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Nano not updating Play Count

I just recently purchased the 5G Nano 16G and upgraded it to the latest firmware 1.3. Since getting the nano I added about 300 or so new songs to it and carried over about 1300 old ones. I was shuffling a lot of the new music on my way to and from work. When I got home I noticed that none of the songs play counts were updated.

So I decided to test it out at home, played a couple of songs, checked if they appeared on the recently played list and the first time I tried it, they did update. Then I ran a few more songs from various playlists/artists and those didn't appear on the recently played list nor were their play counts updated.

The issue seems to be on the Ipod itself and not with iTunes, and it appears to be random, although more often then not it does not update. It seems to be some sort of issue with memory where if 3+ songs are played it fails to store any of them as played. I couldn't find any answers to a solution so I came here hoping to find some answers. Thanks in advance.

Inspiron, Windows 7

Posted on Jan 8, 2010 9:43 AM

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71 replies

Jan 8, 2010 3:59 PM in response to Trucido

I noticed that none of the songs *play counts* were updated.
didn't appear on the *recently played list*

Where are these settings on the iPod Nano 5th gen? I couldn't find anything about play counts or recently played list in the manual or in any of Apple's Knowledge Base articles. Thanks.

Jan 13, 2010 8:56 PM in response to Trucido

I don't have a solution, but I can confirm this problem. I have nearly 14000 songs in my collection, and use the Play Count and Last Played fields in iTunes with smart playlists to manage what goes onto my iPod. This approach has worked for several years with my 1st-generation Nano.

I bought a new 5th-gen Nano shortly after Christmas and found that most of the time when I sync, the Play Count and Last Played information in iTunes is not updated. Occasionally, it will be updated for all of the songs I've played - it's all or nothing. I tried resetting it, updating it, reinstalling iTunes, none of that helped. I returned it yesterday and got a new one, thinking it must be defective, and found that the new 5G behaves the same way.

My old Nano still syncs fine and always updates the info, so it appears not to be an iTunes problem; but the old one just won't hold a charge for very long.

This is very frustrating because I rely on that status info to update my playlists so I can keep getting fresh tunes on the iPod.

Jan 22, 2010 1:30 PM in response to Melissa Andropoulos

Hi,

I have the same problem. This is not an answer but I wonder if it might be a step closer to the answer. I mostly get this problem when nano is docked on a gear4 dock I have. If I've listened through headphones or other docks the play count and recently played updates itunes fine. This gear4 is fine with my iPod classic so I'm pretty sure it's an incompatibility with the Nano. Can anyone else link the non-update with dock usage?

Jan 22, 2010 2:10 PM in response to stm266

If you have your iPod set to manually manage your music. In other words, you drag the files to the iPod, then it will not update playcount.

If you have it managed through playlists where you just click sync and your music syncs, it will update the playcount.

Dragging music on and off your iPod is different than sync'ing and the system needs the sync'ing step for the playcount to be udpated.

i

Jan 25, 2010 11:51 AM in response to stm266

took it to the apple store today. They tested it on their Macs and found it to be working fine. Typical! The error would not recreate in the store despite it being 'broken' all weekend. The best the guy in the shop could suggest was that this was a windows related fault. Whilst not the official line on it he guessed at the USB drivers. I have the number for the apple care team who specialise in Windows. Since getting home I've reloaded my music files (they had wiped it and formatted it for Mac to test) and it seems to be working correctly now (reloading from my computer did not solve the problem before). Watch this space - we'll see what happens.

Does anyone get this fault when using a Mac?

Jan 27, 2010 4:06 PM in response to stm266

I spent 2 hours on the phone with Apple Care the other day over this, and after all that the best solution they could offer me was to take my iPod into the Apple Store and see if they could figure out what the problem is (my iPod remembers playing about 8-10 songs, if I play any more than that the play counts will not update)

The guy had me restore my iPod, reinstall iTunes, change the settings on my iPod & smart playlists, basically everything you could think of that might solve this problem and nothing worked.

FYI, my iPod has always been set to automatically sync and I have never had a problem with any of my previous iPods. I also use a MacBook so it's not a Windows-related problem.

However, the Apple Care guy did say that they would most likely replace my iPod free of charge if I took it into the Apple Store, so I guess that is going to be my next step!

Nano not updating Play Count

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