iPod Touch playlist not syncing to iTunes

Roscoman,

you probably missed my answer at the end of page 1. I was able to resolve this issue.

please check my previous post and tell us if that fixes your issue.

Hi Snowy0
Sorry, I did miss that but now that I look at it I think it's a different issue. The issue I have (and that I think is the issue that started this thread) is not that playlists don't show up, as you describe. My playlists do sync from iTunes to the iPod. But when I edit one of those playlists on the iPod and then sync with iTunes again, my changes are reverted. The playlist on the iPod is overwritten with whatever was on iTunes. So effectively I can't edit my playlists because whenever I sync with iTunes my edits are discarded.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't always this way; until a relatively recent iOS update, playlist edits I made on the iPod were synced to iTunes.

I agree with Roscoman. Doesn't that just sync songs from certain playlists to the iPod? I would like to sync my entire music library, and also sync the playlists. Whenever I connect my iPod, any changes I made to my playlists on the iPod (i.e. changes I did NOT make on the computer) are gone.

EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEM!!!!

Driving me mad - This is a FANTASTIC utility that would be so good if it worked!!

Please look into this one.

TC

This bug is so unacceptable that I didn't sync my iPod for over a month - not once. And when I did, I renamed all my modified playlists first so I wouldn't lose my changes ( create a new playlist, name it something similar to the old one, select the old playlist and click add all songs, then delete the old playlist).

My iPod touch is my first apple product, I hope to be the first of many. While I love the interface, quality, and functionality, it's offensive that apple hasn't responded or at least acknowledged this problem by now.

I'm having this issue too. I'm new to the apple discussion boards as this is the first major screwup I've had with an apple device. Is there another forum perhaps that might be monitored? Should I spam a link to this thread to all the apple email addresses I can come up with?

I just called Apple support about this issue. It is known by them and they claim it is a 'security thing'. It was described to me that the Computer is the Parent and the ipod touch is the child. The Parent can push playlists to the Child, but there is no way to reverse that process. So they admitted that the editing of playlists on the ipod touch is a useless feature if you will sync with a computer.
They also claim that if all of the songs on a given playlist were purchased from iTunes, then the playlist should sync both ways.
Blackberry has figured this out with email on handhelds, how to use the most up-to-date file as the one that gets synced with email server. I expected more from Apple.
They said this is not something that will likely be fixed. Talk about frustrating!!

Sounds to me like they're talking in circles now. We all know this used to work - syncing back updated playlists from the iPod to a PC or Mac. So it's a bug created with the latest version of the software.

Not to mention, I have never created a playlist on my PC to sync to my iPod. I get ideas for what playlists I want, and what songs I want to listen to together when I'm using my iPod, away from my PC. So I create them on the iPod and sync them back. Duh!

Any updates on this issue?
I have the same problem and it is incredibly irritating. Surely Apple haven't really abandoned the ability to sync playlist changes from Ipod to computer?? Because of "security"??? What does that even mean????

Nothing new to say, just to repeat that it makes no sense to cripple an important feature on security grounds. Given what a malicious person could do with an iPod/iPhone given access to it - email, contacts etc - I doubt that rearranging playlists is going to be very high on the list of attacks. If Apple really think it is so important then guard the editing feature with the iTunes password. Not a stellar user experience but much better than simply discarding edits without warning. And what about the backup and restore? Does that not backup playlists in case of a disaster? That would surely be safeguard enough given the low probability of attack and high importance of the feature. As someone else pointed out, it's a big use case to want to create or change a playlist in idle time away from the desktop e.g. in a bus/train/lecture.

I'd also like to point out that editing playlists is really no different to rearranging apps into folders and changes made to folder structures persist a sync. How is this different? It's arguably less secure than playlist management because an attacker could actually delete apps from the device, whereas they cannot delete song files.

I don't think they mean that kind of security. I think it's to do with the computer coding of the software. But I know enough programming to know that there is ALWAYS a way to make anything work.

I'm not sure if my issue is the same as what is being discussed here or not. The other night I spent an hour creating a playlist on my iPod touch & then 2 days later I synced my iPod with my netbook (I currently don't have a main iTunes to sync to as my desktop computer is being rebuilt) and when I did it deleted the playlist I created from my iPod so now I have to spend another hour recreating it. If this issue is going to continue happening I'd like to know now before I end up having to spend another hour the next time I sync! Any suggestions as to how to stop this from happening?

Yes, this is the same issue we're discussing here. Unfortunately there is no way to stop it happening; any changes you make to playlists on the iPod are thrown away when you sync. The only way to create a playlist that will survive a sync is to create it on the netbook.

If that sounds crazy to you, that it renders the "create playlist" button on the iPod useless and not worth having, then you're not alone.