 9 or 3,1? I have iTunes 9 and 3.0.1 on my phone, I still have podcasts in a smart playlist on my phone...

[Farplaner]

For smart playlists, UNCHECK live updating.

For podcast playlists, you need to have playlists checked in the podcast tab of your device.

I'll have to try unchecking live updating for smart playlists after work today. But doesn't that really defeat the point of smart playlists? So when new podcasts arrive the playlist will automatically update?

Is this itunes 9 or 3,1? I have iTunes 9 and 3.0.1 on my phone, I still have podcasts in a smart playlist on my phone...

This is with itunes 9 and 3.0.1. I wonder what's different with your version vs mine... Are you using OSX's itunes?

[mrkgoo]

I'll have to try unchecking live updating for smart playlists after work today. But doesn't that really defeat the point of smart playlists? So when new podcasts arrive the playlist will automatically update?



This is with itunes 9 and 3.0.1. I wonder what's different with your version vs mine... Are you using OSX's itunes?

Yeah, it's just a work around for now.

Interestingly, some of my smart playlists update automatically even with it unchecked, so I'm confused at watt live updating really does anyway.

REgarding podcasts, have you tried selecting playlists under the podcasts tab on your device? I understand podcasts won't sync in a playlist unless you do that.

[Deadman64]

Auto updating unchecked seems to have fixed it.

Only downside is you gotta refresh the playlists, which is kind of annoying.

But thanks for the work-around!

[Farplaner]

REgarding podcasts, have you tried selecting playlists under the podcasts tab on your device? I understand podcasts won't sync in a playlist unless you do that.

Yes, they were already checked.

Oh and one more thing. The podcasts themselves are actually syncing to the iphone. As in, I can go to the podcast section by going to "Ipod" -> "More" -> "Podcasts" and listen to them.

It's just that the podcasts playlists won't show up.

[colorblindpicas]

Similar problems here, anything (at least podcasts and audio books) in a smart play list is appearing randomly ordered. Also, it doesn't have the same number of items (fewer in the phone compared to itunes).

[Farplaner]

For smart playlists, UNCHECK live updating.

For podcast playlists, you need to have playlists checked in the podcast tab of your device.

I just tried it and neither unchecking a smart playlist, nor checked in the podcast tab for a regular playlist worked for me :(

Wonder what's wrong...

[SmackBookUser]

Under the podcast tab in itunes 9, try unchecking the Automatically include checkbox. This worked for me on my next sync. Hope this helps

[Farplaner]

Under the podcast tab in itunes 9, try unchecking the Automatically include checkbox. This worked for me on my next sync. Hope this helps

OMG This worked for me! Thanks a bunch!

This is so strange...

[sgibson]

Managed to get a workaround for my particular case. I have a smart playlist of unplayed podcasts in order of date, which was in order of whatever it felt like with 3.1/iTunes 9.

In the smart playlist I kept live updating on, but also set a "limit to" and selected by "most recently added". Set the limit to 1000 or something ludicrously high so it wouldn't impact the actual playlist.

Synced it across and it's all in the correct order again.

Hopefully this will help people sort their own out until Apple does another update, or at least give you some ideas of things to try in the limit options to get things back to where they should be.

[pooryou]

Smart Playlists on the iPhone that are supposed to be randomized are coming up with a bunch of songs from the same album, anyone else have this problem?

[dday408]

Not sure if it's related, but for the life of I can't seem to keep the play list order matching in iTunes and on the phone after updating!

For example, I have the smart playlist "recently added" ordered by newest songs first, but when synced over to the phone it has them all in a completely random order!

All shuffle functions are off.

Any one have any ideas?

Thanks


Uncheck the live updating box in each individual smart playlist and your iTunes and iPhone playlist should sync. This problem has been on and off since early 2007 and Apple apparently hasn't found the solution yet.

[owf]

I've come up with a semi-solution for the sorting problem with Smart Playlists when syncing.

The script below looks for iTunes playlists whose names end with "[source]" and copies the tracks, in the same order, to a normal playlist with the same name minus "[source]". These normal playlists sync to my iPhone with the right sort order. Non-existant destination playlists will be created.

Run this before a sync, then deselect the [source] podcasts in the Podcasts sync settings, selecting the corresponding normal playlists instead. By default, track order will be the same as in the [source] playlist, but you can override this by fiddling with the destination playlist's sort settings.

This runs on Snow Leopard (Python 2.6) and should also run on Leopard (Python 2.5), but you must install the Python appscript module.

DO NOT run this script from the iTunes script menu. This will lock up iTunes. Run it from the generic scripts directory or via a LaunchAgent.


#!/usr/bin/env python
# encoding : utf-8

import sys, os
from appscript import app, its, k, CommandError

iTunes = app('iTunes')

source_lists = [p for p in iTunes.playlists() if p.name().endswith('[source]')]

for playlist in source_lists:
target_name = playlist.name()[:-8].strip()
print "Copying tracks from '%s' to '%s'" % (playlist.name(), target_name)
dest_playlist = iTunes.playlists[target_name].get()
if not dest_playlist:
# Create playlist
print "Creating new destination playlist :", target_name
iTunes.make(new=k.user_playlist, with_properties={k.name : target_name})
dest_playlist = iTunes.playlists[target_name].get()
#iTunes.reveal(dest_playlist)
print "Clearing destination playlist :", dest_playlist.name()
for t in dest_playlist.tracks():
dest_playlist.delete(t)
print "Updating destination playlist :", dest_playlist.name()
for t in playlist.tracks():
iTunes.duplicate(t, to=dest_playlist)


Perhaps someone could come up with an AppleScript version.

[pb1300]

]Uncheck the live updating box in each individual smart playlist[/B] and your iTunes and iPhone playlist should sync. This problem has been on and off since early 2007 and Apple apparently hasn't found the solution yet.

How do you do that? Is that available in "My Top Rated," because I dont seem to see that anywhere?

I have the same issue as others...my Top Rated, which was copied from my iTunes to iPhone, is in a totally different order on the phone.

[TheCookie]

How do you do that? Is that available in "My Top Rated," because I dont seem to see that anywhere?

I have the same issue as others...my Top Rated, which was copied from my iTunes to iPhone, is in a totally different order on the phone.

I was having a similar problem. I have several smart playlists that are ranked by play count (top 25 most played, top 200 most played, top 1000 most played, etc.). They were all coming up as identical playlists on my iPhone, with the wrong songs and in a completely random order.

It seems that unchecking live updating in the smart playlist itself fixed the problem on the next sync.

But my question is: does this mean iTunes will stop updating the playlists as my play counts change?

[nagromme]

Just noticed this myself.

"Recently added' no longer works at all on my iPhone: I get a random selection of NON-recent songs. Maybe it's using the date the songs were copied to the phone, rather than the date from iTunes. A definite bug, but unchecking Live Updating was a helpful tip.

[thewolverine]

Mrkgoo,

Thanks for your post - the uncheck fixed 2 major issues for me. It fixed my smart playlists on my 3gs and it also fixed a major issue I was having with my 5th generation iPod video. I spent almost 6 hours with Apple support on this and they could not figure it out.
Essentially when I synched all my music on my iPod nano video after the synch the device would hang for about an hour. I eventually figured out that my Top Rated playlist was showing 656K songs, while I only have 1921 songs in total. So I was unable to synch that smart list and it fixed the problem, though the problem was that My Top Rated is what I like to listen to the most.
Your solution fixed that issue for me as well and my smart playlists still update in iTunes.
Appreciate your help and your post - now only if Apple support can get their act together!

Cheers mate!

T

[endlsdremr]

For smart playlists, UNCHECK live updating.

For podcast playlists, you need to have playlists checked in the podcast tab of your device.

You ROCK! I have been trying to figure out how to get my "recently added" playlist to play in the correct order for a while now. Your little uncheck live updating did the trick! thanks so much!!!!

:)

[cytoxyn]

I have tried everything in this thread and still nothing works... Any other ideas out there?

[Vlade]

I couldn't find a solution that worked either, but since my playlist doesn't change that often I just made a new normal playlist and dragged all of the songs from my smart playlist into it, and the new one synced.

[cammonro]

Unfortunately unchecking Live Update did not work for me but one thing I did notice is that some of my smart playlists we're not showing in my sync menu because I was saying "Media Kind *is not* Movie". Apparently *is not* anything doesn't work. Changing this to "Media Kind *is* Music" made my playlists appear in the sync menu. Go figure. Maybe this will help some other frustrated user out there...

[pb1300]

Anyone find a solution to this?

[Vlade]

Yeah it was fixed in the most recent iTunes update. I updated with software update and confirmed that it did fix the problem.

[VirtualRain]

Just noticed this myself.

"Recently added' no longer works at all on my iPhone: I get a random selection of NON-recent songs. Maybe it's using the date the songs were copied to the phone, rather than the date from iTunes. A definite bug, but unchecking Live Updating was a helpful tip.

Yep, same problem here... had to uncheck live updating for the playlist to appear on my iPhone even though it would copy all the songs from this list over... the playlist wouldn't show up.

[Haruchai]

(Posting something only because this was one of the top hits from Google when I ran into a similar problem.)

I created a Smart Playlist of just podcasts which would not appear on my iPhone. I tried unchecking "Live Updating" but that didn't work. What did work for me was the following:

Click on the device in the left column
Click on "Podcasts" for the device on the horizontal menu
Scroll down and check the box for including all podcasts from that playlist

Now the playlist appears on my iPhone, etc. I suspect that similar things can be done for folks that have created movie-only smart playlists and the like.