iPhone sync's Rating, but not Play Count

Why don't we create a special web site devoted to this issue? I checked and iphoneplaycountissue.com is available (strange, I know 🙂. We could place a message to Steve overthere and a counter for those who want to vote.

There is one for disabling auto correction - http://please-let-us-disable-autocorrection-steve.com/

Anyone is able to do that?

It's already been mnetioned that it is not a sync issue - I can confirm that...
My playlists are set up using the last played date for least recently played. I keep hearing the same songs so I looked today. No song that played all the way through has been date stamped as beiong heard today. This renders my smartplaylists usless and is a MAJOR bummer for me.
Is there a hack? a fix in the works? how do we know apple knows?

This was an issue that bothered me before. But after I installed iTunes 8 and iPhone 2.1 it seems that the Play Count has been updating according. Please confirm if this is the case for others. It is hard to say which update solved this problem, but it would be interesting to find out.

The problem exists in 2.1 in smart playlists. The workaround is to drag your smart playlist into a regular playlist and play the regular playlist on the iPhone. Some people believe that using other apps or using an app that crashes may result in the data being lost. I don't think anyone knows for sure what's happening.

I tried it and that fix does not work for me and makes me wonder if I'm explaining myself correctly.

So, try this...
Listen to a few songs on your iPhone - make sure it is not mounted. Now mount it. Now set up a smart playlist of last played is [today]. I get ZERO songs in that play list.

The phone isn't stamping the songs.

This is a big problem for me because all of my (smart)playlists use "least recently heard" to cull the songs. I'm going to need to go back to carrying two devices around - an iPod and an iPhone!

This is not just SMART playlist issue. Yesterday I copied all the content of smart playlist into a simple one and synced. Today I checked and only today played tracks were marked as played.

Disgrace.

So here is my problem...2.0 OS...3g...I have my smart playlist to record the top 25 songs I have played the most often...I have played some songs over and over and over again (stand alone, not attached to anything but the headphone jack) and they dont update on my iPhone...I have now downloaded 2.0 and played just one song over and over again and it seems to be working...I am going to keep trying this with older songs and keep you updated.

This topic is marked "answered". But I dont really see an answer in here. There are lots of solutions that people suggest. None of them work on my Iphone 3G

I have tried
- A compeletely new OS build
- A complete Iphone restore
- The latest updates for Itunes/Iphone

I might add the sometimes the play count DOES work but mostly doesnt

Occastionally the playcount works (I have smart play lists) then it reverts back to unplayed.

I was listening to podcasts and noticed that all of the ones that I listened to earlier in the day did not update the playcount but the last two I played did. It's not an all or nothing proposition. My phone was not rebooted at any point. Why do some items update and not others?

NO, this question is NOT answered. I'm a long time iPod and Zune user, and I'm ****** off because I hauled *** to buy this $400 piece of technology, and it can't even fix the play counts for smart playlists? ***?! As I researched the internet about this problem, it's pathetic that Apple hasn't fixed this and that its been there since DAY 1. I've had a lot of iPods in the past, and I can tell you that the smart playlists worked flawlessly, although the Zune registers a full play count of a song after 20 seconds of playback, that's not the point! Smart playlists were introduced A LONG time ago, but how come it doesn't work on the iPhone/iPod touch?

Fix the **** bug, Apple. We're serious.

I do know that if Safari crashes on the iPhone then I lose all of the play counts up to that point.

Figured I'd post to keep this thread active! This problem is ridiculous (and NOT answered) - I have all my iPods synched with smart lists that rely on play counts. This simple problem makes the iPod feature of the iPhone very flawed. Come on Apple, fix this.

This is NOT answered.. (>_<)

My setup: Latest OS X and iPhone 3G with 2.1 firmware.

I've got a smart playlist in iTunes that collects 75 songs that I have not listened to in the past three months. As I listen to them, the play count / last played increases and they leave the list. Simple. Works great in iTunes. I've got this playlist synced to my iPhone - I listen to 20 or so songs out and about, come back home and sync, but the songs I listened to are not replaced with new ones. But the thing is - it's totally random, sometimes the songs ARE replaced with new ones.

This works fine and as expected on my 2G nano. Don't understand it at all.

I have the same problem (as well as some ongoing sync issues with ical on the iphone). The failure of the playcount to increase is incredibly frustrating, as i use a 'top 100 most played' smart playlist when i'm out and about.

Anyone got any ideas about fixes, or will we need to wait for the next update from Apple?

PS podcasts seems to work fine for me, it's just music files.