iTunes Match vs. Play Counts

I turned off iTunes Match a couple weeks ago and all my play counts and last played dates started to update fine.

On a whim today I decided to turn it back on and try to do some testing. When it went back through the iTunes Match process, it actually *reverted* my play counts and last played dates to before I turned off iTunes Match. That is, any plays since I turned off iTunes Match were completely wiped with many tracks reverting to zero plays.

FWIW, most of these are legal MP3's purchased mostly through Emusic.com, Amazon, or Bleep, although I doubt that makes any difference.

Luckily I had a backup of my library files, and turning off iTunes Match and restoring the library files put things right again.

They definitely need some stronger sync resolution.

It definitely appears that once you have turned on iTunes Match, the cloud version of your iTunes library is "the truth." From that point forward, the content and metadata of your master library in the cloud is all that matters. That is what will ultimately get pushed down to all of your computers/devices overwriting everything else (including play counts, new artwork, etc). The idea is that anything you change locally in your library will also be changed in the cloud version of your library therefore keeping everything in sync with the latest changes since the cloud would always be up to date. Unfortunately, it does appear that there are certain circumstances and bugs that cause local changes not to update the cloud and therefore local libraries later get reverted back to whatever the "cloud" thinks is the correct state of your master library.The only thing iTunes Match will not do is delete the actual files off of any computer.

The big things that everyone is realizing aren't being updated in the cloud libraries are "play counts", "last played dates", and artwork (I'm sure there are other things that aren't updating properly). "Play counts" and "last played dates" seem to only sporadically get updated in the cloud under many circumstances. As far as I can tell, artwork changes never get pushed to the cloud. The only way to force the cloud to update artwork is to remove the track(s) from your library (and iCloud) and then re-add to iTunes and to iCloud with the new artwork in place. Otherwise the cloud eventually reverts your local library to whatever artwork you had when you first uploaded/matched the files.

Like I mentioned before, there are definitely circumstances under which at least "play counts" and "last played dates" seem to update properly.

Local changes either get pushed to the cloud or they don't. The only fix for when things don't get updated in the cloud is to figure out a method or process which casues the cloud to get updated (if one exists) or for Apple to fix the bugs.

Hopefully, Apple is able to fix the bugs so that ALL local changes on any computer or device are seamlessy pushed to the cloud and then pushed to all other computers and devices. That is how it is supposed to work.

I hope this way of looking at what is happening is helpful to some people…

I have an open case with Apple Support concerning iTunes Match and the updating of metadata including play counts, cover art, tag changes, etc. I will report back when I hear anything.

Please keep us informed, this is taking too long now...

I am having simular issues as well. Brand new to itunes match. signed up over the weekend.

Very disapointed that when i play a song on my device the last played and playcounts do not increment.

Then to add to my pain. I went to upgrade my library do I deleted a few lower bitrate songs, and downloaded the matched versions. When I deleted the song, it showed the match song with all my meta data (play counts, last played, ratings). That made me feel pretty good, then i clicked to download the matched song. after the downlaod finished. all that was there was rating and date added. Last played and playcounts were blank. Aweful.

pretty frustraighting. If this service actually worked as advertised. It would be great.

Just called Apple support today and they told me its an iTunes Store problem, Yeah right. I'm not even using the iTunes store.

Okay, well, I'm not the only one experiencing this problem. Sadly, the whole iTunes Match process is not smooth. Not only won't the playcounts updates, but my album art is mismatched on my iPhone, I think Dropbox or some other third-party developers could have done better with this whole process.

I just signed up with match last night and I'm having the same issues with play count, last date played and the album art. I have gotten it to re-sync and fix some of the album art by deleting the art and then adding it all over again. Sometimes that fixed it somtimes not. I'm sure Apple is aware of these issues and will get them fixed eventually. I heard they have only done one update to the service since launch and that helped quite a bit.

What I was wondering is what about lossless and 320bit AAC/MP3? Out of my 6000+ songs at least a thousand are higher than Itunes standard 256. So when I choose to listen to one of those songs on my IPhone that is in the cloud does it play the Lossless/320 or the 256?

Check the information at the bottom of this support document:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4054

So, please Apple, could you quickly correct this "bug" in the next iTunes, iOS or OS X release.

Or remove the play count information in iTunes.

Thanks.

Play counts update fine for me.

Last Played never does. Which is a pain because there's no way of really finding out what the last songs I listened to are.

Playcounts, ratings, and last played were updating just fine for me, but then I noticed that there were 2 tracks that had lost all of their playcounts, their last played dates, and their ratings. I first noticed on a phone that's synched directly with iTunes, and doesn't have iTunes Match enabled. Sure enough, the same was true on the computer it syncs from.

This bug is really stinking annoying. And let's be clear - it's a bug. Apple can't suddenly say that, because iCloud is the new hotness, they're just going to get rid of the things that are hard to update through the cloud.

I heard back from my Apple Support rep today on the non-sticking metadata problem.

Basically Apple are aware of the problem and they are working on it, but they don't have an answer yet.

My rep gave me a work-around in the meantime: delete the songs from iTunes Match, correct the tags, and then re-upload them. I said this was unaceptable as a permamant fix, and he agreed. The best he could say was that they usually fix these kinds of issues with an iTunes update once they are solved.

I am also having trouble with iTunes Match and my iPod Touch. Turning off iTunes Match in Settings sometimes does not work. The setting says off but the cloud icons, ability to download songs, etc is still turned on. Also my playlists don't seem to sync with any rhyme or reason. He believes these problems are probably due to a similar metadata issue with iTunes Match, so once that is fixed, hopefully the iPod Touch issues will be fixed too.

still no fix...i've also noticed that playlist order doesn't sync between iTunes & devices. when i change the order of a playlist by play count, artist, album, or date added in iTunes, the original order of the playlist is still preserved on my device. another bug that is almost certainly related to the playcount issue...it seems it would be so simple to issue an update to fix this behavior...why hasn't apple gotten to it yet? otherwise, iTunes match is an amazing, revolutionary concept that's having a spot of trouble in implementation. i'm confident it will all be, well, sorted out soon.

Let's hope so... indeed you're right: if these issues are fixed, iTunes match is an amazing product!