Podcast Sorting Issue : OS 3.1

I turned off the live update on the smart playlist edit and it seems to work. now it is in the same order as itunes.

garfield1375 wrote:
I turned off the live update on the smart playlist edit and it seems to work. now it is in the same order as itunes.

Agreed. This seems to have resolved the issue. This is still clearly a very annoying bug, but it has become less annoying now.

There seem to be some associated problems here too. I am now finding that New/Play Count flags are sometimes synced the wrong way so that the iPhone forgets which tracks have already been played.

I used to use a live updating list of all my unplayed podcasts starting with the most recent. It was annoying enough when the list got randomized as I now had to mess with "live updating" to make it work at all, but even this doesn't work properly. After syncing I find that tracks get marked as new (play count 0) that I've already listened to all the way through.

I even tried the following (doesn't help):
- turn on live updating of the playlist
- sync the iPhone to tell iTunes which tracks have been played
- refresh the podcasts in iTunes to delete already played tracks and add new ones
- turn off live updating to fix the play order
- sync the iPhone again.

Apple, we would appreciate some posts here to know that you are listening...

Alan

Just so everyone is aware. It is my understanding that Apple does not monitor every post on Apple Discussions but rather provides the service so that common questions and issues can be resolved. It's merely a forum to exchange information, not a means of feedback. Trust me, Apple is aware of this issue. But if anyone would like to submit official feedback, I would recommend calling technical support at 1-800-MY-APPLE.

I have found a work around to the podcast sorting problem. Delete the existing podcast and all episodes and then resubscribe to the podcast stream, either through iTunes store or by manually adding the podcast url. Then choose "Get All" and let all the podcasts re-download. After you do that, and resync with iPhone, they are all in order on the iPhone. Apparently you have to redownload the podcasts using iTunes 9. The problem seems to be that iTunes 9 has a problem communicating the correct sort order to the iPhone for any podcast episode previously downloaded using an early version of iTunes. I have tested this on five podcasts and it works perfectly.

What about your old podcast episodes that you cannot download again? They won't sort right as podcasts, but you can keep them, and correctly sort them, by changing their Genre to anything but podcast. I just selected "None" under Genre AND under the Options Tab in the Info window, you need to change the Kind to "Music" This moves all the old epidsodes out of podcasts and into music. While you are in the info stream, also give them a unique album name so you can find them again so you can recreate playlists for them. Obviously, you need to be sure to take this step before deleting the existing podcast stream.

Then go to Music and search for the old episodes using the unique album name you gave them and create a playlist. That music playlist also sorts correctly on the iPhone. Then after re-downloading the new podcast stream in iTunes 9, you can compare the new downloaded episodes with the corresponding music playlist and delete the duplicates from the music playlist. Also you can use the music playlist to see which of the newly downloaded episodes have already been played and then select those same episodes in the new podcast list and mark all those as played. It will give you a last played date equal to today, but at least you can mark them as played.

Also, when you are changing all the old podcast episodes in the Info window to music, you should also be sure to choose the option to remember the last position because for music, that is not the default.

And you can mass change all your episodes in the Info window by selecting all them and then pressing Command + I to bring up the Info window which in this case allows you to change them all at once.

I had this problem too, but installing iTunes 9.0.1 seems to have fixed it! Yay! No need for all the smart playlists and unsubscribing/resubscribing. YMMV.

9.0.1 didn't fix the sort order for me in smart playlists. Same old problem.

iTunes 9.0.1 a mi tampoko me soluciono el problema con el orden de las listas de reproducción inteligentes de mi iPhone.. 😟

MacHappyUtah,

Other than the delete-and-download method being a pain (I would lose a whole day re-downloading my podcasts, many of which aren't re-downloadable), it only addresses /podcasts/. I never liked how the iPod/iPhone interacted with podcasts, so I've been using smart playlists for the ones I listen to most often - genre is podcast, album is [name of podcast], live updating. That way, I control the sort order and which 'casts are uploaded.

(I forgot to say: Thanks for the effort you put into that solution, though! I didn't intend to dismiss your efforts. Your solution just isn't a fit for me.)

Thorugh my own observation and reading posts here, it's clear that /any and all smart playlists/ are synching out of order. The only workaround which seems to work is turning off live updating, but then nothing new gets added to those playlists, at which point what's the use of a smart playlist?

I have seen no change in the bug even after updating to 9.0.1, which is a further bummer.

Message was edited by: smidgeon

Likewise, the update that supposedly addressed the issue did nothing to resolve it.

New update fixed it for me. Hope these other issues are more isolated than they seem to be.

Agreed. iTunes 9.0.1 does not solve the problem.

If I turn the Live Update on again for my Smart Playlist, which is holding my Podcasts, the sort order on my iPhone, after being sync'ed, looks random. If I turn Live Update off and resync, the sort order will match what I see in iTunes.

If anyone from Apple is reading this, I have reported the bug at bugreport.apple.com - rdar://7250041

Somewhat contrary to my earlier post, the following actually does seem reliable:
- Turn on live updating
- Sync
- Refresh podcasts
- Turn off live updating
- Sync again.

amh15 wrote:
Somewhat contrary to my earlier post, the following actually does seem reliable:
- Turn on live updating
- Sync
- Refresh podcasts
- Turn off live updating
- Sync again.

This also worked for me. The only thing I did different was I did not Sync after turning off live update. I let the playlist populate with the new podcast that downloaded then turned live update off, then I Synced the phone.

Another thing that seems to have worked for me is to add another command line. I added the command to add another smart playlist, the 'Recently added' playlist, with the live update still turned on and Synced. The playlist in the phone is now in the same order as what iTunes is showing. The only thing with this that I have noticed is that after playing the podcast that it does not remove from the list on the phone like it use to. I have added a subcommand to the new playlist command of play count is '0' and will see what happens today.

Just wish that you didn't have to go though the extra steps.

Message was edited by: garfield1375

Message was edited by: garfield1375