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itunes playlist order does not match iPhone or iPad

Since installing ios5 on my iPhone songs in smart playlists fail to match the order in itunes. It is not just the wrong order, but mixed up and garbled.


I just enabled iTunes Match on my iPad, and am now seeing the same issue. It only seems to affect smart playlists.


Am I the only one seeing this?

iPhone 4, iOS 5.0.1, also iPad 5.0.1

Posted on Nov 14, 2011 9:13 PM

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Posted on Nov 15, 2011 7:44 AM

no, you're not alone seeing this. I think that iTunes match is unable to read two things with smartlists: the order of the playlist, and limits. Say you have a '100 most played' smartlist, iTunes match will forget about that 100 limit AND will not display by decreasing playcount order. That makes a smartlist like this absolutely useless.

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Nov 15, 2011 7:44 AM in response to matthewer

no, you're not alone seeing this. I think that iTunes match is unable to read two things with smartlists: the order of the playlist, and limits. Say you have a '100 most played' smartlist, iTunes match will forget about that 100 limit AND will not display by decreasing playcount order. That makes a smartlist like this absolutely useless.

Dec 27, 2011 8:03 PM in response to matthewer

I had the same problem with my playlist. Everything was in order on iTunes and then when it was on the iPhone, all jumbled. Finally found something that worked. I created a new playlist, dragged the tracks in there and added the "Album Artist" view option. Made sure all the tracks had the Album Artist info in there correct, had it organized by that field and voila! It worked. For me at least...

May 1, 2012 8:08 PM in response to matthewer

After months of trying to fix this and striking out at the local Genius Bar it turned out simply adding a rule "playlist" "is" "music" in all my smart playlists fixed all my sorting issues. I sort different lists by ratings, year, date added, etc. and this FINALLY fixed all my problems with iTunes not matching up with the order on my iPhone.

Sep 13, 2012 4:14 PM in response to Billy Apple

Ugh.. This is driving me crazy! Yes, the adding of the rule "playlist is music" fixes this issue when you're syching an ipad or iphone, etc. BUT, that very rule causes iTunes Match to fail! So for any of my devices I have iTunes match enabled for...which is all of them now, my playlists are all jumbled. Here's an example of how weird this issue is:


On my iPad I can see my playlists. When I click on the playlist the music order seems random. I have to select a track to play. Once I've done that, I can click on the picture of the album up at the top where it lists how far into the track you are, etc. and that changes the screen to a full sized picture of the album. At the bottom of THIS screen is another playlist icon (bottom right of the screen). If I tap THAT item, suddenly my playlist is listed CORRECTLY. I can then select the first track of the playlist and tracks will play in the proper order after that.


This is absolutely insane and so opposite of Apple's "it's simple" and "it just works" mantra that it's not even funny. To play my smart playlists in order on my iPad or iphone with iTunes Match enabled, I have to select a playlist, get a track playing, change the display to show the album cover, tap the playlist icon at the bottom of THAT new display, and THEN I can select the first track in my playlist and everything is good. Something needs to be done about this. It's been an issue since iTunes Match was activated. BTW, iTunes Match won't synch smart playlists with the "playlist is music" rule selected because it says that 'playlists that reference other playlists' cannot by synched. It was crazy to have to add that rule to begin with but I could live with it. Now, there's simply no apparent way to fix the issue.

Sep 14, 2012 3:09 AM in response to callisto224

I'm not sure why you are setting up a new playlist. I can re-order my back-to-front playlists (and yes, they are all back-to-front) on my iPad without creating new playlists -- it is just a big nuisance, especially with opera playlists (contain many entries, have to be in order). Also, the "Music" app is prone to crashing, at least on my iPad 1, so this is a perilous enterprise.


Is there really no better way than to manually do this? (And I am not talking about "smart" playlists but about the regular kind -- when you have one playlist for a piece of music that is on several CDs, like an opera, or several string quartets, or anything where order matters.)

Sep 20, 2012 2:01 PM in response to Faisane

I'm not talking about setting up a new playlist. These are playlists (smart) that I've had in iTunes forever. They just don't synch properly. Oddly enough, any "regular" playlists seem to come across in the order I put them in. No problems. Smart playlists are just thoroughly hosed since I can no longer add the 'playlist is music' rule that I used to have to add before iTunes Match.

itunes playlist order does not match iPhone or iPad

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