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iPhone sync's Rating, but not Play Count

I noticed that when I change the Rating (Stars) on the iPhone (OS 2.0) and sync the phone in iTunes, the new Rating is carried forward into the iTunes library. However, having listened to a song (to the end without skipping) on the iPhone, the Play Count is not increased in iTunes. Is there anything I can do about this? Thanks.

Dual 2 GHz PowerPC G5, 4 GB DDR SDRAM, Mac OS X (10.4.10), iPhone 8GB (old version) with OS 2.0

Posted on Jul 14, 2008 3:57 PM

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Posted on Jul 14, 2008 5:08 PM

Yep, this is a bummer. Been playing music all weekend, only to see that none of the plays were added to iTunes when I synced this afternoon.
53 replies

Jul 18, 2008 11:05 AM in response to Fidelio

Same here with 3G, but I saw some tracks getting a play count. So it seems a bit complicated than just not being updated.
Also, internal to the iPhone, it does something right and remembers that the tracks were played. I have a smart playlist for unplayed tracks and that works good.

More and more weird stuff.

Jul 22, 2008 7:32 AM in response to Fidelio

I'm having the same problem on the iPhone 3G. My Smart Playlists based on play count aren't working. It seems like the number is not being incremented since the playlists aren't live updating. If it's not live updating the smart playlist, that tells me that the issue is the iPod software on the phone not writing to the play count, not necessarily the syncing.

I know on my iPod, if I listened to a song, exited the play count playlist, the went back to the playlist, that song would be gone.

Jul 22, 2008 10:23 AM in response to Fidelio

I just found this in the KB and am concerned the lack of true iPod like syncing may be a "feature".

{quote:title=Apple kb Article: HT1386}{quote}
Email account settings (on iPhone only), music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and photos are synced one-way, from your computer to iPhone (though you can import photos taken with iPhone to your computer).


The whole article can be found here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1386

This will severely limit the usefulness of the iPhone as an iPod. All my playlist are "smart" and key off last played and play count.

Jul 22, 2008 12:33 PM in response to Fidelio

Hmm, it seems selective though. Like it's syncing some play counts and not others. I think it might be in the logic of how I'm using smart playlists. Here's my hypothesis:

Say you only sync a smart playlist where play count < 1.
You play a song and the iPhone increments the play count.
The song is now, not part of the playlist.
So now, when you sync, the iPhone will not sync the data back to the computer because you've selected to only sync the playlist (which the song is no longer part of) but the song will get synced back to the iPhone with a play count of 0 because it is part of the play list on the computer.

This seems sort of logical. Of course, it doesn't explain why my iPhone sometimes live updates smart playlists and sometimes doesn't.

The one-way sync KB article could just mean one-way like the iPod was one-way, meaning it should update play counts, ratings, etc. but will not allow you to download songs from the device (although it will let you transfer iTunes purchases from the phone to the computer.) Of course there's no way to specifically interpret the meaning of "one-way" in that article.

Jul 24, 2008 11:09 AM in response to Fidelio

Same problem on my 2G iPhone with 2.0. This happened with 1.x software too for me, but I seemed to pinpoint the issue then. Sometimes, the iPod app would make the entire phone restart (I had very little free space on the phone), and the next time I synced, it would have forgotten all the playcounts (retained ratings though).

However, with the 2.0 software, my phone has not crashed or restarted unexpectedly, and the issue where it doesn't sync play counts to iTunes is now chronic and happens every time. Very strange and irritating, since I, like many, have smart playlists based on playcounts.

Jul 24, 2008 1:23 PM in response to Amort01

I as well am using Automatic syncing and not having any play counts correctly moved from the new iPhone to iTunes. To validate this I ripped a new CD into iTunes, created a normal playlist which I manually added the album to, created a smart playlist for songs with a play count < 1, and a smart playlist where play count < 2. I then played the first 3 songs. When I got to song 4, I puased it and started song 1 again. This time I listened to the first 2 songs, then played the first song again. The out come should have been song 1 played 3 times and not in a smart playlist post sync. Song 2 pc = 2 and not in a smart playlist, song 3 pc = 1 and it should be in the smart playlist where pc < 2. The rest should have a pc of 0 and be in both smart playlists. After syncing all play counts in iTunes still read 0 and all songs still show up in both smart playlists. This has to be a bug. I get the same issue with podcasts. I have them set to auto delete once played, and they never show as played when played via the iPhone. I now carry my iPhone for all non iPod functionallity and continue to listen to audio from my iPod because it syncs correctly.

Jul 26, 2008 9:26 AM in response to BarryTheSprout

I don't know if I was half asleep when I did the first test or not, but I have done some additional work and have found the logic that appears to be used for updating playcounts. All my playcounts now update with the 3G iPhone running 2.0 software (5A347). I did have an issue and in iTunes I did a full restore of my iPhone and that loaded a newer version of the firmware to my iPhone. Not sure if that matters for this.

First the logic of playcount syncing as I have come to understand it. If you have a smart playlist that will cause a track to fall out once it is played and the track was only copied to the iPhone because it is part of that smart playlist, it will not sync the playcount correctly.

Now for the simple fix to this issue. Create or alter the Recently Played playlist so it holds tracks that were played within the last X days. You want to set X to the longest time you plan to go without syncing your iPhone with iTunes but not too much longer, as it will decrease the available space for you to store auido you want on your iPhone. I set mine to 5 days. What this does is make the track relevant to the iPhone once it falls out of the initial smart playlist. If the track is 'relevant' then the playcount is synced correctly. Additionally, to minimize what is picked up in the iPhone Recently Played playlist you may want to set it to audio only if you do not want to track playcounts for video files or podcast only if you only care about updating playcounts on podcasts.

Please let me know if this does not work for you and sorry for the misleading info in the previous post.

Jul 26, 2008 9:35 AM in response to cjnance

Please provide me some info on when the smart playlist is not auto-updating on your iPhone. What I have seen on the iPod is smart playlists auto update unless they contain podcasts. I have never been able to get a podcast I have listened to, to drop out of a smart playlist that is setup as follows: is podcasr and playcount < 1. They always drop out once I sync with iTunes. All my music smart playlists update on my iPods or iPhone update as soon as I navigate out of them then go back in.

iPhone sync's Rating, but not Play Count

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