Why iPhone does not sync play count anymore?

No not any of those music folders,

Right Click on your iphones name and click sync one more time, when this is done, click on your music folder under your iphones name you will get this message "You have changed the settings for the iPhone “dermott o'donnell’s iPhone”. Would you like to apply these changes?" click apply

and the play count should be updated, my music is managed manually as well

Dermyod wrote:

Right Click on your iphones name and click sync one more time, when this is done, click on your music folder under your iphones name you will get this message "You have changed the settings for the iPhone “dermott o'donnell’s iPhone”. Would you like to apply these changes?" click apply and the play count should be updated, my music is managed manually as well

But what did you change that prompted the "would you like to apply these changes" message?

The only time I get that message is when I've changed a setting. Syncing in and of itself isn't a preference that requires confirmation to do; it's just syncing.

Where else are you seeing the play count/last played information if not in one of the two Music folders?

Even if this does work somehow to update the information while the iPhone/iPod is connected to the computer, it doesn't solve the problem of walking around listening to music on my iPhone and playlists built on 'Last Played' criteria don't update when the songs in the playlist are played.

Jarrod Dyer wrote:

Even if this does work somehow to update the information while the iPhone/iPod is connected to the computer, it doesn't solve the problem of walking around listening to music on my iPhone and playlists built on 'Last Played' criteria don't update when the songs in the playlist are played.

Note that this particular problem is not exactly a play count sync issue -- even if your play history was updating on your device without re-connecting to iTunes, your smart playlists would not likely update until you re-connect to iTunes. I say that because Live Updating on the iOS device has been broken for years, but by the sounds of it if you were manually managing content it used to work up through iOS 4.

Based on your previous posts, I understand what you're trying to achieve, but what you're seeing with Live Updating is exactly how its worked for auto-sync'ers for years, and iOS 5 just brought you in line with the rest of us.

Dermyod wrote:

... click apply and the play count should be updated, my music is managed manually as well

All you're doing is what others have already observed -- in order to get your playcounts to update on your device you need to connect to iTunes and initiate a sync (which seems odd if you're manually-managing, but even in manual mode a "sync" applies to other things, like changes you've made to sync preferences for Podcasts, photos, etc.)

This is a different situation from some other posts in this thread, where those who manually-manage are expecting their iTunes library to get updated with play counts from their device. Maybe that used to work on the iPhone, but all other devices (iPod, iPad) have behaved such that their play history does not update iTunes if they're manually managed.

I know it's not a play count issue, I've just been following a few Apple discussions about the overall change in functionality (for me) and I happened to reply to this one without realizing it was specifically focused on play count sync.

I saw your post about this on ilounge yesterday and I almost replied "noooo, it hasn't been broken for ages" but then I realized there seem to be so many variations of this problem that different people are having that you're probably right and it was broken back in iOS3, so I didn't see the point in starting up a back and forth about it.

How funny to find you here as well.

You are exactly right, I have always managed my music, and it did used to work up through iOS4; going back to my iPod Photo 60GB from 2004 (2005?) and my first iPhone 3G, it had always worked. I'm really sorry other people have been dealing with this longer.

How utterly stupid and pointless is a "Live Updating" option if it's not even remotely live at all? Having to be at home, connected to a computer by a hardwire connection (or I suppose with iOS5 through wi-fi) just so a mobile device can be made aware that it has been playing songs while away from home isn't really my idea of "Live."

For that matter, why is "Live Updating" a preference that has to be enabled? Why would anyone not want playlists based on play count or last played to Live Update? That's the entire point of using that kind of data to generate a "smart" playlist in the first place. It seems like the kind of thing I should have to hack into through terminal to turn off, not a checkbox to turn on (which obviously still doesn't work).

And what kind of sense does it make to take a broken functionality that was afflicting a portion of iOS users and, with iOS5, inflict it on everyone? I'm sure that wasn't a conscious decision, but it's definitely been the result.

Especially frustrating is the infrequent, random times everything works like it used to for no apparent reason. Like yesterday when backing up/syncing, everything I listened to since Sunday suddenly was all there with correct last played dates; but before the data starting on Sunday it said I hadn't listened to anything since March 27. Or like the time I dragged my laptop and iPhone to the Apple store to talk to a real live person about it and everything worked perfectly. Perfectly! Several times of plugging in and unplugging, syncing, backing up, different playlists, and everything worked exactly as it used to. I'm sure the guy must have thought I was a crazy person with an imaginary problem.

Anyway, it's partly reassuring to know that this is expected behavior and at the same time really disheartening to know that it's been broken for much longer than six months and Apple has done nothing to remedy it. I sent in another Bug report about it this afternoon. Maybe I'll just start sending one every day, I suppose it's my only recourse to try to get something done about it.

Wow, that got a little more rant-y than I intended Sorry.

Well certainly there are many, many variables to consider in all of this, which is compounded by some users misunderstanding of what syncing really entails (manual or auto). For example, not many realize this but you can actually do both -- auto-sync a portion of your library and manually drag and drop other music to your device. In this mode, the manually-added items will update your library's play counts and rating changes. But if you're using a "pure" manual mode, it sounds like that's not the case, at least not anymore. If you're a manual sync'er I suppose you could use this as a workaround -- auto-sync to a very limited set of songs and manually drag and drop the rest (but you still have to re-connect to iTunes to get things to update).

Live Updating was such a cool feature, but seems to have been left in the dust over numerous iOS updates. With each release I check this feature, but no dice. I think it might still work with some very basic criteria (maybe Rating still works if that's the only criteria used) but the minute you add complexity like "Playlist Is ..." or "Last Played is ..." then no Live Updating.

When iOS came out with the ability to edit a playlist on the device, I was really hoping that Live Updating on the device would work because then if I had two playlists (one regular, one smart based on the regular) I could create a "best of" playlist on the fly. But no such luck, I'd need Live Updating to do that.

I sometimes wonder if this feature was abandoned due to lack of interest, or if the key developer for this part of the code moved on, or if Apple knew that with iCloud coming that might make it too complicated. Who knows ...

This seems to be a problem of iTunes itself. The smart playlists based on playcount and/or last played are updating on my ipad when i played the song on my iphone. Well not the way as I would expect it, because it takes some time, but at least its updating.

Are there any news yet? Anyone contacted apple support for that issue?

After suffering and resolving a similar issue, I thought I’d share my experience here. I realise this is not relevant to some problems mentioned here, but someone might find it useful.

I manually manage my music on the iPhone and recently started using smart playlists to exclude rated songs, so they drop off the list once rated. After synching, I then look the ratings up in iTunes so I can make changes to my original copy of the mp3s. I recently found that in certain cases the ratings were not appearing in iTunes after syncing. I don’t mean in the library, but specifically in the list of music on the device. Other information such as number of plays and last played date were also not updating. However, the metadata on the files on the iPhone itself are updated, i.e. smart playlists based upon rating or last played behave as they should and do show the correct information. Smart playlists therefore show different songs if viewed in iTunes or on the iPhone.

I tracked this down to the amount of available space left on the device. I have a 16GB device and found that when there is only about 0.3 – 0.4 GB free, the metadata will not sync. Other things, such as new playlists will sync. Once the available space increases again, new ratings updated after the space is available will then sync, but changes made whilst the free space was low will not; instead I have to update these ratings manually in iTunes.

The effect is the same if the decrease of free space is due to addition of new music or apps, or even updating existing apps if the new versions are larger. This therefore suggests that some system or cache files are overwritten by content, and not partitioned to protect functionality.

I’m currently using OS 5.1 and iTunes 10.6.1.7. I’m sure I’ve experienced this on earlier versions of both.

jkhanhl wrote:

I tracked this down to the amount of available space left on the device.

You might be onto something, the failed syncing of play history could be due to a memory allocation issue. Quite some time ago I saw that with my Touch where I would periodically notice that play history and/or rating changes would not update my library, and my Touch is set for auto-sync so that should never happen. I never did confirm the reason, but it seemed to happen if (a) I had not sync'd in several days so I had accrued hundreds of playcounts that needed to be sync'd, along with (b) playing certain games that may have been memory-intensive.

I've always wondered if iOS uses a portion of free storage space as RAM too, so maybe weird things happen when you get near the capacity of the device.

You're wrong. I've always manually managed my iPhone, and it has always synced playcounts - until now, that is. I'm still on iOS 4 though, so whatever this iOS5 problem is it's unrelated.

SamEllens wrote:

I'm still on iOS 4 though, so whatever this iOS5 problem is it's unrelated.

So you're on iOS 4 and you've lost the ability to sync playcounts? What iPhone model, and what version of iTunes are you using? Can you trace this change to a point in time when you updated iTunes?

Also, just for kicks ... how much free space do you typically leave on your iPhone?

Likewise I've always manually managed mine as well. But I think iCloud upended all of that. Are you guys using iTunes Match? What I thought was supposed to keep everything in sync automatically is kind of more hassle than not. And I can't say this for sure, but I think that's why my play counts have stopped syncing. Same reason I can't use iTunes on my mac to add music to my phone. I HAVE to download it. It's lame.

But also, because of iTunes match my phone is somehow over capacity by 11.7 Gb, so that might have something to do with it as well.

If you guys figure this out though, lemme know.

I think we have the same problem. I manuually update, IO5 and have just shy of 3 gigs left on my phone.

If I play a song while connected to itunes, the play count updates.

If I play the song in the car through my car stereo or if I'm just playing directly from the device, my play count does NOT update.

This used to work.

rockmyplimsoul wrote:

SamEllens wrote:

I'm still on iOS 4 though, so whatever this iOS5 problem is it's unrelated.

So you're on iOS 4 and you've lost the ability to sync playcounts? What iPhone model, and what version of iTunes are you using? Can you trace this change to a point in time when you updated iTunes?

Also, just for kicks ... how much free space do you typically leave on your iPhone?

Should have updated for future people (hi future people!).

The free space appears to have been the issue, as my "Purchased" playlist pushed my iPhone into negative space remaining without me noticing. Another potential cause was that I activated WiFi sync on my iPad. I changed both these things at once and my play counts resumed syncing, so it could plausibly be either.

Can I just say chap, you are a genius! I emailed and live chatted with Apple about this who said it could not be done and yet here it is! Thank you so so much!