iTunes 9 not allowing most smart playlists to automatically sync with iPod
Since upgrading to iTunes 9- almost all of my smart playlists (whick worked perfectly before) have disappeared from my iPod. They have also removed themselves from the list in iTunes where I choose which playlists to sync. Yes- I use the 'sync only checked songs & playlists' option (but please don't suggest I manually manage music, as I've been there before).
The problem seems to happen when a smart playlist references 2 or more other (smart or normal) playlists in iTunes. This excludes about 95% of my playlists from syncing in iTunes 9.
Before the upgrade I noticed that iTunes posted an exclamation mark next to any playlist on my iPod that had a rule referencing a playlist in iTunes- but they still sunc perfectly for years. I mean if Apple allowed us to make our own smart playlists only for the iPod- then I would understand- but its the only way I can see to have a playlist for example that plays all favourite but not recently played dance music (regardles of actual genre); nor anything I have moved to a manual playlist called 'not for syncing'.
As a test, I tried an experiment with a new smart playlist which said so long as the song appears in (all) 2 smart playlists- to see when it would become 'syncable'. As would be expected- it was not available to sync. As soon as I deleted the 2nd playlist rule- ie it only had to be in 1 playlist, it became 'syncable'. As soon as I added a 2nd rule again- be it a smart or normal playlist- it became 'unsyncable' again (disappeared from the sync list).
Apple please fix this ASAP. I cannot see this as being desirable behavior in any way, shape or form.
And while you are at it with the new improvements with iTunes 9 playlisting- please add an option to exclude certain 'match' parameters- eg match x and y, but exclude anything that matches z. Besides allowing for much better playlisting, that would (to a degree) also provide a workable workaround to the problem above.
Yours faithfully,
Mike
Macbookpro 2.8, Mac OS X (10.6.2), iTunes 9.0.2 (25)