Q: iTunes Match vs. Play Counts

Yes I think this is what I am experincing too- I still have two tracks that have no updated last played field since i played them fully about 3 days ago, eventhough there has been many updates of other tracks since then. 

The only consistent scenario I can gather at this point is that they were both the first song I had played on my ios device after a period of inactivity.  So my theory at this point is that it is caused once itunes match has synced or after a certain length of inactivity, or a mix of the two! 

I will keep monitoring and report back and see if the playcount for these tracks are updating even if the last played aren't.

I checked again this morning and everything synced from my iPhone from yesterday updated correctly with both playcount and last played. I'm not losing anything. I wonder what the bug is that some of us have it and others don't.

My iPad I think is officially lost in translation. It hasn't updated for 3 days despite playing songs. This happened to it before, where it was functional at first (albeit double playcounts) and then it just stopped. Going to turn off match and turn it back on.

My update:

1. The first track played after what is possibly a 24 hour gap since I last played a track on my iOS device (for both ipad mini and iphone 5) only shows an updated play count, the last played field does not update in iTunes.  Everything else played after this point updates correctly, usually within 24 hours until the cycle repeats if I stop playing tracks for that length of time again.

2. iTunes is correcly showing play counts, no doubling at all etc.

So I have a consistent fault with the first track played after a extended gap with iTunes Match.

How is everyone's playlists and smart playlists doing when you make changes to them from iTunes?

I can rename playlists and it updates right away, but I noticed that it has an issue when I was reorganizing them. I moved a bunch of playlists from a folder to the main list (tired of all the levels to get to what I want) and many of them never moved on the device. Some moved, others didn't.

If you create a new playlist/smart playlist, everything works fine, but moving them might cause a hiccup and in one case, I edited a smart playlist and it just didn't update at all. What I did was duplicate a list, which it added the duplicate right away. Then I changed some of the parameters of the list and I didn't propograte the change to my iPhone at all. I wasn't willing to wait a day and see if it eventually did as I wanted the list right away. Perhaps I'll make a test list and try.

Also, when I rename a list, it does propogate right away, but it doesn't resort the list alphabetically. The list remains in the list where it was previously. Kind of annoying because your playlists get all out order on the device and are even harder to find!

It's wierd how some changes happen right away, and others don't and I have no idea how long it will take for the change to happen.

When you turn off match and turn it back on, it brings everything in correctly of course.

Hi crankerchick:

My experience has been identical to yours. Thanks for keeping us updated.

It seems to be updating play counts for me but it takes several days to a week. I checked after three days and the play counts hadn't updated. I checked this morning (almost two weeks later) and as far as I know all of the song plays have updated. I didn't do anything except wait.

Playing a song to completion after 12 hours has passed from the last time it synced songs will trigger an update it seems. I've wondered how long the service would go without updating if one didn't play music and just wait. I haven't been willing to try it, since I play music from my phone almost every day in the car. From your experience, though, it sounds like it will eventually do a sync even if one doesn't play any more music.

I played something on my wife's I-phone nearly 2 weeks ago and it's not updated other than the first song whereas songs played on my phone which I use daily are updating, I guess it'll happen eventually

Played something on my wife's i-phone this morning and it caused the plays from 2 weeks ago to update.

To those reporting the second song being skipped, I just checked mine after going a few days without playing music and then playing a song and seeing iTunes Match update. Mine does not appear to be skipping the second song, even when there is a 2 or more day delay in the update.

Everything still working predictably for me, at least from my iphone, as that is the device I use almost daily for music. I haven't seen a single hiccup in syncing of playcount or last played update (save for the stupid 12-hour delay). Now the actual streaming service? I have my complaints, but I guess that's for another thread.

This seems to be broken (again). My playcounts have not updated in more than a week. Thinking about turning Match off again on my iOS devices. I really like using smart playlists based on recent plays. Why can't Apple get this right?

Are play counts EVER going to work with iTunes Match.  I update to the latest software on both my iPhone and my iTunes and it still never works!  At one point if I would unmatch my phone and then rematch it, then it would start recording playcounts again for a little while.  That doesn't seem to work any more.   SO frustrating.

Are you checking up to two weeks after you played the song? That's how long it usually takes for mine to update the count.

Wow, two weeks later? No, even that doesn't work. 

The strange thing is if I change the rating on a song on my iPhone it updates in my iTunes immediately. 

I gave up on this a long time ago but checked back to see if anyone had found a fix.  Thanks for replying, Jarom!

itunes match destroyed my play count. I haven't updated iTunes Match since last September (I only buy music off iTunes), decided to update ... it destroyed my play count. I like that my music is saved in the cloud, but hate how lousy iTunes Match is. I am very anal about my music and iTunes Match absolutely ***** where that is concerned.