Apple Music Recently Played Not Updating

Unfortunately Apple support wasn't able to help me, but I did get it working. I had the same issue as described above. Mine started after I got back from a trip outside my country (similar to what the author of the original post linked above conveyed). I tried toggling all the relevant settings under "music" including the library sync toggle followed by force reset as indicated in the prior thread. Nothing worked. I spent an hour with apple support and they walked me through the same steps again, but got nowhere with them. I tried logging out of icloud altogether and logging back in. Nothing. I finally just backed up to icloud, wiped my device and started over from the backup. that worked :) It works perfectly now and recently played is updating as expected. Pretty annoying, but most of the restore process runs in the background, so as long as you don't need your phone for a few hours, it's not too bad. but still. ugh.

I fixed this as follows:

1. opening apple music on my computer
2. clicking the recently played playlist
3. On the main screen, under the playlist title, clicking 'edit rules'
4. Changing the number in the third column to a positive number (it was, for some reason, set to -xxxxxx days)

Doing this instantly fixed the problem on my phone as well (presumably because sync is switched on)

Hope that helps somebody else.

Ok I've had this issue for years, but I've never tried to fix it. I just browsed around Apple music on my Macbook and got it fixed. Maybe this will work for you too.

Steps:

1. On your Macbook or iMac ope the Apple Music app
2. Go to File> Library> Update Cloud Library

After going back to my recently played playlist, all of my recently played songs were up to date. Hope this works for you!

I have been having this same problem for about a year or so now and I've tried everything. Just yesterday, I noticed a pattern. For some reason when I got home from work in the evenings and checked recently played, it was always showing the first song I was listening to as I was driving to work, but nothing after that until I got back home from work the next day. So I had an idea... I started playing a song while still at home on my network, went for a walk far enough to get out of network range and listened to a couple more songs. When I got home, same thing happened. It showed the one song I was listening to when I left the network range but not the other two. So I tried it again and it happened again. For whatever reason, starting a song on my home network and leaving while it was playing forced the recently played songs to show up. Don't ask me why, it makes no sense to me either. But now if I want to force my recently played songs through whatever black hole they're stuck in, I just start a song and leave network range long enough for it to finish and all the days other songs appear. I don't know if this will work for you but it did for me. Hope this helps.

So the latest on my end is that it still seems to be working after updating to iOS 17.2, except all of those plays not in the 24 hours before it first got fixed still haven't updated. I also applied that update on my iPad, and it resolved the issue there, too. Although I don't play nearly as many songs on that device, so I don't really know whether it only did the last 24 hours or not.

I also spoke with Apple support again and let them know what was happening. They said something about a possible pending fix on the MacOS side. I'm a little skeptical of that; it seems like the problem was with the mobile devices updating to the cloud. It seems unlikely that the iPhone is pushing data to the cloud and then it just isn't showing up on my MacBook. More likely, the iPhone just wasn't sending anything. When I played songs on my MacBook, those would show up in Recently Played on my iPhone. Anyway, it looks like there's now a 17.2.1 available for my iPhone, I'll see what happens with that.

Also, a while back when I was working with a very helpful Apple Support person over a period of a couple of weeks, who really understood this issue, she suggested posting on Applefeedback/ about the 12-hour update cycle, which she had confirmed from "the engineers" was working as designed. Perhaps if a lot of people post a suggestion to make those updates happen automatically, or at least more frequently, maybe they'd do something about it.

I have been having this issue for some time. Today, I changed the settings for my Recently Played Playlist which I have used for years. Rather than use within the last 90 days, 3 months, etc., I used "in the range" and started with November 28, 2023. My recently played list now appears.

This should be a pretty quick programming fix if it turns out that the rules were not working.

I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon with a very helpful support agent. While she was not able to resolve the issue, she was convinced that it was indeed a generalized iOS/iPadOS 17.x issue.

I made clear that it was an issue with ONLY the specific metadata items, last played timestamp and play count, that weren't being updated. All other Music sync actions (e.g. star ratings, playlist edits, adding new music from the Apple Music store) are working correctly bi-directionally. Also, I'm experiencing the exact same symptoms on both my iPhone and iPad. While my MacBook and Windows iTunes continue to work properly. We patiently went through all the troubleshooting steps she asked (even though I had done them all before).

She acknowledged that she sees a number of other similar reports and that the iOS/iPadOS Music app has seen a number of significant changes in 17.x. She opened a case for me and while not providing any real assurance or timeframe, she implied I should see this resolved with a future update.

We'll see.

Update: I’ve been having calls with Apple Support about this issue for the past two weeks. After getting a whole bunch of tests and checks done, they’re finally sending the issue up to the engineers to look into and hopefully see if a fix is possible in a future update.

They’re aware this is happening only in iOS 17.1 + above, and that it’s affecting numerous users. It seems promising either way, there may be a fix eventually.

In my experience the Cloud library Listening History is updated the first time you play a song on your iPhone each day. Really stupid in my opinion. Why not do it instantaneously or after an hour of not playing or something. So it doesn't take long after an update that fixes this bug to take effect, just play a song on your iPhone.

My "recently played" stopped updating at the end of October. I finally contacted Apple Support and was told, essentially, that it's just the way it is now. Tracks I play on my iPhone via the Music app will not register on my iMac's Music app as having been played. It was indicated to me that this apparently is not bug and will not be changed. Extremely frustrating.

Update - after my last post I decided to close what I could on the 'Focus' setting on my phone. Then I did an update cloud library on my MAC and left it running while I had some lunch and took the dog for a walk. I get back and to my astonishment my Mac has now got the message that I played some songs on my phone and the last one was about 2 hours ago.

Not sure if what I did helped in any way or perhaps it was the latest update to 17.2, either way I feel like I solved it and not Apple so I'm happy. With over 50,000 items on my library I totally rely on this meta data and star ratings to enjoy what I want to listen to, when I want to listen to it and how I listen to it.

I hope others will see things back to normal soon. :)

It's strange to me that I see others having this same issue, but reporting that it's been fixed before I even started having the problem. It didn't start for me until 11/22. I'm actually installing 17.2 on my iPhone right now to see if it makes any difference.

Anyway, what I have found with the timing for the metadata updates is this: When a song plays on my iPhone, it updates on my MacBook/iCloud, as well as all songs since the last time it updated. So if I play a bunch of songs, it appears like only the first one was updated. But it actually starts a 12 hour timer when the first song updates. After 12 hours, it waits until another song plays, then it updates and repeats. This is using an iPhone or iPad and a MacBook. My iPhone and iPad each has an independent 12 hour timer for this process.

Tried to do a follow-up with Apple Support today since the latest updates have still not resolved the issue. This did not go nearly as well as my initial call a couple of weeks ago. Got shuffled around and disconnected a couple of times. With the support agents unable to comprehend what was happening (trying to send me to "Media Services" to investigate my Apple Music Subscription status).

They also claimed that there were no notes in my ticket about the issue being escalated to development/engineering.

I encourage anyone having the issue to call Apple Support and report the issue with explicit details (i.e. LAST PLAYED metadata not syncing) and a case with a case number opened. Maybe we'll get some actual proegress.

That's really strange, and almost sounds like possibly not the same root cause as others discussed in this thread (of which I think there are several, tbh). I know for sure that in my case, it wasn't just a matter of not displaying in the Recently Played list; the data simply wasn't being updated, at least not through across the cloud from my mobile devices.

Did you try changing your rules back to "in the last [x] days/weeks/months"? That might narrow down whether it was just a temporary glitch or an actual issue. I tried it both ways with mine, and it didn't seem to make any difference.

What didn’t work for you? Fix will be in 7.2, not 7.1.2.