Why do my play counts reset to zero randomly?

The following is just an hypothesis: On 10/06/2012 an issue concerning metadata appeared in iTunes purchases. The description field for movies and TV shows disappeared from new purchases (it was blank). It apparently affected every iTunes user (if you made a purchase of a movie or TV show from 10/06/2012 until late October you will notice that you have no description field). Several users to include myself surmised that the imminent release of iTunes 11 might be at fault. It took several people contacting Apple all the way to Mr. Cook to resolve this issue. If you do a search for TV show or movie no description on here you'll see what I'm talking about. Coincidentally, iTunes 11 was delayed for another month. Now all of a sudden, the play counts for iTunes purchases only is acting up, coincidence? This is just speculation but you be the judge.

I just realized I too am having this same issue. And I am on a PC. Playcounts are a big deal to me and a driving force behind many of my playlists. Very upset by this. Wonder if there's any way to recover this info??

Someone suggested turning off 'show itunes purchases in the cloud' so I've done that but not sure it will help yet.

Worst part is there is no known pattern yet, so unsure when/if it happens. Hope there's a fix soon...

I can confirm this is also happening on the windows side. Seems to only be affecting purchases some of which were made years ago. The affected files are also being removed from their albums under album view if using search they won't show up there but will if I look under song view. If although on my devices there's still showing up under the correct album. Downright infuriating. Also the affected files seem to have been synced the last time I synced. Which makes me think there's some sort of corruption issue happening. Called apple was told to check download purchases for any unpurchased items. Completely useless.

It has absolutely nothing to do with 'show itunes purchases in the cloud' (mine has always been unselected and I'm having the issue). Also, I have no iOS devices thus nothing to sync.

I tried a couple of things and have gotten some interesting results. First, let me say that this is not definitive proof. I made sure everything was played at least once. Then I played selected items and shutdown the system. The first time, I just played movies. When I rebooted and checked movies, TV shows and music; only movies had additional items marked unwatched (half moon partial). I'm going to try it again but this time use only TV shows.

What do you all have for 'Share details about your library with Apple'?

It seems to me that iTunes app/server may be mishandling library and metadata. Possibly when it appends information to those files.

I have windows 7 and this is affecting me, too. Not the end of the world, but playcount is part of how I manage my smart playlists so it's really a pain.

FWIW, I don't use cloud at all. Twice in the past few days I've synced my iPhone and about 10 songs, all purchased from the iTunes store, have had their playcounts reset to zero and some of the tag info, that I had edited, reset to the original values.

I would really appreciate if this was fixed in the next updat.

I almost have a hypothesis on this but I'm not sure. I think in part it may have to do with "duplicate" songs. One I just noticed was Chickenfoot's "Different Devil EP" that had serveral live tracks, which also now appear on the new Chickenfood LV / Live album - same songs, same names, different album/track id tho.

Now - The 3 live tracks from the EP somehow just got their album title renamed to the new album, but retained their playcount and date-added fields, but there were 3 copies of those same songs sitting in iCloud waiting to be downloaded.

Man - as with everyone else, smart playlists and playcounts form the basis of a lot of my playlists, and its bugs like this that really make me think Apple's loosing it.

Love the new iTunes 11 look and feel but man, the app itself was already problematic, now its just downright destructive.

Ok now hows this for weird - I just renamed the 3 live tracks back to the original album title, and went to reset the track numbers - but when I opened song info..... iTunes did it for me.

WAT

Sorry I tried to offer an idea on it

Hope you get it fixed soon with an update

I had to throw out some of my data from testing. The problem is when I attempt to make sure that everything shows as played. I have three options:

1. Play the media item all the way through.

2. Play the media but fast forward to the end.

3. Use a script, program or editor to update play count.

The problem is that all of these append to files. That very action is what I believe is triggering the problem. Yesterday, I renamed a whole TV series that I had purchased to a nonsense name but when I reloaded, iTunes had corrected the whole series back to the correct name (something similar to what happened to you, tailos).

To explain it a little better, the problem seems to occur when the data associated with an iTunes purchase is changed. Remember playing a media item changes the data as in play count, last played, etc. To illustrate:

Last night I left iTunes open but played no media at all. Rebooted and checked for changes. Nothing had changed in my library.

A friend made a playlist that included only non-iTunes purchased media and played it several times. Rebooted and checked for changes. Nothing had changed in his library.

Another friend of mine played iTunes purchased media on an iOS device (iPhone) and then synced with his computer. Rebooted and checked for changes. Several items now showed 0 plays. Remember syncing changes your library information especially if you have 'Sync playback information across devices' checked.

These are hardly definitive scientific results but I think they show my point. I wish I could test these several times across multiple machines and see if I get the same results but I'm only one person (plus two helpful friends). These results could just be a fluke or coincidence but the common denominator seems to be any update to the data associated with any iTunes purchase.

I'm having the same problem with the latest version of iTunes and I have a Windows 7 computer. The playcount for my no.1 most played song which is an iTunes purchase went back to 0 so I restored my iTunes library file in my iTunes media folder after syncing my ipod. It restored the playcount for that song but now it seems like my "Recently Played" list doesn't get updated when I sync my ipod even though my playcounts do. I've restored my ipod several times but my Recently Played list doesn't get updated unless I manually click "Sync". I'm really worried because I'm afraid I corrupted my library by restoring it to an earlier time. Can anyone help?

Interesting, I was just thinking I'd not seen this issue for few days, then purchased a new release EP, upon it downloading I checked out my 0 plays smart play list.... HOLY F&*******K - another 1300+ songs with 0 playcounts?

Has anyone else notice it co-incide with song purchases?

Man, this is getting tiresome - sure I'm enjoying relistening to some of these albums again but NOT in this playlist, my devices ( non-iPods ) don't have enough space ;p

Please Apple - fix your ****.

Interesting. I've gone several days without the playcount resetting problem. Then iTunes downloaded a new episode of a TV show I have a season pass for. Later in the evening I noticed a song had it's playcount reset (Kings of Leon's The End; that one always gets reset). I think there may be something to the theory of a purchase/download triggering the behavior.

I can confirm that adding content from the iTunes store whether it is free or purchased is one of the causes of the problem but it is not the only cause. Some actions appear to cause more devastation to the play count than others.