iOS 5 sync with iTunes not keeping playlist sort

I've been searching for a solution to this too. After updating my phone to iOS5 and syncing with iTunes again, all my manual (not smart) playlists which are sorted by date: newest first, are sorted by date: oldest first on my phone.

Anybody figured this out?

Okay, I was just about to post a similar question. I've searched other forums unusccessfully for an answer. I'm using 3GS, but after my upgrade to IOS 5 today, the playlist on my phone is not sirting in the same order as I've set it in iTunes. I prefer to sort my playlists in descending order of "Date Added", but now I cannot get it to do same on my iPhone which will only sort the songs in Ascending order of Date Added. WHAT IS THE PHONE NOW SYNCING WITH??? I'm tearing my hair out. It might sound trivial, but aaaaarrrrrrghhhhh......

I've even tried reversing the sort order on iTunes to see if it will somehow reverse the order on iPhone, but it wasn't having it.

I hope someone who knows the fix responds to this.

Apparently there is a bug and you'll have to wait for the next update to fix the problem. I have the same problem so I called Apple.

It's a maddening old bug that keeps popping up now and again including after iOS5. on my iPhone 4S smart playlist order is all over the place, no rhyme or reason. On an upgraded iPhone 4 it was merely backwards. Don't know how to fix this one; it's annoying.

Smart playlist order can be fixed by setting "Playlist is Music" rule.

Manual playlists date order is the real problem.

I ended up fixing it by making smart playlists that didn't refer to other smart playlists, then right clicking on the playlist and selecting "Copy to Order". Then I had to remove all the music off my iPhone and reload it (a long process for 6,000 songs, re-encoded at 128k).

It worked though!

If it happens again I'll try your tip as well. Thanks.

I have iPhone 4S on iOS5 and have the same issue. I did the same thing that kashif-enfield did with reversing the Date Added to be ascending (oldest first), but it didnt help. I havent been able to figure out the logic behind its current sort. Grrr!

Adding "Playlist is Music" to smart playlists fixed this for me. Unfortunately, this workaround can't be used for a playlist in which "Match ANY of the following rules" is checked. I did not have to remove and reload music from my iPhone 4. Weird bug!

Update:

Reported my results too soon. Adding "Playlist to Music" to some Smart Playlists worked. Others did not, even after removing, syncing and reloading the playlist. Apple needs to fix this! Send feedback to: http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html and/or to http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html .

I accidentally cleaned up my playlist (thinking it was the problem) and now lost all the date that I had updated in itunes (but not on my windows folder where I had kept a copy). The music was sorted by newest first but still it won't show up on my iphone 4 with ios5 (itunes 10.5.x.x.x.x) God save me!

I am having a similar problem (to krishnanfromfrenomnt) a playlist I created in itunes hasn't been synced to my ipod touch. I have synced many times, restored my ipod twice and still it will not add this playlist. * the playlist in question was a playilst I did have on my ipod but had deleted off before I downloaded ios5. I had deleted it because whenever I synced and there was a difference to the ipod list & the itunes list it would created a separate one..so I'd have two. now I can't even get one.

Just adding that I too am having the same problem with sort oders not syncing from iTunes smart playlists on my Mac to my iPhone 4 with iOS 5; here's hoping that Apple's trolling the boards! Did some searching around, tried some common approaches others have used without any luck. VERY annoying when you want to listen to your most recently aquired songs on your iPhone in the order you got them and can't!

Submitted feedback like Hersco! Do the same and get Apple listening and working on a fix...

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html and/or tohttp://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html .

Fixed, sort of!

I'm having the exact same issue with iTunes 10.5, iOS 5 on an iPhone 4S. My regular (not smart) playlist was sorted by "Date Added" newest on top, and in my phone it seemed to be sorted by "Date Added" oldest on top (which is silly because I want to play my new music more often than my old music...)

Anyway, on a whim, I tried sorting my iTunes playlist by "Plays" and synced and it WORKED (properly sorted by "Plays" on my iPhone). Thinking I had fixed the issue, I again sorted by "Date Added" newest on top, and synced, and the iPhone reverted to "Date Added" oldest on top...

Thinking it might be just the "Date Added" column sorting that's F'd, I sorted by "Name," and synced and it WORKED (properly sorted by "Name" on my iPhone).

Not wanting to test each column, I decided to leave it sorted by "Plays," least on top, which is similar to "Date Added" newest on top, but not exactly. It'll have to do until Apple fixes this issue.

Conclusion: At least the "Date Added" column sorting in iTunes is completely disregarded on the iPhone, choose another sort column for now 😕

Correction: after testing "Name" descending and "Plays" descending, it seems iTunes always syncs ascending to the iPhone (which is why Name and Plays was working for me previously)...

So it appears that while the iPhone IS sorting by the column you chose to sort by in iTunes, it's ALWAYS ascending regardless of the order in iTunes.

It just so happens that "Plays" ascending (fewer play on top) is most similar to "Date Added" descending.

Here's how to fix this.

1) Get your playlist in the order you want in iTunes.

2) Create a new playlist and drag all the songs into it from the sorted playlist.

The next 2 are important!!!

3) Do not change the order using any of the column headers.

4) Do not select Copy To Play Order.

5) (Optional) Delete old playlist, rename new playlist.

Sync your device.

The problem is in the sorting. If you don't sort your playlist via the column headers you're OK.

Hope this helps.