Q: Temporary Fix for Smart Playlist order bug

"Date added" sort order for a smart playlist for recently added music by, e.g. newest first, has never worked when syncing to iDevices (iD). This tip from TechGeekBlogger is simple and works!

I have a "mother" smart playlist in iTunes with "kind is music", "data added is in the last x months", etc. Then I created a "sister" smart playlist with the only rule being "playlist is [mother]". I set iTunes to sync this "sister" playlist to my iD's, instead of the "mother", and the sort order is exaclty as I have it set in the mother smart playlist!

Of course the only thing to remember is that you have to manually select each playlist from iTunes to sync to your iD, but that's a small, one-off step compared to the endless irritation of iTunes not preserving the "date added" sort order!

[Curiously, sorting a smart playlist by any other field in iTunes, e.g. artist, does transfer correctly to the iD.]

For a Most Recently Added Playlist for music on iPhone 4, iOS 5.0, iTunes 10.5 (141), Here's what worked for me after lots of experimenting:

To Create a "100 Newest" playlist:

1. In iTunes, delete any previous 'X Newest" playlists if they've not been syncing correctly since iOS 5 update, especially if they have referenced other playlists. In my experience if these playlists are not syncing in the correct order, there is nothing you can do to make them sync in the correct order - cut your losses and delete.

2. In iTunes under 'Library' in the sidebar, select 'Music"

3. From the 'File' menu select 'New Smart Playlist'

4. In the pop up box that appears, check 'Match the following rule:'

5. In the next line, in the pop-up menus, select the following: 'Media Kind', 'is', 'Music'

6. Check the "Limit to" checkbox and enter the '100' in the box, and then select the follwing option in succeeding popup lists: 'items', selected by 'most recently added'

7.You may check either or both of the options 'Match only checked items' and 'Live updating' - in my experiments these had no effect.

8. Click 'OK' and name your smartlst '100 Newest' or anything you'd like.

Here's something to note:

In your iTunes 'Music Library', the sort order is newest song at the top of your library when the LIBRARY is sorted by 'Date Added' and the small triangle has it's apex pointing down.  To me this means the LATEST song is on top.

In your '100 Newest' playlist, to sort so the newest song is at the top of the playlist when the PLAYLIST is sorted by 'Date Added' , you'll note the triangle is oriented with the apex pointing up. To me this signifies the 'YOUNGEST ADDED' song is on the top. 

However you view those two items, it's interesting that you'd expect the sort order might be reversed according to the triangle orientations, but it's not. And that's one of the sorting problems I had with syncing my playlists - newest were on the bottom on my iPhone playlist, but on the top in the playlist in my iTunes Library.  Certainly not a consistant user interface.

Also note that if you've used a previous hint in referencing a dated order playlist to avoid a previous iTunes playlist syncing bug, those lists now won't sort properly any longer.  As I said - cut your losses and start anew.

Hope this helps someone else. It took me a long time to get right.

Forget my fix, LoRob's  is THE ONE! Thanks.

And I agree, iTunes sort order logic is wrong...

Both work arounds worked for me. Thanks guys!

Cannot believe this has happened again. I wonder what playlists the testers are using...

Logic should be very clear - the order of a playlist on an iphone/ipad should replicate the order of that playlist in iTunes.

Thanks again guys.

LoRob is right

The solution is to erase your old smartplaylist and make a new one, preferrably using a new name. It seems that your old smartplaylist from previous versions of iTunes is not fully compatible with the latest version of iTunes.

Apple, please correct this.

The problem still persists. I thought the update might have fixed it.

I created a fix by using some of the techniques mentioned in this thread. However my Music app no longer loads up (displays a blank screen for 20 seconds then crashes to the main menu). And when it occasionally does load up, selecting the playlist takes another 20 seconds. And even more occasionally if I scroll to the bottom of that playlist and then back to the top - the songs have revered back to some really weird order.

How do I submit a bug report to Apple?

I did make a new playlist but it still crashes my iPod out.

Received a phone call from Cupertino in response to an email I sent inquiring about the smartlist problems.  They are aware of the problem and hope to have a fix soon. So at least we know they're working on it.  Hope that helps those of us who are eagerly waiting for the fix.

Glad to hear that there is an acknowlegement of the problem LoRob. It boggles the mind that this issue keeps cropping up every year or so.

What is their definition of soon...next year?  This should have been fixed immediately!  The music app is a total waste, I've gone back to using my 3rd gen nano...much better and easier to use.  My wife just got the newest gen nano and it doesn't work on there either!  boooo.

A Smart playlist should update automatically; i.e. if one of the rules is to have only unplayed items in the list then played items should automatically be removed...it doesn't work no matter which hint you use; I've tried them all.  It used to work until ios5.0 which was a horrible update; wish I never upgraded!

When I first got my iPad I was able to sort my smart playlists by Time, Release Date, etc. and have only unplayed podcasts show up; when I listened to the podcast it would go off the smart playlist on the iPad.  This doesn't work now.  I can get it to sort by picking the "sister" smart playlist, but it doesn't remove podcasts I've listened to.

The best solution for podcasts is to forget iTunes and use Downcast; it is ten times better.  You can create smart playlists, no need to sync with a computer, and you can control the speed of playback from 1/2x to 3x which can be individually set by podcast.  It also plays videos and the you can control their speed as well...excellent program worth the 1.99.

Now I just need to find a non-iTunes solution for my extensive music library.

This worked for me!  Thank you for sharing this.

To elaborate and update the timestamp of this (I was worried it wouldn't work because this thread is old).

1. Create a smart playlist how you want it ordered.  I called my playlist "dumb playlist"
2. Then, create a second smart playlist, telling it you want it to pull in songs from the "dumb playlist".  I called this "Awesome Playlist"
3. In my instance, I had to also re-order the new smart playlist (again) once it was created.
4. Sync to the iPhone
5. Eat a cheeseburger & celebrate

I like my music sorted by purchase date.  My iTunes dumb playlist kept sorting by Artist when synced with my iPhone, regardless of what I did.

Again, this fixed!!!  Thank you!!

You may also want to check the sort Name/Album/Artist data. I found that having some tracks with data and some without was messing with my play order when it was on my iPhone.