Playlists Out of Order

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I just posted this at iLounge, figured I'd share what I discovered.

It seems that iTunes will not refresh the playlist folder list properly within the iPod after a re-sync.

For example, let's say you have a playlist folder for every letter of the alphabet. You sync one playlist in the folders for the letters A, C, E and M. The iPod will display them in that order.

Now lets say that you decide to put a playlist in that's in folder F. After you sync, you'll find that the iPod has not placed the F folder between E and M, it has placed it after M.

This behavior seems to apply to playlist within folder. 1st sync a playlist that begins with the letter W in a folder. Eject, then reconnect, and sync a playlist that begins with the letter P from the same folder. The iPod will now display the playlist that begins with the letter P after the one that begins with the letter W.

This behavior does not seems to apply to playlist outside of folders. Those are synced properly and in alphabetical order.

The only way around this seems to be to unselect the affected folders and playlist in the iPod sync page, sync to wipe, then re-sync everything to make sure it gets loaded in the proper order the first time.

It seems to me the playlists in playlist folders are in the order they were created., not alphabetical. Example, I have an dramatized audio NIV Bible where each file has a .m4b (audiobook) extension. With 1189 chapter files it really cluttered up the Music -> Audiobooks menu. So, enabled Playlists in the main menu and crated a playlist folder called Bible.

In the folder I created a playlist for every book of the Bible. The book names are in the form of 01 Genesis, 02 Exodus, ... 66 Revelations so they will be in the proper order. Well, I accidentally skipped "17 Ester". So I had to go back and created it. In iTunes it is properly sorted. But in the iPod Classic, "17 Ester" is at the bottom of the list after "66 Revelations". So, IMO, this is a bug or at least an oversight to not sort playlists in playlist folders alphabetically.

When I get home tonight, I am going to create a new playlist folder in iTunes and the n drag the playlists into the new folder. Then, MAYBE, the list will appear properly sorted ont he iPod.

Enjoy life,
Steven

I had the very same problem until I went to this website(link below) and read what it said. I realized I had just created "playlists" from the icons at the bottom of the iTunes list column instead of SMART playlists. Those are arranged randomly. Read the instructions on this link:

http://www.apple.com/lae/itunes/smartplaylists.html

If you'll create "SMART playlists" as it describes, you can sort in any manner you choose. Unendingly so. I spent half a day and have them arranged EXACTLY as I want.

ks

In this thread, are we referring to the sorting of songs in a playlist or about the sorting of the playlists themselves in a playlist folder? My post above refers to the latter.

Thanks,
Steven

It looks like you might be right. This morning I finished syncing all my playlists to my 160GB, and I noticed that while using my method almost got the job done right, it still missed a few. As in my previous example, I had a playlist folder for each letter of the alphabet. When the sync was complete, it set them all in alphabetical order, expect that M & O where at the bottom of the list. It's been a while since I created those folder, but I'm fairly sure I messed up and missed those two during my first pass.

If this turns out to be true, and it's building the folder list by creation date, well I got to say that that's just silly.

I posted this over on iLounge on this thread:

http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t=204953

but it may help someone here.

I may be able to shed some light on this. First of all, I don't sync all my playlists, I only sync a subset. I did a few tests and at first glance it appears that the order of the playlists is determined by the order in which they are enabled for sync. Let's say playlists A, B and C are in the same folder. If you choose playlist B and sync and then choose playlists A and C and then sync, playlist B will be at the beginning the list and then A or C depending on whether A or C was created first.

This was a very limited test because it takes up to 7 minutes just for a simple cycle of plug it in, sync it (no music transferred, just playlist changes), and then eject it. But that's another issue for another thread...

If anyone has a chance to test this it would be helpful.

If you select the playlist, click the column heading where the numbers are, you will then get a weird little arrow pointing up. When you have that arrow, you can click a song and move it anywhere you want it, up or down, by holding the left button down and moving the cursor.

Hope this helps.

ks

No, it doesn't help. We are not talking about the order of songs in a playlist. We are talking about the order of playlists in folders and in the list of playlists on the iPod.

OK, I created a new folder and dragged all 66 Bible book playlists to the new folder. Unfortunately, I didn't see a way to select multiple playlists at the same time (WinXP) so I had to move them one at at time. I then deleted the old and now empty folder. After syncing, the playlists in the playlist folder was in the proper order. I have now renamed the new folder back to the original folder's name (Bible) and resynced.

Enjoy life,
Steven

Create "Smartplaylists"

http://www.apple.com/lae/itunes/smartplaylists.html

I had the same problem. I fixed it changing ALL of my playlists to Smartplaylists.

ks

I'm sorry, but we're talking about the order in which our Playlists are displayed in the iPod Classic after transferring. If you notice, with regular playlists and playlist folders, they are displayed in alphabetical order from the top down, folders first, then playlist, in the iTunes source window. This order would be replicated on the iPod itself under the Playlist page (except for folder, which previous iPods would simply ignore).

That is no longer the case.

The iPod Classics now recognizes the folders, and both jumbles them with the playlist themselves, but also places them in a seemingly random order, and not alphabetical as before. This makes things considerably more inconvenient.

Message was edited by: Marlon Rubio

I am having this problem too and would like to see it get fixed.

iPod classic 160 GB. The Playlists inside of folders are not all in alphabetical order. No way that I know of to fix it.

Did you try what I suggested a few posts back? If you did, it would be valuable to see if it works or does not work for someone else. If you didn't then your statement 'No way that I know of to fix it' is not true.