Smart Playlists and Syncing to iPhone

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Level 1

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Smart Playlists and Syncing to iPhone

Hi Apple users, I hope someone can help. I am having trouble with smart playlists in the Music App.

Background:

1) Hardware/Software: 2020 MacBook Pro MacOS 12.1. iPhone 13 mini, iOS 15.2.1

2) I don't subscribe to Apple Music. All files are on my local devices. I use only downloaded songs and avoid interacting with Apple's servers to play audio files. I use smart playlists to change the ratio of music of different genres on my iPhone, which is what I use to listen to music. Every month or so, I delete all the songs in each smart playlist, which the software then repopulates with new tracks according to the smart playlist rules. I then sync the phone using a cord, not WiFi. Since the launch of Apple's Spotify clone, Apple Music, I have had various problems syncing music, so before I sync, I delete all the songs on my phone, disconnect my computer from the Internet, and disconnect the phone from WiFi and the cell network to avoid any confusion from Apple's servers (I have, regrettably, spent a lot of money in the iTunes store over the years).

The problem: If I delete songs on a smart playlist, the software repopulates it according to the rules. But those changes are not reflected when I sync the playlist to the iPhone. In fact, if I close Music.app and reopen it, the recent changes to the playlist disappear. It's like Music.app forgot the playlist had changed.

Some things I have tried, repeatedly: Restarting the computer (to flush any cache?), restarting the phone, syncing with both devices disconnected from the internet, deleting all songs from the phone before syncing... Nothing makes any difference.

A less-than-ideal workaround that works: I can copy all songs from the smart playlist to a static playlist and sync the static playlist to the phone.

This is needlessly burdensome. Has anyone else experienced this and fixed the problem? Does anyone have any ideas?

Also, can anyone recommend a software alternative to Music.app that will play local audio files, including those with Apple's DRM, both on the computer and on the iPhone? Since the launch of the Apple Music streaming service, simply playing local mp3, m4a, and m4p files on Music.app for the iPhone has been frustratingly buggy.

Thank you

Posted on Jan 25, 2022 11:43 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

turingtest2

Level 10

274,252 points

Jan 25, 2022 5:24 PM in response to Zaghloul

There's currently an issue affecting some Apple Music users (I think both those with the service and the app) where changes to the library on a Mac get reverted. Not sure why it might affect you. See Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community just in case. Check for .tmp files in your iTunes folder, these can be a sign that iTunes isn't getting to save its updated library correctly.

You can use the the exclusion rule along with a rule to select random songs limited to a particular size or number of items.

tt2

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

274,252 points

Jan 25, 2022 1:45 PM in response to Zaghloul

Smart playlists can be evaluated independently on devices. You may be better off including a rule that eliminates tracks that have been played in, say, the last two weeks, so that tracks drop out of the lists as you play them, to be replaced by other fresh content that is on your computer or device. The lists won't be identical, but it might work better than your current approach.

tt2

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Answer 3

Zaghloul Author

Level 1

32 points

Jan 25, 2022 4:09 PM in response to turingtest2

Thanks, that is really clever, and would probably give me more variety in music... a good thing! And I use only my phone to listen to music, so I don't care if the playlists align across devices. That could work for a lot of people, and I hope it will help someone who lands here.

Unfortunately, my entire music library won't fit on my phone (though now you mention it, this would have been a plausible reason to shell out for a model with enough space for it plus some photos etc... I'd just become accustomed to syncing around 4000 songs at a time).

Has anybody experienced Music.app not registering that smart playlists have been updated, and just reverting to a previous version? If so, have you had any success in getting it to "remember" changes?

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Smart Playlists and Syncing to iPhone

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