iTunes Match vs. Play Counts

I had opened up a support case for the non syncing of Playcount, Last Dates and the messed up date related smart playlists on my ios devices.

I heard back from a support rep quickly and did some troubleshooting steps, and provided more information.

The support rep then said that after soem more digging on his side, it was confirmed that both of those problems will be fixed in the next itunes and ios relaeases.

He also credited me 3 songs for my toruble which was nice.

I had said to him, that if the playcounts and lasy played dates are not suppose to sync, then so be it. Apple should just say so. But he confirmed that this functionaity should work.

Now i guess we play the waiting game.

Now let's hope iTunes 10.6 solves all our synchronisation problems... anyone some update?

I'm on iOS5.1 and iTunes 10.6. Testing this now. I'll let you know is a few minutes.

EDIT:

Okay. I had a track that based on rating was on a playlist but had a playcount of 0. I played this on my iPhone. I changed the rating from 4 to 3 (which dropped it off my playlist). On my iPhone, the track dropped off the smart playlist instantly. Once the track finished, about two seconds later it dropped off the smart playlist in Itune 10.6.

Once I traced the track down again, I check its play count and last played. These were both blank so it looks like the "fixes" in iOS5.1 and iTunes 10.6 do not extend to play counts and last played. 😟

Just updated and my smart playlists are now syncing down properly! Playlists are based on play count and date added

the updates did not solve the issue of incrementing the play count from listening to IOS devices

looks to be solved for me. smart playlists all work now which is great. last played and playcounts not upgdating right away still, bt for soem reason why song plays for the morning on my ios device before the update actually came through with last played dates and playcounts. I'll be interested to give it more time to see if my most recent plays show up with last played dates. Before zero of my songs were updating last played dates, so the fact that 6 songs did from my plays in the morning is encouraging.

Sure ain't working for me...iPod Touch 4G using iMatch on iOS5.1, and iTunes 10.6 on my PC - I've been playing songs for a couple of hours, and nothing is updated on my PC's iTunes database.

I've stopped and started iTunes several times; no effect.

If someone has this working now, please share how you did it.

EDIT: I just noted that 'star ratings' transfer almost instantaneously to my computer's iTunes; but that's all.

10.6 has not fixed things for me. I also spent 40 minutes on the phone with Apple support without any result.

I have an iMac and Mac Book Pro both running iTunes 10.6 open side by side on my desk showing the same playlist. If I play a track on my iMac then the Mac Book Pro is oblivious to the change until I select Store -> Update iTunes Match on the iMac. If I play a track on my iMac and then select Store -> Update iTunes Match on the Mac Book Pro then the played track on the iMac gets reset to the previous last play count and date.

This is really bugging me.

I turned iTM back on yesterday after having it off for several weeks because of this specific bug, and boom, my playcounts were set back to what is in the cloud. Very irritating.

Yes. I keep getting this happening as well. I am finding it annoying becuase I use a playlist sorted by "least recently played" and the same tracks keep coming back onto the playlist.

I just turned it on yesterday too and just started rebuilding my library. The same thing that happened before the update is happening now. When I play the first song of the album the playcount gets updated but it's showing 2 instead of 1. None of the other songs get updated. However, on the iPad I see playcount = 1 for every song that I just listened to. The iPad is right, but the cloud is wrong.

Digging more deeply this morning, everything I've played in my iTunes library over the past 4 weeks, or so, has reverted to the playcounts and last played dates for before I turne iTM off. This is not an improvement. Sadly, I will be turning it off completely and simply not using it going forward.

So, not only is it not updating new playcounts, it's actually destroying information about our music libraries. Awesome.

Hey, next let's pay Apple to come and put scratches on all our CDs!

That is exactly what I'm afraid of. Like you, I've had Match turned off for several weeks (since early Jan). I've been wondering if the problem has been fixed, and it appears it hasn't. While I'm sorry it happened to you, I appreciate you sharing this info. Don't want to have to restore my files again over what Match screws up (I didn't do something right when I did it in Jan, and it reset all my Date Added to they day I did the restore, and took hours to rebuild the database). While I can't imagine how it did this, iTunes on my primary computer hasn't worked correctly in other ways since I got my subscription to iTunes Match (for instance, if I start iTunes and it automatically goes to iTunes Store to check for anything, it crashes, and I have to reboot, and start iTunes is Safe Mode; I've had to turn off the setting that would make iTunes automatically check for available downloads). Wish I'd never signed up for it. Unless I see some definitive, generally-replicable proof that this issue has been favorably resolved, I will not be turning iTM back on again. It's really a shame since iTM is a great concept.

markmil wrote:

It's really a shame since iTM is a great concept.

It is a shame, because iTM is a great idea. In its present implementation, though, it just isn't useful ot me, and actually hampers my listening pleasure. I want to use it, and I want to like it but I just can't. It doesn't fit into the way I listen to my music.