Smart Playlist order not respected on ipod nano after upgrade to iTunes 9

Sorry, no answer here, but I'm having the same problem on my iPhone. Podcast smart playlist sorted in chronological order - it shows just fine in iTunes, but in a different order (not alphabetically, interestingly) on the iPhone.

I'm having the same exact problem. I have been using a playlist that has the newest added stuff to my library, a great smart playlist on itunes. Out of order on the iphone's ipod list. Very Frustrating.

I found a temporary workaround to the problem - go into Edit Smart Playlist and uncheck the "Live Updating" box. Then re-sync. The songs/podcasts will be in the correct order. However, if you want to add anything to that list (if more podcasts are downloaded, for example), you'll have to re-check that box to let them in, then uncheck the box again.

Obviously not a long-term fix, but it works for now.

I tried this with my iPod Touch and the playlist was deleted on the Touch. Re-checking the "LIve Updating" box restored the playlist but it's still in the wrong order.

Hope they're working on a fix.

I'm seeing similar behavior when syncing my iPod 5G. Any smart playlists which collect podcasts are either empty or have a randomly ordered subset of the items which iTunes displays.

I depend on my smart playlists for my commute and my night-time learning.

They had been working perfectly for so long that I came to assume that they were the primary feature of my iPod!

Same issue here. My smart playlist which is all audio podcasts is ignoring the playlist order. 😟

Glad this came up on the top of the list for my google search. I have an Unplayed Podcasts and New Podcasts Smart Lists that were always in date order and synced properly to my iPhone up until iTunes 9. Now I'm not sure what order they are in. I thought maybe alphabetical, but that's not it. Has anyone been able to figure out what order their smart lists are in? That may help troubleshoot this ......

I can't be sure, because I already listened and deleted, but it looked like it was in date downloaded order, with the newest on the top.

I am having the same problem too. The unchecking "live updates" only cleared the iPod Classic playlist (the podcasts came back once I checked it again and re-synched). The order that it seems to be in is Alpha Order of the "author" and then by the oldest add date.

The weird part is that it's in the correct order on iTunes. This is very annoying and I hope they're able to get a fix on this and respond quickly. I am surprised there aren't more responses to this. Any other links about this problem any of you have found?

I can confirm this too.

They are not in ANY order that I can see. Not Name, Artist, Release Date, Size, Date Added, Artist, Album or anything else I've tried. Maybe some hidden "internal sequence number"?

Same here have an audio only podcasts smart playlist not only does it jumble it the play order it also adds some of the video podcast that aren't in the playlist on iTunes. Also, interesting as a work around I copy all the items and pasted them into a normal playlist. That playlist wasn't an option to sync to the iPod. Deleted podcasts out and it was available again. apple is definitely monkeying with how it handles podcast. My two sense they should just fix the Podcast section so we don't have to create work around playlists to do something as obvious as play unplayed podcasts in chronological order.

Ok figured it out. Apple's logic is a little flawed but here is the problem you can't select your play list in the music tab. You have to go to the Podcast tab switch from syncing all your podcasts to selected ones. Then you can tell it to add the play list as a podcast play list. This doesn't fix the play order issue but the unchecking the live updating work around will work for that once you have made this change until apple fixes things.

This happens for me also -- on a Mac (10.6.1) with an iPhone 3G (3.1).

Like other posters, there's no apparent order. It's not ordered by podcast name, episode name, length, date added. No apparent order at all.

I hope this fix this soon. I have four podcast playlists and listen to approximately 8 hours of podcasts a day. I am a heavy listener (some say addicted). This is driving me up the wall!