Scot Hacker
Level 1 (55 points)

Q: iTunes 12, Home sharing and play counts34

Back in the days of iTunes 10 and 11, a common question around here was about getting play counts to be updated when songs were accessed via Home Sharing. But since iTunes 12, I can't find a single person on these forums having that problem.

 

Which is weird, because I  fixed it under iTunes 11 but the problem returned with iTunes 12. I've checked and unchecked that box, quit and restarted iTunes 'till I'm blue in the face, but songs played via home sharing just won't update play counts.

 

Is no one experiencing this but me? And if so, have you been able to fix it? And why does this issue dog iTunes so persistently across versions?

 

Thanks.0

Mac mini, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Jan 14, 2015 6:56 PM

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Scot Hacker

Q: iTunes 12, Home sharing and play counts34

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  • by Scot Hacker,

    Scot Hacker Scot Hacker Jan 19, 2015 6:22 PM in response to Scot Hacker
    Level 1 (55 points)
    Jan 19, 2015 6:22 PM in response to Scot Hacker

    Tried quitting, deleting all of the com.apple.itunes.* plist files, restarted. Tried the same test. No change. Baffled by this.

  • by Scot Hacker,

    Scot Hacker Scot Hacker Feb 10, 2015 11:02 PM in response to Scot Hacker
    Level 1 (55 points)
    Feb 10, 2015 11:02 PM in response to Scot Hacker

    Solved!

     

    So this turned out to be a very subtle difference between "Home Sharing" and "Music Sharing" in iTunes (I wasn't even aware there were two different ways to share!), combined with some incredibly bad UI in the prefs. How subtle is the difference? How bad is the UI? I only got this solved by filing a ticket with Apple and escalating it to a senior support rep. Together we puzzled over it for weeks, going through multiple phone calls, screen captures, trial and error, studying logs, and her exchanges with iTunes engineers.

     

    The difference is outlined here: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201779

     

    Basically, Home Sharing shares music between computers  but also lets you transfer files between those computers, while Music Sharing only lets other computers access music for playback, without the ability to transfer files.

     

    With Music Sharing, play counts on the host computer are not updated when those tracks are played on clients. With Home Sharing, they do.

     

    But here's the kicker: The iTunes "Sharing" preferences do not make any mention of  these two different techniques. When you go into sharing prefs and select "Share my library on the local network," you have enabled Music Sharing, not Home Sharing. Even if the box "Sharing updates play counts" is checked, they won't be.

     

    The only way to get play counts to be updated when clients play tracks is to turn OFF "Share my library". Then pull down File | Sharing | Enable Home Sharing.

     

    Seriously.

     

    Oh and p.s. When you use this technique, you solve one problem but create another - you lose the ability to only share certain playlists; you now must share your entire library, which can make it really slow to load the library on the client if the index is very large.