Apple Music not updating play count on Airplay?

I'm kind of glad I'm not the only one having all these problems (dates and play counts not updating, music stopping after the first song, etc.), because that means Apple may eventually provide a fix... It's very frustrating because, as others have mentioned, I use play count and "last played" dates to organize smart playlists "to ensure that I'm actually listening to my library and not just storing it" as Jackal said above.

Don't know if this will further complicate the issue, but I've tried playing songs through AirPlay while also leaving my MBP speakers on. I find that SOME songs show in the play count, while others do not (even from the same album, and with no apparent pattern). All OS completely up to date, and this is with a relatively recent clean install of Big Sur and (thus far) only a few albums from my library re-imported by downloading directly from the iTunes Store, so there should be no problems with corrupted files.

Like almost every post in this thread. I too have same issue with Play Count / Date not updating as well as tracks stopping. I have a 2019 MBP that is up to date with 11.4. I usually play through my Bose but tried playing with MBP speaker because "once" the updating started working for two songs. Then stopped again.

I try hard to not listen to the same song in the last 90 days and therefore my playlists are built on that condition. This is frustrating. Interesting note: This has ALSO been going on for some time in iOS on my iPhone since late 2019. No fix so far.

Apple, please fix, this is very disappointing. I have tried every single suggestion by "Apple Support" in this and other threads with zero success.

I just noticed it because I switched my library to a 2018 MacBook Pro. Worked fine on my much older MacBook which was stuck running Catalina. OTOH, pretty much everything else works much better on Music 1.1.5.74.

Interesting...what do you think of Airfoil? Can you use it in the same way/instead of the iTunes Remote app? i.e. can you use the app to control which speakers are playing & volume as well as selecting songs/playlists?

I also have been having this problem over Airplay using my Homepod minis as the output source. I hope they fix it because I find the playcount a very useful tool and use it in a variety of ways. I have reported it through the feedback system. I hope many others are doing that too.

My music is also on my Mac.

I have been having this problem ever since I started using Airplay a few weeks ago, regardless of which of my 2 HomePod minis I use as output. This is true even when I use my Mac as output in addition to one or both HomePod minis. With very rare exception, the play count will only update when I play my music through my Mac alone (i.e., without Airplay).

I still have this problem, even with version Big Sur 11.6. After 2-3 songs, the progress bar stops moving after starting a new song, music keeps playing, but at the latest with the next songs it stops and play count and last played from the last songs won't get updated.

Are there any ideas besides complaining? ;-)

Hi

I experienced the same behaviour

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252813596

Already registered a bug, let's see....

Can confirm that play count works when I play a song on my iPhone via AirPlay. Same WiFi, same AirPort Express, same speakers. And when I sync my phone the play count increments as expected.

Agreed. It is now working is MacOS 11.5 over Airplay to my Bose Mini speaker. Thank you Apple for listening to your consumers.

Now can you fix iOS so the plays on my iPhone update? Cheers!

Now It doesn't work anymore, progressbar freezes , playcount and lastplayed do not update :-(

Maybe it stop working when the app window is loosing focus?

The closest thing I've had to that experience relates to the ongoing disaster related to Music's handling of album art. If I notice that a track that's playing doesn't have artwork and attempt to embed it everything goes awry and the status bar stops even though the song keeps playing (and into the next one). But it doesn't just happen on its own, at least not yet!