Ongoing issues syncing Play count and Last Played data in real time

I'm running iTunes 12.12.2.2 from the app store on Windows 10.

I run the Apple Music app on 2 different devices:

Android phone LG G7 ThinQ (LMG710TM)

iPad Mini 2 (MF084LL/A)

My android phone is my primary listening device and I do a lot of playlist maintenance and stuff on the computer in iTunes. I don't use the iPad much, only to play games; I'm only including it here for research and testing purposes.

I've sent this issue previously to support but the only real answers I've received are to make sure everything is up to date and/or to uninstall and reinstall everything. I did do that in the past and it made absolutely no difference. As far as I know everything is currently up to date and I think I have all of the necessary settings configured.

I've been using Apple music for over a year and I've never been able to get this data to sync between devices in real time as expected. I have found that it generally takes 2-4 days to sync the play count and last played data. Sometimes it will sync just the first song played in any given session and then sync the rest a few days later in one big batch. To be clear, even tho it is syncing a few days later, it is still maintaining the proper values for the Last Played date. I have also noticed that it can occasionally miss some songs; or set the play count, but not the date, and vice versa.

Yesterday, I noticed that it had been over a week since my iTunes had gotten any Play data from my phone (the last item it showed in my Recently Played playlist was Feb 2). However, when I opened the same playlist on my phone, it was showing all of the items from the past week even tho they were not updated in iTunes (and also not showing in the same playlist on my iPad). I tried a few things like rebooting my phone and clearing the app cache, but it still didn't sync those items from the past week. Then I cleared the app data on my phone and when I went back to the Recently Played playlist, all of those plays from the past week were gone. This was pretty much expected and just proved that the data was sitting only on my phone and had not been synced to the cloud or my other devices. At this point, it appeared that the playlist was showing exactly the same songs across all 3 devices, so I decided to run some tests.

First thing I did was play one song from the iPad ('Dyin') and the play data did sync in real time to all 3 devices. So, I played another song on the iPad ('Jars at Home'). This data did not sync across devices and is only showing in the playlist on the iPad. As I said, this is somewhat typical for it to sync the first song played only to sync the rest at a later time.

Next, I played one song from iTunes on the computer ('Silver and Gold') and the play data did sync in real time to all 3 devices. I did not test a second song because typically I have not had an issue with it syncing this data FROM iTunes, only TO iTunes.

Finally, I played one song from my phone ('Bloodshot Eyes'), and it did not sync across devices and is only showing in the playlist on the phone.

So, you can see the results of the test in these screenshots from each device. To be clear, these are of the SAME PLAYLIST and should theoretically be identical if the sync was working properly in real time. The iPad playlist shows the two songs I played from the iPad, plus the one I played from the computer, but not the one I played from the phone. The iTunes (computer) playlist shows just the first song played from the iPad (not the 2nd), plus the song played from the computer. The phone playlist shows just the first song played from the iPad (not the 2nd), plus the song played from the computer, and also shows the song played from the phone.

OK, I know this is a convoluted issue and I've given many details (maybe too many LOL). Anyway, I hope someone that takes the time to read this will have a solution for me. Thanks.

Ipad screenshot

Computer screenshot

Phone screenshot