Podcast Sorting Issue : OS 3.1

This doesn't help with the issue of sorting podcasts in playlists, does it? That is the topic of this thread. There were a number of other threads last week pointing out that one must uncheck "automatically include..." and check the specific podcast playlists for anything to appear in them in the iPhone. But I still haven't seen any solution to the sorting issue. The podcasts do sort correctly on my nano, but not on the iPhone.

Michael Mills2 wrote:
This doesn't help with the issue of sorting podcasts in playlists, does it?

As far as I can tell, it does not. The sorting is still a problem for which there is no solution I am aware of.

If you click the 'name' column in iTunes so that the arrow points up, the list will be sorted next time you sync. BUT, you must have done the fix noted on my previous post for it to work. You can sort it by any of the columns available (such as relase date, for example) in ascending or descending order simply by clicking the appropriate column header. But, it will not work properly unless you have applied the fix I noted because iTunes 9 seems to have broken the sync of smart playlists.

Try this for your iPhone:

1 Erase the playlist in iTunes
2 Sync
3 Recreate the playlist
4 Apply the fix, and sort it as noted above
5 Sync

Message was edited by: mdmenzel

As correctly pointed out, it is a sorting issue, not a syncing issue as evidenced by podcasts now being in reversing order in iTunes 9.0, i.e. hour 3, hour 2, etc. Podcasts also run sluggish. Until a iTunes 9.0 update, there is no other solution than to downgrade back to 8.0. Assuming that you want to go through the brain damage, you will lose everything you added (or will have to re-add after down grading to 8.0). Super brain damage. Should have known better to install a .0 version of iTunes.

Owned a Mac since 1985, and a stock holder. C'mon Apple, you owe us a better effort. Release an update soon. With this jacked up, podcasts are worthless.

mdmenzel wrote:

Try this for your iPhone:

1 Erase the playlist in iTunes
2 Sync
3 Recreate the playlist
4 Apply the fix, and sort it as noted above
5 Sync

Sadly, it does not work for me. The sort order remains the same and seems essentially random.

Comigo passa-se exactamente o mesmo mas com as listas pessoais inteligentes...

Para quando a nova versao 3.1. 1?

This is indeed an apparent issue with iTunes 9.0, not iPhone OS 3.1 - since I don't have 3.1 installed yet and my podcasts are sorted completely whacked. It almost appears as if they're trying to sort them by the date as a string literal. It isn't entirely random, there is some type of pattern as weird as it is - as most of the sorting seems to end up as

Monday [some date], Hour 1
Monday [another date], Hour 1
Monday [another date], Hour 1
Tuesday [some date], Hour 1
Tuesday [another date], Hour 1
...
Monday [some date], Hour 2
etc

But the dates aren't necessarily in chronological order. They're almost alphabetical. This is incredibly frustrating, because a) until I updated to iTunes 9.0, it was fine and b) there is no apparent way to force a sort order. Apple, seriously guys, you're getting really sloppy. Just had to fix some kind of nonsense with my address book in my iPhone getting messed up because of mobileme. Making me think hard about going beyond the trial period with that one.

I think I nailed it! I now have Podcasts on my iPhone 3Gs 3.1 in the order I want them to be after syncing with iTunes 9.0!

I first tried the steps on this page:
http://www.gotknowhow.com/articles/how-to-get-podcast-playlists-to-sync-in-itune s-9.aspx

This didn't help me, so I deleted all my Podcast playlists, synced my iPhone, recreated the playlists, synced again... still Podcasts sorted by nothing.

Then I created a new Playlist 'test 1' (not a smart playlist) and dragged all the tracks from my iPhone podcast playlist into the 'test 1' playlist. Synced the playlist 'test 1' to my iPhone and it contained all the Podcasts in the correct order! But I missed the 'Playcount is 0' rule, so I created a smart Playlist with 2 rules:
1. Playlist = 'test 1'
2. Playcount = 0
Sorted the list by Release Date ascending and it worked as well!

Then I did the following as a final test:
1. Created a new Smart Playlist with the rule: Playlist is 'iPhone podcasts' (Live updating is checked)
2. Gave it the name 'a Podcast'
3. Added the column 'Release Date' to the view
4. Clicked the 'Release Date' column header twice (to sort by Release Date ascending)
5a. Right-clicked on the playlist name to open the context menu
5b. Clicked the 'Copy To Play Order' menu item
6. Changed the view to 'Cover flow'
7. Checked the 'a Podcast' playlist in the iPhone->Music->Playlists panel
8. Checked the 'iPhone podcasts' playlist in the iPhone->Music->Playlists panel
9. Checked the 'a Podcast' playlist in the iPhone->Podcasts->Include Episodes from Playlists panel
10. Checked the 'iPhone podcasts' playlist in the iPhone->Podcasts->Include Episodes from Playlists panel
11. Synced my iPhone

Now the 'a Podcast' playlist contains all the Podcasts from the 'iPhone podcasts' playlist in the order I see them in iTunes. The 'iPhone podcasts' playlist was my original playlist that worked with iTunes 8. It contains all my Podcasts with Playcount = 0.

I'm not sure if all the steps are necessary, but this worked for me and I'm not going to screw things up by seeing what does and doesn't work! 😉 Let me know if it helps you out!

Good luck!

Ilan Shemes

Just a quick update. Enabling the option 'Automatically include 10 least recent unplayed episodes of all podcasts' will remove the 'a Podcast' playlist from my iPhone. Disabling this option brings the 'a Podcast' playlist back.

APPLE! *** were you guys thinking!? Podcasts are one of the most important uses I have for my iPhone and you manage to screw them up again!? Ugh, I am so disappointed in your Product and QA teams! It's called a Sandbox - try it out sometime.

I've now decided to live with the sorting issue until iTunes 9.1 comes out so I don't lose old podcasts that have expired from the subscriptions lists and so I don't lose my played and state information, but I'm having more and more "freezing" issues on syncing - sometimes when it freezes, it tells me it's analyzing songs for gapless playback when I have the settings not to do that, and others it tells me it's syncing photos when I haven't uploaded any new photos to sync. It's beginning to be a real problem. If I unplug the iPhone, all comes back and I can resync but I'm not at all comfortable that things aren't getting clobbered in the process.

I was going to try one or two of the more promising solution - with some caution since none seems to work for everyone. Then I discovered that two new appointments I put on my iPhone were not uploading to Outlook (2003). I haven't found anyone in the Discussions that has trouble with Outlook - only saw MS Exchange messages. Anyone else having this problem too?

Havent had a reason to check on my contacts. Will pursue that next. I really don't have time to fix or work around Apple's problems. Right now I am paying for a service that is not working.

One thing I noticed is that my smart playlist of podcasts shows in the correct order on my iPhone in the devices list of iTunes - but not on the phone itself.

My workaround which was suggested by another in this thread was to create a standard playlist and drag everything from my smart playlist into it. This standard playlist shows the correct order when synced to the phone.

And one more thing...
After syncing my iPhone no longer forgets what song was being played prior to syncing. This apparently changed with iTunes 9 and iPhone 3.1.

Glad that this bug is being discussed in a high-profile iPhone blog so that Apple can pay attention to this serious bug.

http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/09/16/iphone-31-bugs-podcasts-order/

FYI, my problem syncing with Outlook contacts seems to have gone away without explanation. Still have not verified Contact syncing but will assume it works until I have a problem (and a need to add/change contacts.