Why iPhone does not sync play count anymore?

Mine is the same.

I quiet like the play count/last played as it helps me create playlists of things I haven't listened to recently.

Not sure how it ever could have worked since manually-managed devices do not transfer play history (or rating changes) back to the iTunes library.

The only exception I've seen is when a device starts out in auto-sync mode and then is switched to manual mode, but even then only the songs that were left on the device from the original auto-sync will update iTunes, manually-added items do not (and I'm not sure this ever was the case for iOS devices, I've only seen the Classic iPod can do this).

If you want to sync play history, why not switch to auto-sync mode? If your library exceeds your iPhone's capacity, simply create one or more playlists that define what you want on your iPhone and auto-sync to the playlist(s).

This feature has alway worked in manually sync mode... until now... my brand new iPhone 4S with the best sound quality yet and i can't even listen to it properly... stuck with 1 song so i can easily manage how many times i have listened to that today. FIX IT NOW!!!

tvirlip wrote:

I was asking for a solution to a problem (feature is broken) not for an explanation why I don't need the feature.

Not everyone's listening habits are limited by 50 songs from MTV top.

Nowhere did I suggest that you don't need this feature, I was merely offering you an alternate solution. No need for the snarky reply.

This suggestion does not make any sense whatsoever.

First, play count sync worked for more than two years without any problems -- yes, in manual mode.

If the iPhone behaved this way, then it is different from all other Apple devices. The iPod Classic, Nano, Touch, and iPad all behave in the manner I described -- they will not update your iTunes library if they're in manual sync mode. If the iPhone did allow this, then I'm not surprised that this capability was removed with iOS 5 since Apple seems big on consistency. Of course its possible that an iOS update will make it behave the way you want, but I wouldn't count on it. Your best bet is to report this as a bug and see if that gets Apple's attention:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Second, I use play count to manage my playlists, so it's important. Third, my library is 800 Gb of stuff bought from emusic (when it was still "all you can eat for monthly fee"), books from audible.com and ripped CDs. I have hundreds of different playlists, some static, some "smart".

You can still do all of this with auto-syncing. My library exceeds my iPhone's capacity several times over. All you need to do is re-think your concept of manually managing things. Instead of manually managing the iPhone, you manually manage a playlist and auto-sync that (along with your other playlists). For your smart playlists, all you need to do is add the criteria to base them on this manually-managed playlist, that's all.

I use a mix of playlists -- smart ones that select content based on rating and listening habits, with limits on how big they are, and regular playlists that I manually manage (new stuff, temporary stuff, etc.) and one smart playlist that sums it all up for my iPhone.

Look, I don't like it either when a software update changes the game, I'm still waiting for Apple to fix Live Updating in smart playlists and that's been broken since iOS 3. If you don't like that your manually managed iPhone doesn't update your library, this approach will address that.

This doen't solve the problem. Example: playlist on my iphone: Only songs with zero plays. For some reason, if you don't manually manage your music, the number of plays on the iphone smartplaylist will not update, and therefore the playlist won't update, until you sync with itunes. I don't want to have to sync every day. This worked fine (if you manually managed your music) before iOS5

Understood, there is no perfect solution and in your case syncing everyday to update your playlists is a deal-breaker. My point is that for those that don't mind re-syncing frequently (especially now with wi-fi syncing being possible) then this might be an acceptable workaround. I just wouldn't get your hopes up with Apple "fixing" this since the iPhone is now behaving like other i-devices.

Just out of curiosity, for those that manually manage their iPhone you know that you can't add music from another library, which was also different from all other devices. Has that changed with iOS 5? Can you add media from a different library if you manually manage the iPhone?

i have to say that I have always managed my music manually, and the play count has always updated from the device. Only since using IOS5 has it stopped updating play count.

I'm having this exact experience. my play counts from phone (always manually compiled) always tabulated in itunes til the upgrade...not the end of the world, but clearly something that used to work now not working for me.

Just adding to the thread that I'm suffering exactly the same problem. I've always manually managed my music and the play count has always updated when I've sync'd my iPhone, until now. As a result the Last.fm scrobbling has also stopped too 😟

For Last.fm I think there is a special scrobbling option for manually-managed devices, is that what you're using?

Not that I'm aware of, or can see having a quick view through the Last.FM preferences.

I've just fully moved over to a 100% Mac platform having used Windows iTunes ever since the 4th gen iPod, and thought the playlist update count thing was just a difference between Windows & Mac iTunes. Looks like its more to do with iOS5 based on the above.

However, your playlist post has got me thinking that thats a smart way to go. I managed to accidently wipe my iPhone music library twice when switching it to the Mac based library, only to have to drag it all back over again which was a right pain. If I keep all the tracks I want on my iPhone on a specific playlist and manage it via auto sync, not only will it hopefully sort out the play count issue but have a backup of the playlist too.

BlackenAmbaa wrote:

Not that I'm aware of, or can see having a quick view through the Last.FM preferences.

I think there are different ways to scrobble, mine is somewhat manual by right-clicking on the Windows task bar and in that way there are two submission methods, one of them being for manually-managed devices. But if you use the "client" version and/or Mac then not sure how (or if) you can do that.

Yes, managing one or more playlists to define your content is way better than managing the device IMO. I use about 13 playlists (11 of them smart, so only 2 need to be manually managed -- new stuff and temporary "must-have" songs for awhile). The smart lists automatically pick stuff based on ratings, play history, and in some cases genre, then one smart list that sums it all up for me (which is what I sync to, and what all my other normal playlists are based on). A bit of work to set up, but well worth the effort. This capability is what makes iTunes and i-devices shine!

I'm having the same problem and it's making me insane.

I don't need my play counts and last played to match between my MacBook and my iPhone. But I use the Last Played as a criteria for smart playlists on my iPhone.

For instance, if I want to listen to all the Jawbox songs I can go to Artists>All Songs>Shuffle, but I don't want to hear the same stuff over and over, so I make a smart playlist that will only include a song if it hasn't been played in a specific amount of time:

I totally fouled up my comment, and there's no way to delete it. Awesome! So I rewrote the whole thing and then it vanished when I went to update my original comment. Great!!! I don't even remember how I explained everything. Unbelievable.

Basically, I set up all but 2 or 3 of my playlists like this:

I do this so songs will disappear from the playlist as they are played. It's great, and I've used it since smart playlists were first introduced (whenever that was). Now it doesn't work at all. I can listen over and over and the playlist doesn't ever get down to zero songs.

I have always manually managed my music and this has never been an issue until iOS 5.

I tested this by adding an album to my iPhone that I've never played; I listened from start to finish, reconnected my iPhone to my MacBook, and the Last Played column still comes up blank. I backup, then sync, and Last Played is still blank.

So. Frustrating.

If this was a "broken" feature previous to iOS 5 then it would be great if they could break it again. Maybe in the battery drain software fix?