Podcast playlist not synced to iPhone 3gs, 3.1 iTunes 9

I had the same problem after updating to iTunes 9 and found it rather intrusive that it tells me how to organize my playlists. </fume>

I found a solution by going to the Podcasts tab in my iPod. I told it to Sync Podcasts but turned off the "Automatically Include..." option. I checked all the playlists in the "Include Episodes From Playlists" and it put my podcast playlists back in my iPod back in the playlists where they belonged in the first place.

If you keep up with putting new podcasts in your playlists then you should be good to go.

Based on the information given by some others to this question, I have two solutions to this problem. First, I created a smart playlist with two rules: Media type = Podcast and Play count = 0. That gets all the new podcasts into a playlist. Then I select everything in the playlist and under Get Info, Options I make sure "Skip in Shuffle" is set to "No". Then, as already mentioned, under the Podcast tab for my iPod (Classic 160 GB) settings, I turned off "automatically include" and check the playlist for my podcasts under "Include Episodes from Playlists" box. That gives me a playlist that will play all new podcasts one after the other. Finally, I made sure song or album shuffle is off on my iPod when I wanted to listen to my podcast playlist. Seems like a lot of work to do what my old third gen iPod did automatically.
My second solution: Just use my old 20 GB third generation iPod for listening to podcasts. It's functionality doesn't seem to be effected by the iTunes 9 update. Must be too old to know otherwise.

The playlist may yet work... In three steps:
1. First, wait for your genius to update so that you can see the genius mixes in iTunes.
2. Then, delete any playlists (smart or not) which do not sync.
3. Then recreate those playlists from scratch.

Now, I too like a playlist of my latest podcasts (audio only please) and use the following smart playlist filter:
Genre IS podcast
Play Count IS 0
Kind Does Not Contain video
Kind Does Not Contain movie

Works for me!

And one more thing: If you would like to move your playlist to the top, you may put a ^ (shift 6) symbol at the beginning of the playlist name.

I have found exactly that problem, too. I put some podcasts into playlists that are recognized by my car stereo system and, just since upgrading to 9.0, I've discovered that any playlist containing podcasts is not available to sync, manually or "globally."

Thanks for the tips. I've created two smart playlists using "album contains" (name of podcast) and find that the playlists did sync to my iPod, but they're empty (on the iPod, not in iTunes). Any advice?

Same problem here.

I discovered that with iTunes 9, podcasts in playlists did not show up on a mobile device. They DO show up in the playlists in iTunes but not on the mobile device when viewed through the iTunes interface, or when the mobile device is untethered. iTunes 9.0.1 did NOT resolve the problem.

My workaround for this problem until it gets fixed is to Get Info on the files and change the Genre under the Info tab to "Other" and the Media Type to "Audiobooks". This makes them show up in the playlists, but removes them from the Podcast interface.

Problem solved in new version of iTunes sent out today.

Not for me. Still an issue here. Smart playlists for podcasts are still screwed. They continue to show up just fine in the iTunes library but not in the device "podcast" options tab or on the device itself.

I'm still dragging podcasts to a manual playlist daily to maintain the correct sequence.

I've deleted the smart playlist, unsubscribed from the podcast, sync'd and then rebuilt everything multiples times with every variation possible to filter the smart playlists with the same results. STILL NOT VERY APPLE LIKE. Let's get iTunes 9.0.2 out the door and a REAL fix in place!

Same for me. I was hoping that iTunes 9.01 would have fixed the problem as it reportedly has for some people, but not for me.

A smart playlist of podcasts, that populates just fine in iTunes is empty on the iPod. This used to work just fine prior to iTunes 9.

Wake up Apple!

Ok, I've managed to get it work by making the following changes..

Select the Podcasts tab of the iPod.
Unselect the automatically include option.
Select the smart playlist from the Include Episodes from Playlists section.

Now working 'as before'.

Nope...still out of sync here. Smart playlists are correct in the iTunes library and out of sequence when shown in the podcast tab when the device is mounted and in another sort on the device itself. I've tried every filter in the smart playlist options, deleted smart playlists, rebuilt smart playlists, etc, etc.

I've got 3 different sort sequences depending on where I view the exact same playlist:

iTunes (Library) Smart Playlist
1. Hour 1
2. Hour 2
3. Hour 3

Podcast Tab Smart Playlist
1. Hour 3
2. Hour 2
3. Hour 1

iPhone Smart Playlist
1. Hour 2
2. Hour 1
3. Hour 3

My problem was that some of my podcast's would simply not show up (under podcast) on my iPhone 3GS after syncing. The strange part was if I searched for a missing podcasts such as Macbreak Weekly or NYT Tech Talk on the phone I would find them listed as a podcast episodes, not as a podcast. So it was synced to the phone just not visible in the iPod app under podcast. My solution was to check the Genre settings for all my podcasts in iTunes 9.01 and sure enough all the podcasts that have been causing problems did not have ANY Genre setting. I set all missing genre's to "Podcast" and re-synced; problem solved. Hope this helps..

Example screenshot
http://img.skitch.com/20090927-r8h5e69f8j363sbnkyyf27i8kq.jpg

I had the same problem. Podcasts would get copied to the ipod in the "Podcasts" folder, but wouldn't be available in the smart playlists that I created (available in iTunes, but not ipod after sync). I had been sync'ing the playlists as "music", and so the playlists were available but when I went to play them the podcasts inside would not play -- a report of 0:00 seconds played out of 0:00 total seconds.

However, I found that I could play these files on the iPod, one at a time, by going to the playlist, and instead of pushing play on the list I would select the list, select an item in the list, and play that. But certainly a pain to play each podcast manually.

My fix:
1) Convert all "Media Type Is Podcast" filters in smart playlists to "Genre Is Podcast".
2) In the "Podcast" tab for the iPod sync'ing options, de-select "Automatically Include" and only sync podcasts in the "Include Episodes From Playlists" option.

Seems to be working. Of course I wasted 3 hours on this. Not what I'd expect from Apple.

Just discovered this issue today when I was creating a new Playlist for some new Podcast Episodes. Thanks for the work around. The Smart Playlist worked with a filter for the specific Podcast title I wanted. This is nuts. I hope they fix it. It isn't a big deal when I am wearing my iPod ... easy to just go to the next Podcast with the click of a button however when I plug my iPod into my car USB jack, it is a different story, that is why I like creating Podcast Playlists. If I didn't come across this answer it was going to be one of those situations where I'd have to pull over, turn off the car radio, unplug my iPod nano from the USB jack in my center console, change to the next Podcast episode, plug the iPod back in and then turn the car radio back on. Thanks again!! APPLE, IF YOU'RE HEAR READING THESE FORUMS ... PLEASE LET MY PODCASTS PLAYLISTS BE WHAT I WANT THEM TO BE ... MUSIC PLEASE. THANK YOU! 🙂

I was mildly enraged to find my podcast "song of the day" mixes on my ipod to be empty after my first sync with itunes 9. I was glad to discover I am not alone in my frustration, and I did find a workaround after poking about a bit. I simply converted all my podcast mixes in itunes playlists from "media type:podcast" to "media type:music" (in the options tab under the apple-i function), and have found them to sync fine now. Yay!