Syncing my iPhone 4 will not update iTunes play counts

I've had exactly the same problem, and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong either. I'm starting to think that it is a bug, although if someone has any suggestions that could fix it that'd be great.

I have exactly the same problem too

Same problem, on Window XP.

iTunes 10.1.1 + iPhone 4 (iOS 4.2.10) Manually Manage Music worked fine.

Updated to iTunes 10.5, iPhone 4 (iOS 5.0) Manually Manage Music, play counts syncing stopped working.

Interestingly, the plays counts and play times are showing up on the phone (viewable in iTunes when connected), just aren't syncing to the library.

Tried turning of Manually Manage Music, made no difference. On doing that, plays no longer appeared to update on the phone at all.

Furthermore:

* on disabling Manually Manage Music, the plays counts on the phone matched that of the (non updated) iTunes library - expected.

* on re-enabling Manually Manage Music and re-adding the songs, the play counts on the phone matched that of what was on the phone BEFORE I disabled Manually Manage Music. That is, the play counts that would not sync to the library were restored on the phone. In this instance, the play dates differed to before disabling and re-enabling, and we relative to the time I switched back to Manually Manage Music, but the play counts were the same as before. The times were relatively the same (I could view the order in which I'd previously played the songs the day before), just offsetted by about half a day. THIS I did not expect. I expected to counts on the phone to be as per the counts from the library once I copied the music back manually.

Thus, it looks to me that even though the play counts aren't syncing, the storage of play counts is persisting on the phone, even across a Manually Manage > Auto > Manually Manage settings change.

Finally, iTunes 10.5 itself seems okay. Syncing my iPod (same machine, same iTunes installation, different Windows profile) is still syncing play counts fine.

Dalmanac, I hear you. I record all of my plays to a database, and iOS5 has broken that for me. Quite frustrating.

I've done a bunch of testing tonight, a bit more thoroughly than I did on the weekend. There are two scenarios where I appear to be able to get the phone to sync plays back the the library.

Play a song from the iPhone through iTunes:

1. Connect iPhone.

2. Play song through iTunes, but from iPhone.

2.1 iTunes briefly says "updating files on phone" or something such

2.2 iPhone count increases (viewable in iTunes)

3. Click on Music Library -> play count has not updated

4. Sync iPhone -> play count in Music Library updates

This implies to me that syncing from the iPhone on iOS5 CAN work. The functionality is there, just broken.

Repeating those steps, but playing the song on the phone, not iTunes sees the iPhone count update, but not Music Library.

Starting a fresh library (yeah, I know, I don't want to do that either) and leaving the phone in Automatic mode appears to sync plays from the iPhone when played from the iPhone. I just tested with one track, but it seems to work without issue.

Starting a fresh library and using Manually Manage Music does not work, or at least I can't get it to. It behaves the same as keeping the existing library in manual mode. iPhone count updates, library count doesn't.

The last thing I want to do is start a new library and turn off Manually Manage Music. For the time being I've changed my database import from reading the music library XML to exporting a playlist from the phone of the day's plays (including play date and count) and importing from that. At least for a bit to see if this gets syncing issue fixed - or if I can find the magic combination of making it work again with my existing music library in manual mode.

If anyone learns anything further about how to get it working or has any further diagnosis please post.

As another note - I have tried syncing both with a wired connection and with the new wireless syncing capability and neither seem to transfer play counts.

I have also noted a couple of occasions where I have played a whole album, but it has left a couple of the songs without a 'play' on the iPhone, which is strange.

I do hope this can be resolved quickly as I depend on my play counts for structuring my listening.

I'm in the same boat, operating with a 3GS. Hopefully, this gets fixed quick. It's a small problem, but really noticable. Thanks guys for any advice that you discover.

This has unfortunately made last.fm updating impossible. Very disappointing.. hope they fix this asap.

Same here. Another side affect of this is that podcasts that I listen to on the phone do not show up as "played" in itunes. Oddly though, if I stop listening in the middle of a podcast on the phone, the bookmark gets transfered (usually) to itunes.

This is really annoying and I hope they fix it soon.

Having the same issue, it is annoying, I like to know how much I listen to my song especially in my favorites playlist. I hope apple does something about this, I miss the old way and not this home sharing syncing

Although no solution, I think I have noted another related issue. This all seems to revolve around managing your own music.

I have a number of iPhone formatted videos which I don't keep in iTunes, but load on to the iPhone by dragging from WIndows Explorer into the iTunes window and on to the iPhone. This usually works fine, but now when I do this, the process works and the movies load on to the iPhone, but don't appear in the new Video app. I think the only way to get them to appear would be to add the movies to iTunes first rather than straight on to the iPhone.

I'm hoping these issues get fixed soon as I am no longer using my iPhone for listening to music and can't watch movies like I usually do - I'm doing it straight through iTunes so that my plays increment successfully. This is obviously a pain as my music is no longer mobile.

I'm having the same issue, and it's driving me crazy. I'm used to Apple products that "just work" and now I'm especially frustrated, because this used to do so.

This is a core product for them. They won over the music lovers with the iPod/iTunes combination and in turn, the music lovers gave them the cred they needed to win over everyone else.

I hope they fix it soon. It's unacceptable.

Yep, another one here. Running 2008 MBP Snow Leopard, latest iTunes, iOS5, iPhone 4. Very annoying bug indeed.

Me too. 3GS, ios5. After playing songs on my iphone, then syncing, all the changes ON the iphone are reset back to the way it was in my music library. In addition, in itunes, the phone music library (and the main music library) does not reflect what has actually happened on the phone. Finally, a playlist created on the phone does not appear at all in itunes.