iPod Playlist folder does not contain all tracks in contained smart playlists

[jtheelen]

Hi,
In iTunes 9, I have a playlist folder containing several similar smart playlists. Each smart playlist filters tracks on the same album title for instance "My Album", but different disc number (disc 1 to 6). Originally, these tracks were part of a series of CD's. So, they all share the same album title, but the disc number is different. Using the smart playlists, I try to group the tracks again as they were on the original CD's (hence, the filter on disc number). That works fine. Likewise, the playlist folder should contain all tracks contained in all smart playlists, but it doesn't. Only the content of the first smart playlist is shown. Is this a bug in iTunes or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks.

 

[jtheelen]

I'll try to clarify my problem with a fictitious example:

These are the filters:
- smart playlist 1: album = "Album A" and disc number = 1
- smart playlist 2: album = "Album A" and disc number = 2
- smart playlist 3: album = "Album B" and disc number = 1
- smart playlist 4: album = "Album B" and disc number = 2

This is the grouping in one playlist folder:

[playlist folder]

1. [smart playlist 1]
2. [smart playlist 2]
3. [smart playlist 3]
4. [smart playlist 4]

All my smart playlists show the right tracks. The playlist folder only shows the tracks from smart playlist 1 and smart playlist 3 (in stead of all tracks from all smart playlists).

If I change the disc number filter to for instance a year filter, it does work as it should. I am pretty sure this a bug.

 

[dXTC]

Have you checked the first line in the combining Smart Playlist Folder, ie. Match All Following Criteria vs. Match Any?

If you want both Smart Playlist 1 and Smart Playlist 2 (with different disc numbers) to appear together, you'll need to create another Smart Playlist that combines them together (or edit the Playlist Folder), like so:

• Match ANY of the following criteria <--- this is important! (It's a logical OR versus Match All's logical AND)
• Playlist is Smart Playlist 1
• Playlist is Smart Playlist 2
• ...
• ...

Call the playlist Smart Album 1 (or whatever the album is called overall), and put that in your Smart Playlist Folder.

When I get home to my Mac, I'll try to re-create this and see if I can duplicate the problem. I do use Smart Playlists, but I haven't fooled much with Playlist Folders yet.

 

[jtheelen]

Have you checked the first line in the combining Smart Playlist Folder, ie. Match All Following Criteria vs. Match Any?

Hi, thanks for the reply. I do not think a smart playlist folder exists. A playlist folder is just a container of any other playlist (explicit, smart or other folder). As such, it has no options to toggle or select. I have a lot of these constructs, most of them containing smart playlist filtering on year, and it always works. Those playlist folders inherit all tracks from the playlists they contain (whether they are smart or not). Only in this very particular case where I group smart playlists using a disc number filter, the playlist folder fails to inherit all tracks.

Of course I can build a smart playlist with one or several playlist filters (i.e. nest smart playlists together), but I don't want that because then the playlists I'm filtering on also exist on the highest level in iTunes (i.e. they are not hidden away inside a folder). But maybe that is the only way to work around this "bug".

Thanks anyway.

 

[jtheelen]

Just a side-remark: what a playlist folder should do, according to me, is just group the track results of the playlists it contains (i.e. let each smart playlist do its own filtering). Having this issue, I suspect the implementation to do some sort of combined filtering on the folder level and having a bug somewhere.

And a playlist folder should not just collect all tracks of contained playlists, but filter double tracks as well, as described in my other thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/796281/

All in all, a playlist folder is a very powerful feature and I believe Apple has some work to improve its capabilities.

 

[Jakezilla3]

Man, this issue was making me very upset! I am kind of a smart playlist geek and when all of my playlist folders broke I was very upset, but I think I found a solution.

Make a new folder, then drag and drop all of your playlists to it. Delete the old folder and rename the new one you created. I had to do this with all of my folders, and folders within folders.

So far this has worked for me, hopefully another iTunes update doesn't break it again

 

[salisoft]

I re-created this problem

I have experienced the same problem as jtheelen, and I do agree it seems like a bug. I found out the following:

When a playlist folder contains some smart playlist with query A, and I DUPLICATE that smart playlist and change the query ( to query B) - now the folder contains two smart playlists - the playlist folder DOESN'T SHOW the items from duplicated smart playlist with the query B. If the smart playlist with query B is created as a new smart playlist (not a duplicate), the problem doesn't occure.

 

[Cinematographer]

Thanks for sharing, salisoft. I have to remember that one.