Play music on iPhone, does not update plays or last played on Apple Music for Mac

Settings ,apps ,apple,music ,allow permmisdions for music and audio toggle on to allow ,but you cant as apple,s lovely update they forgot to add those 2 options so no music add music will be till apple get there finger out stay greyed out till then youd have thought some tech geek at apple would have known this or made sure everthing worked b4 throwing out another useless update ,well done apple ,useless as ever

What a big clusterf--k apple are how on earth can a tech giant not make sure what there doing actually works only at this useless money grabbing company ,as i said the music and audio permmisdions have dissapeared after this latest useless update rendering the app useless for prob millions untill apple get therecfinger out there arse and put it right but wont hold my breath that happening anytime soon

Same here. I'm pretty sure there was a checkbox somewhere to synchronize playcount between iOS devices and the MacOS Apple Music library, but that option seems to have vaporized somehow. My best guess is that the whole issue has something to do with this:

https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/17/apple-music-fraud/

Using Dough AppleScrips on the MacOS Apple Music playcount it is possible to manipulate playcount, for instance. I can image this route also can be used to beef up playcount for Apple Music Streams. One again, I don't know but it wouldn't surprise if this challenge for Apple to prevent playcount fraud on streams has something to do with this.

Nevertheless, if Apple introduces features it's aways with fireworks ans fanfare but when they ditch functions it keeps deadly quiet leaving users in the undocumented dark. Spending hours finding out what's going on, if it's a bug or user mistake or whatsoever and finding out it might be another undocumented change isn't what Apple famously promotes as 'user friendly' in my opinion.

I updated my Mac book air to 14.1.1 and now my previously created playlists have disappeared on my Mac not my phone 14.. I created a new playlist on my Mac the songs transferred to my phone but the playlist did not.. Any thoughts, as I think we are all prisoners to these incompatible updates... SOOOO Aggravating !!!!!!!!

I have the same problem. I play music from my MacBook Air but my iMac, iPad and iPhone don't update. This is on top of another problem where some songs stop after 14seconds ... The Genius Bar was unable to solve the issue. It's seems like many others have these problems but I don't see any solutions. Is Apple just not working much with the Music app?

libertino85 wrote:

I don't know how to download the B version... I'll just wait till December 11 for the actual 17.2 update and hopefully the issue is resolved.

Settings>General>Software Update gets you to where you can access it

Does the next update solve the problem completely. That is - I currently have the very same playlist, one which should remove a song from the playlist after it has been played, on iMac, iPad, Apple TV and iPhone. And all are at different 'positions.' The only one that does update the playlist, is on the iMac. If I play any of the others, nothing happens, no updating.

I thought iCloud meant that each unit could update the playlist and accessing that playlist from another unit, would access the updated central playlist. Play a song on one, it is removed from the playlist, open the playlist on another, the playlist is minus one (as it were) on startup.

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[Edited by Moderator]

Steve Denton wrote:

Does the next update solve the problem completely. That is - I currently have the very same playlist, one which should remove a song from the playlist after it has been played, on iMac, iPad, Apple TV and iPhone. And all are at different 'positions.' The only one that does update the playlist, is on the iMac. If I play any of the others, nothing happens, no updating.

I thought iCloud meant that each unit could update the playlist and accessing that playlist from another unit, would access the updated central playlist. Play a song on one, it is removed from the playlist, open the playlist on another, the playlist is minus one (as it were) on startup.

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[Edited by Moderator]

I can't comment on whether playlists using play counts are totally fixed because I don't have any. But for me it does look like the problem of iOS plays not getting counted in the macOS Music app has been resolved. It would seem like that would take care of the playlist count problem, too.

Well, let's hope the update means they will finally be able to justify the "...and changes you make to your library will sync across all your devices" part.

And instead of having the same playlist in four different versions, they will each update just the one.

Is anyone having issues with Music not synchronizing between different Apple products?

If I add a song or favorite a song (or playlist) on my iPhone, it doesn't update on my other Apple products like my Apple Tv's or iPads. I spent hours the other week favouriting music on my iPad only to find out it didn't synchronize across all devices. I had this issue with 17.1, so I updated to 17.2 (on all my devices). Then I added a bunch of songs on my Iphone, wanted to show my wife the new music on my Apple TV, only to see my music was last updated days ago.

That’s partly my problem. The playlist I have on my iMac, based on a certain number of plays, at the moment anything with under four plays, is on the iPhone, iPad and the Apple TV alright, but ‘stuck’ in different stages. None of which update based on what has been played 4 times and therefore been (in theory) ‘removed’ from the playlist. None of the versions of the playlist, match. I’m not sure quite when they stopped being updated, but it is several months in some cases.

I tried logging totally out of Music on my iPhone, then restarting the phone, then adding Music again…the iPhone playlist was exactly the same as it was before, about three months out of date - according to Music on the iMac.

and…it’s stopped scrobbling to Last.fm. Really irritating. Especially as Mr Cook et al, tout the ability to update ACROSS devices, as one of the (no-brainier) ‘features.’

If one can do them for false advertising, I don’t know…

I haven't encountered the 14 second problem, but I have noticed that some tunes will play almost to the end but but maybe 20 seconds before the song is over, will skip to the next song. Has anyone noticed this?

Just updated to iOS 17.2. I am still having this problem. I run and listen to music on my iPhone and/or watch, but in November it stopped updating my mac with play counts and dates. My iPhone and watch does pass along star ratings, and I can add/remove songs to playlists, but it still does not update my mac play counts and dates. Frustrating.

Things still not right at my end either. I've got 4 Apple things - iMac, iPhone, iPad and ATV - all with their own version of the same play-count based playlist. The 'closest' are the ones on the ATV and on the iMac, though still several songs off.

(For new readers) The playlist is a simple one, (currently) if it's been played less than 4 times, it's in the playlist, when it gets a 5th play, it is removed from the playlist. In theory, automatically.

I'm running the latest and greatest versions of all relevant software, logged in to the same, the only, account I have for Apple Music.

The latest problems I've identified that may have something to do with it are: the 'recently played' folder on the Apple Music on iMac, only seems to show recently played on Wi-Fi, I can check as (now) Last.fm actually updates and shows songs played while out of the house. And, I'm wondering if a song or two have got the playlist 'stuck' on iPad, iPhone, ATV. There was one time a while back, where I physically deleted a song that had been stuck at the top of the list on iPhone for months, despite repeated plays, and it updated the list...for a while anyway.

All this comes a long way down The List - after world peace, ending world hunger - but, is insanely irritating none the less. And, goes directly against Apple's 'update across your iDevices' claim.

So as the data updates overnight I will play again tomorrow to see how I get on - I have updated to 17.2 - I did notice that when i turned on the app it did say Welcome to Apple music like it had been updated!