There seems to be a bug in iOS 5 and iTunes 10.5 involving the sort order of a smart playlist of podcasts. I created such a playlist and sorted by release date on iTunes but I noticed it had a different sort order on the iPod Touch.
After playing around with it a bit I found that the only way to preserve the sort order that I have in iTunes on the iPod Touch is to uncheck "Live Updating" in the smart playlist.
only thing I could get to work it was to make new playlists in limits of 200 made from my original playlist (ok - it was pretty huge!!!) ... at least now they're in my order not alphabetical! 😀
no doubt there's an easier way ... but for the techno-dumbo's amongst us (like me!) maybe a fix in the short term.
This is annoying. I'm waiting for the next update to come out to resolve this. Work arounds are not working for me, and I only have 126 songs on my current playlist that I listen to on a regular basis.
I've written a topic called Temporary Fix for Smart Playlist order bug on how to temporarily fix the smart playlist problem. It isn't perfect, but it seems to work.
Doesn't solve the problem for me, TGB. Tried moving my podcasts into a new smart playlist, then sync the original smart playlist (now pointing at the new one) to my phone. Still doesn't preserve the proper order. Oddly, it's only my podcast playlist doing this, not my "smart shuffle" music playlist.
I am having the same issue with my "Top 50 Most Played" smart playlist. (The default is 25, but I changed it to 50.) When synced to my iPhone, the playlist order is reversed. I am using iTunes 10.5 / iOS 5. I experienced the similar issue in iOS 4 that was later fixed. None of the workarounds stated in this thread work for me.
Pab,
Check out my reply in the other thread Temporary Fix for Smart Playlist order bug
Try the step by step test that I provide and let me know in both threads if it works for you. Hopefully it does and can help others.
I tried the Temporary Fix for Smart Playlist for my Top 50 smart playlist. The result is the same (reverse order on iPhone).
My ipod touch wouldn't live update smart music playlists before the ios5 upgrade ( whereas my classic does) I found that bearable. I updated fine with a sync.
With the new software upgrade my (4th generation) touch won't upgrade smart playlists period even syncing. I've tried all the fixes listed here.
Is it possible to restore back to before the "upgrade" ?
I am also having the smart playlist problem after upgrading to ios5 and itunes 10.5 with a 3GS iphone. Tried all of the suggestions here and nothing allows me to sort the podcasts by release date with most recent first. I had a similar problem with the ios4 update, but it finally got fixed.
I guess I didn't test it that way. By default, my podcast smart playlists are setup to have the oldest first so I can listen to them in order. When I sync them to my iPhone, they are reversed with the most recent on top. The solution I mentioned in the other thread got them to sync over with oldest first, which I thought solved the bug.
I am having the same issue. I usually like my playlists to be sorted by RECENTLY ADDED and it is not working. It is sorted in Itunes but when it comes to syncing with my phone it doesnt reflect the copy to play order I chose. What can I do? Someone help!
The solution (actually, it's an ugly workaround for what is obviously an Apple bug) suggested by TechGeekBlogger works fine for me.
For some reason my smart playlists were not getting the order preserved on sync, but a new smart playlist that just includes everything in the original playlist does. Weird, but it works.
Copy to play order isnt working for me in the new ios5? Any ideas
I'm glad that it's working for somebody 🙂
I tried that suggestion and tried to create a second playlist and still no dice
Bug: iOS 5 and iTunes 10.5 podcast smart playlist sort order and how to fix.
