Apple Music Recently Played Not Updating

Same deal here. Recently played stopped syncing around October 25th on my systems -- that's the last time all three devices (iPad, iPhone and iMac) show a common last played song. Syncing other metadata (like rating or likes) still works fine.

It's certainly making a mess of my smart playlists since each device now seems to be working off an inconsistent selection of data from iCloud.

I asked the german apple support yesterday why the play count and the last play date doesn't get synced anymore (iPhone and Mac).

They told me, that the smart playlists content from MacOS doesn't work anymore on the iPhone and doesn't get synced and that they are blocking the play count.

The support said I have to think about what I want: smart playlists or play count. 👎

But without the play count I don't need most of my smart playlists anymore...

That's a really dumb thing!

Yeah it just seems ridiculous. The data all has to be transmitted eventually, so I don't see the point if it's about bandwidth. At a minimum, why not allow the user to select whether to update after each play, or the weird 12-hour method.

Anyway, I installed iOS 17.2, and it seems to be fixed now, but only updated the last 24 hours. I was listening to music on a long drive home yesterday, so there should be far more songs in my Recently Played. But the latest batch only went back to 3:01pm yesterday. There should have been hundreds more over the past couple of weeks.

So I decided to see whether this weird 24-hour issue with the update was still happening. I had updated my iPhone to 17.2.1 since a few days ago when I experienced that issue.

I played a few songs yesterday morning on my iPhone. The first one triggered the sync at 8:01am, and a bunch of songs from the day before showed up in the Recently Played on my MacBook. I let a couple more songs play right after the 8:01 song.

I played a few more songs throughout the day yesterday, but I made sure not to play anything after 8pm last night, so that it would go past 24 hours before updating again. I played a song this morning at 8:23am, which triggered the sync. My theory was that because of what happened earlier this week, that it might not include those songs from 8:04am and 8:07am yesterday morning, but it did. So it didn't stop at 24 hours prior to the sync like it did a few days ago. However, all of those songs, basically everything from about Nov 25 through December 17, have not updated. And my guess is if this issue is "fixed" and they're no longer working on it, they never will. As far as I can tell, it does seem to be working. Obviously I haven't conducted thorough testing but compared to what I've observed, it seems to be.

This is happening to me now. Ever since I updated iPhone to iOS 17.1. Recently played and play counts not updating plays from my iPhone. Hopefully they fix soon in an update.

Just got a notification 17.1.2 is out. Updating now.

Smart playlist?

I think you are in the wrong thread.

You might find these links more helpful.

https://www.viwizard.com/apple-music-tips/apple-music-smart-playlists-not-syncing.html#:~:text=Method%201%3A%20Reset%20All%20Settings,back%20on%20to%20try%20again.

https://www.viwizard.com/apple-music-tips/apple-music-smart-playlists-not-syncing.html#:~:text=Method%201%3A%20Reset%20All%20Settings,back%20on%20to%20try%20again.

Indeed seems that I'm recently facing the same issue. I used a lot the section "last played" on apple music Mac to get music history from all my devices. Since 2 weeks, only my listens on Mac are being updated. All my iPhone streams (music from my libraries) don't update anymore. Very frustrating especially when you have smart playlist.

This issue happens from 1 day to another without any chance in settings (might be an update?) I have "used my listening history" activated and shared across all devices.

What I have tried without solving the issue: log out from Apple Music, disactivating/activating shared history... nothing is changing... very sad

True, I hear some people say it’s only specific to iOS 17.

But I’m having this problem for more than 2 months now.

Many people reported regarding this on apple support before iOS 17 too including this thread which was posted on May 22, 2023 10:19 AM, which is before iOS 17.

Yep. And it's now back to that behavior for me. Once a day. But at least it works and is consistent again.

I have no clue why Apple chose that. On MacOS and Windows iTunes last played is updated after each song is played. It would be nice to at least have a "Sync Now" button to override the one day delay.

Hi all. I also have an ongoing case with Apple Support regarding the loss of play counts from iPhone to Mac and share these frustrations with you. Yesterday I updated my iPhone to 17.2 in the hope that a fix might be evident despite no mention of the problem that I could see were noted in the release notes. Today I have seen that the first item of music I played soon after 1am this morning has arrived into my Mac but all of the other tracks (I left it running all night) have. Given previous comments I now have to wait until tomorrow to see if they suddenly arrive in after I play the first track after midnight. I recall that my Mac library always did have to wait an extraordinary amount of time to see the play counts go up given that the 'star ratings' were within minutes.

What's really disappointing is that I have never experianced anyone from Apple Support say this maybe (or is) our problem and we recognise that and attach some type of 'fix' number to it that can be followed to update us the customers. Yes I appreciate that they need to go through the basic inquest as to what might be the cause but this soon turns into 'it must be a problem your end' and you almost have to rebuild your Mac to eliminate that approach.

Apple please do better and recognise publicly when you know you have issues and provide your support team staff with that info and let them share it.

I'll aim to post an update asap.

Hello bamcd0313,

In order to get to the bottom of this issue, you’ll need to reach out to Apple Support directly: Get Support

Regards.

Yes! There was eventually an Apple Music update and IOS update that fixed my problem!

Product Feedback - Apple

Send all of your feedback here.

They might acknowledge. 😊

I have a theory why they broke this. 17.2 has a new feature where you can turn off Listening History based on the current Focus. I'm guessing they broke it when reworking it for this.