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"Unrated" smart playlist doesn't update on iPhone 3GS

I've had a live updating smart playlist for years that includes songs from another playlist that have no star rating. I use it as a queue for songs that I want to rate. On my iPod Nano, after I rated songs, if I went back to the playlist, they were removed. On my new iPhone 3GS, they're not removed.

I can't tell if this is an iPhone thing, or related to one of the recent iTunes updates. I've seen complaints here about smart playlists not syncing at all, or about song order not syncing, but haven't seen anyone with my specific problem about the playlist not updating on the iPhone itself.

When I sync, it seems to get updated. It just doesn't update directly on my iPhone. Anyone else have this problem, or a solution?

iPhone 3GS, iPhone OS 3.1.3

Posted on Feb 14, 2010 9:30 PM

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12 replies

Mar 15, 2010 5:32 AM in response to cpickslay

What good is having the option to create a playlist that with rules that depend on live updating, for example; to not play a song that was last played in the past few days or to not play music that I've skipped it more than 3 times when "smart" playlists do not update live on the iPhone/iPod touch?

Live updating worked just fine on my iPod 4th Gen back in '06 without having to sync it to iTunes.
Any change I make on my iPhone does not show up on my "smart" playlist in the iPhone, I have to plug it back into my Macbook Pro so that it could download the music's play, skip, last played, ratings and other data from the iPhone when it syncs with the iTunes library and then finally show the changes on the "smart" playlist when I sync my iTune's playlist back into the iPhone. This is most inconvenient when I only dock my iPhone to the computer somewhere between one or two moths.

Suddenly listening to music on my phone isn't half as exciting when it fails to play fresh songs because it doesn't recognize it's already played the same song a dozen times and there are a hundreds that I haven't heard in a while.

Live updating should work independently on the iPhone without having to connect it to iTunes every night to sync song data to smart playlists!

Mar 21, 2010 3:22 PM in response to cpickslay

This is exactly my same problem too. Except I have a smart playlist with all my songs which have a play count of 0, so I can play only tracks I never played before. However after playing a track from this playlist it does not come of the smart playlist as expected. When I perform the same action from iTunes it would indeed remove the track from the playlist as it no longer has a play count of 0. So it seems iPhone OS 3.1.3 (iPod touch 2G) isn't capable of updating smart playlist on the device itself unfortunately. This is my first iPhone OS device so I don't know if this was always the case or if it is a recent bug??? Which?? Either case I would imagine a device as smart as this should be able to self update smart playlist on the device itself without requiring an iTunes sync. 😟

Mar 21, 2010 11:16 PM in response to Chris CA

Actually, when you say "broken", thats not my real problem, and is not the true problem as experienced by some others here I take it. We are talking about 2 separate yet related issues/bugs here. The first issue is the inability to sync a smart playlist at ALL on an iPod/iPhone. When you sync a Smart playlist which has Live Updating active (almost all do), the contents of the smart playlist on the device does NOT reflect what is in the smart playlist in the computer... i.e. incorrect songs, incorrect ordering,etc. This bug has a relatively simple fix:
http://clkoerner.com/2009/09/27/itunes-9-smart-playlist-live-updating-iphone-fai l/

Issue #2, which I and some others are having, is different from that. I can successfully get my Smart Playlist to sync which my iPod Touch, each and every time I sync (after i followed the instructions in the link above), I see my iPod Touch reflect the exact contents and order of tracks in iTunes as of the last time I synced....

The problem for me lies in when I make a change to the track while ON my iPod touch.... it does not reflect right away like it apparently used too. For example, if i rate a track 5 Stars on my iPod Touch, I should be able to go in the "My Top Rated" playlist and see it appear their instantly afterwards. In other words, I expect the smart playlist to CONTINUE "Live Updating" while on the device. This does not happen as expected. 😟 Only after I perform a sync and iTunes realizes I gave a track 5 Stars, does the "My Top Rated" playlist on iTunes reflect it. Off course, during this same sync session, it will sync back the My Top Rated playlist to include the new track and rated while in the iPod Touch.

In other words, the Smart playlists on iPod Touch/iPhone are now STATIC, no longer live updating, and require an iTunes sync for the *iTunes version* of the Smart Playlist to update itself.

Was this the case with previous non-iPhone OS devices? Do current nano's Live Update while on the device itself??

Mar 22, 2010 6:50 PM in response to Chris CA

Chris CA wrote:
Actually, when you say "broken", thats not my real problem

My response was to P3DURPan.
However, Live Updating of Smart playlists is still broken and there are three issues.
1 Getting them to sync at all
2 Syncing the correct songs in the correct order


I did indeed experience these two issues when I first got my iPod Touch recently. I had Smart Playlist in iTunes 9.0.3 which refused to sync with the right tracks and right order on my touch. However, after some googling, this was very easily solved with the "Playlist is Music" tip from this page:
http://clkoerner.com/2009/09/27/itunes-9-smart-playlist-live-updating-iphone-fai l/
After doing that, i do NOT experience issues #1 or #2. I have smart playlist which are set to "Live Update" and they do indeed sync with the correct songs and correct order. Is this not the case with you even after adding "Playlist is Music" to your Smart Playlist ??

3 Live updating not happening on the iPod


This is what I, and everyone else I take it, are experiencing. As i described earlier, it would be nice to rate a track 5 Stars and have it appear in the "My Top Rated" Smart playlist on the iPod touch instantly afterwards instead of requiring a sync for the Smart playlist to "live update". To confirm, is it only iPhone OS devices where this does not work? Do all currently shipping non-iPhone OS devices have Live Updating Smart Playlist on the device itself??

"Unrated" smart playlist doesn't update on iPhone 3GS

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