anyone else have smart playlist problem??

Hmm, now that you mention it I seem to have the same problem. It's almost as if the iPod isn't recording the play count from iTunes and instead just goes by what you've listened to on it.

 

Yes I have the same problem =(

 

I don't have a problem with 'recently played' but I do have a playlist (album specific) that doesn't seem to play on the touch at all.

 

Yeah, my Smart Playlist for my iPod nano works fine on the touch.... it uses play counts to sort. However my "Recently Added" playlist syncs like 48 songs from a random album (when it is set to be 50 songs in the list) and sorted by date... ? :S

 

Yup it's effed for me as well.. It's annoying that whenever i add songs it doesnt show up in my recently added smart playlist and doesnt show my recently played either.. Does it matter if you manually manage music or sync? I find myself having to click sync a new times sometimes in order for some changes to take effect. Eg, once i changed a video from a movie to music vid it didnt register just like that. I had to sync it several times before the touch got it into its head.. Am i alone with this?

 

I've read in other threads that there might be a problem with iPod syncing ratings and play counts (from the iPod back to the computer) on the new nano, classic and touch.

I have this happening:

I have a smart playlist that is supposed to randomly pick 10 tracks from a certain collection (old radio shows if you must know) "with a playcount <1" (thus I don't get re-runs).

It's stopped doing this now because my iPod touch isn't telling iTunes when the playcount changes from 0 to 1.

 

I have an smart playlist called 'Chart' - 200 most-played tracks in descending order. That playlist on my Touch has 200 seemingly random tracks which don't even appear in the original 'Chart' playlist.

My old Nano had no problem so why is this newer £250 iPod?? It's really very rubbish.

 

I'm guessing these are teething pains. The old ipods had a dedicated software written explicitly for their limited hardware. Now we have a slimmed down OS X, and they're writing all the code all over again for managing all this stuff as just one program under a real operating system. Hopefully in the end this means that stuff is easier to fix, and there's definitely more features and room for adding more (if Apple doesn't continue to sell us the old 'it's just an ipod' line and refuse to add new apps or allow 3rd party real apps).

 

Not-so-smart playlists

I'm having a similar problem with my iPod touch. I have a smart playlist which lists tunes by most recently added. The touch seems to begin syncing the playlist at a random point (about 800 down the list). Annoyingly the songs ARE on my iPod touch if I search for them under artist, album or song, but the playlist is screwed. I'm going back to my 2 gig Nano until this is fixed. Very disappointing.

 

The workaround...

...mentioned on this thread is not much of a solution. Yes you can show the playlist in the right order if you reverse the criteria (ie LEAST recently added when you actually require MOST recently added). However... That doesn't stop iTunes copying ALL of the LEAST recently added files to the ipod touch regardless, thus taking up valuable space. So, all-in-all, a very unsatisfying workaround for a (so-far) very unsatisfying product. C'mon Apple. Don't make me come down there.

 

Something screwy going on

I have a 2nd Gen Nano, with 1.1.3 on it. Just did a restore on it, and now I'm syncing only a single smart playlist. It is set to limit the playlist to 3GB, and not played in last 2 weeks. iTunes shows the playlist fine... 318 songs & 3GB exactly.

On the Nano though, it results in only 219 songs & 1.6GB. Deleting, recreating, different settings etc.. all result in no more than 220'ish & 1.5GB. If I create a 2nd 3GB playlist, it can also copy over... so it does get close to 4GB.

Sounds like Houston has a problem with their smart playlists!

cw

 

Thumbs Down!

I have this very same issue, which I noticed yesterday for the first time. I was looking at my top 50 on my iPhone, and the very first song on the list shouldn't even be on the device. So I was playing with it today, and the Playlist only seems to work is when it is the only playlist on my iPhone (I deleted everything and added each playlist, one at a time). All my other playlists (smart or not) seem to work fine. I will play with this some more.

Guess I should submit a bug report.

 

I haven't tried reversing it as a workaround, what I've been doing instead is just creating a new regular playlist with my top 25 songs which syncs fine since it isn't a smart playlist. I just have to keep it updated whenever my top 25 changes.

 

Apple Support Discussions Has a "Solution"

I found a work around on the Apple Support Discussions section.

Hope that will help people who are having this issue.

This seems to be working for me, so I will continue for the time being.

 

surprising fix

I quickly skimmed the posts so I'm sorry if someone already said this, but I have been having trouble with my touch's smart playlist- my "80 most recently added" playlist works great in itunes but syncs completely different songs to the playlist on my touch. I tried a bunch of things but here's what worked:

I changed the smart criteria from "most recently added" to "least recently added." The playlist on itunes now showed my oldest songs (as it should've) BUT when I synced to my ipod touch: Suddenly it showed my MOST recently added songs. Talk about a bizarre bug.

I love my touch but safari and coverflow crash and music randomly stops playing. I hope these are bug they can work out.

 

Maybe this can help

Read my post above yours:

Hope that helps, it does seem to be a known issue.

 

So can anyone confirm if the smart playlist situation has improved any with 1.1.2??

 

Media Kind causes trouble

One thing I've noticed - 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.

 

Sync Fix Update

I ran into this exact same issue with my first generation iPod touch (3.1.3)

If adding a “Media Kind *is* Music” rule does not help get your Smart Playlists syncing again, try adding a “Playlist *is* Music” rule as well.

Cheers.

 

Smart Playlist Fix

If you uncheck the 'live updating' box in the smart playlist settings for "Recently Added" it will fix the reversed order that is created when it syncs to your ipod touch or iphone

 

Smart Music Fix

Add a new rule to your smart playlists. "Playlist is Music" I found this on a discussion board, it didn't work for podcasts but it worked for all my playlists