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iTunes Match vs. Play Counts

Hello everyone - I need some help.


I signed up for Match last night, and it matched/uploaded just about all of my music. I've been messing with it today trying to figure out how it works, and ran into an error that I can't figure out - play counts.


I downloaded a new album (CAMP by Childish Gambino, if you're wondering), imported it into iTunes, uploaded it to iCloud/Match, and it was listed as "Matched." The album showed up on my iPhone and my iPad. Perfect!


I listened to it a few times on my phone, rated a few songs, etc, then opened up iTunes to see what it did. It pulled down the ratings from the cloud, but not the play counts. I plugged my phone in and synced (wifi sync wasn't connecting due to an unknown error) in hopes that an itunes sync would pull the play counts down, but no luck...


Anyone else tried this or have a similar experience? I have a few playlists built around play counts and would really like to have my play counts updated. Thanks!

Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Nov 15, 2011 11:10 AM

Reply
474 replies

Dec 3, 2012 1:37 PM in response to alecp763

So I can confirm that play counts are updating with itunes 11 and ios6 at least for me they are updating from my iPhone and my iPad to my Mac its taking 24 hours but it eventually does work the last played is not updating though, if that worked itunes match would be perfect for my use, also i called apple support and the guy tried to tell me that it will be fixed in the next update but when i told him this has been an issue from the very beginning he didnt have anything to say

Dec 4, 2012 8:38 PM in response to alecp763

Same here. If I disable Match, play counts sync. I hadn't read the 18 pages of notes in this forum but one of the things I attempted was...

1) Enable iTunes Match on the PC and Sync.

2) Uninstall iTunes

3) Reinstall iTunes

4) Enable iTunes Match on the PC (automatically syncs).

5) Disable iTunes Match on the iPhone 4s

6) Connect iPhone 4s

7) Select "Sync Music" check box for the iPhone 4s settings

8) Select "Selected Playlists, artists..."

9) Make sure no items are checked in playlists, music, etc...

10) Sync iPhone 4s [Basically, remove the music on the phone]

11) Confirmed no songs on the iPhone 4s, restarted iTunes and the iPhone.

12) Disable "Sync Music" in iTunes for the iPhone

13) Enable iTunes Match on the iPhone

14) Play 2 songs (all the way through).

15) Wait 5 minutes... 10 minutes... 45 minutes...


No update to "Last Played."


16) Try to contact Apple Tech Support to report the issue.

17) Find out you have to pay to contact phone support.


Lame.

Dec 5, 2012 5:56 PM in response to alecp763

i dont know if this will work for everyone but i found a faster way of getting play counts pushed back to itunes from devices, play any song to test this, check the previous playcount of a song, play it on the device and then go to store>update genius after the process was done i got updates playcounts minutes after playing the song, last played still not updated though

Dec 9, 2012 5:37 PM in response to alecp763

My iTunes Match subscription is one month away from expiring (Apple would like me to say "renewing" but…)


What has been worth spending $30 this year is:


  1. Getting 256 kbps AAC copies for over 75% of my iTunes library
  2. Having access to my songs from my two Apple TVs without having to stream from my iPhone/iPad or turning on my computer. Same thing with my iPhone (that is, when iTunes cooperates, because lately Music app has been behaving and it simply refuses to work as it used to do before iOS 6)
  3. The peace of mind of having my whole library backed up somewhere in the cloud


That's it. The lack of reliable playcount issue has turned me off. So after making sure that I have gotten all the iTunes Plus quality songs I can, I will let this experiment called iTunes match die its natural death. All I need to do to replace those 3 points that iTunes Match seek to provide is:


  • Wait another year or so to replace the lousy 128 kbps MP3s I'll collect for nice iTunes store versions
  • Pack as many songs as possible in my 32Gb iPhone and 64Gb iPad using the "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC" feature, so I don't depend on cloud streaming to play my favorite songs
  • Having responsible back ups of my music library via SuperDuper or even Time Machine, nothing a 1Tb hard drive cannot hold or take!


Hope all of us, who naively subscribed last year decide to send Apple a message that whenever they don't give us what we want, they are not going to have our money either!

Dec 10, 2012 7:36 AM in response to estusal

While we wait for Apple to fix this, can any one recommend a good app or software program that will manage iTunes library metadata? I use ITunes to change song titles, track numbers, etc, but I cannot access any of the metadata on my IPhone. I would really like to be able to view the metadata (for example, when a song comes on, see year, play count, last date played, grouping, etc...) on my IPhone.


Thanks!

Dec 14, 2012 3:35 PM in response to alecp763

They did sort of improve one aspect. Now when I add some new songs and try to immediately edit the data (while I am thinking about it), it says:


"The item you are trying to edit has not yet been processed by iTunes Match and any changes you make could be lost. Are you sure you wish to continue to edit information?"


It's nice to have a warning, but how long do I have to wait for it to be processed?


Two hours ago I added three songs to my iTunes Library. I tried to edit the data, but I got the above message. I uploaded them to iTunes Match via right click "Add to iCloud", but it still gave me the message. I then updated iTunes Match from the Store menu, and it gave me the message again.


I just went out to dinner, and it is STILL giving me the same message. When is this going to be done already?

Dec 19, 2012 6:08 PM in response to alecp763

Do all of you that are playing a song on an iDevice and it not syncing last played/counts metadata have more than one iDevice, eg. iPad, Apple TV, and iPhone hooked up to iTunes Match? I'm wondering if using multiple devices might be part of the problem here. I know on someone else's comment in a separate thread stated it stopped working after they purchased an iPad. I also have an iPad on my account along with my Apple TV. If nothing else I'll consider attempting to just use my iPhone with itunes match for the time being and see if anything changes. Any feedback is appreciated.

iTunes Match vs. Play Counts

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