Q: iTunes Match vs. Play Counts

The most frustrating thing for me is that it's not consistent. I was listening to music on my work laptop (MacBook Air) and within minutes, the last played information changed on my work desktop (iMac). Then, it stopped updating and hasn't worked since. Ratings and information changes do go through within seconds.

Also, when I connected my iPhone 4 to my home laptop (aluminum Macbook) just now, only one of the songs I had listened to on the phone updated the last played information. The other 4-5 songs didn't change, nor did it update anything I had listened to on my work laptop.

I just updated the playcount on my iMac.  I had to go to "store" in the drop down menu of itunes, select "Update iTunes Match" then it took a few minutes to update (like updating Genius).  I checked the "last played" column and it updated, the other problem is, I had to do it again on my MBP in order for the songs to update on there.

glad it worked for you, didnt update for me, a real shame too cause play counts are really important to me so im sticking to my ipod classic for now

I came to the discussions to look into this and it appears as if many people are having this issue.  For me it appears that the play counts update when I listen on my imac, my macbook or my wife's macbook but not when we listen on our iPhones.  All have Match turned on.  Hope they get this fixed. 

I'm having the same problem and this is a deal breaker for me. At first it seemed the gain I had added to certain low volume tracks didn't transfer over to their equivalents in iCloud but now that issue has been resolved. But I absolutely need my play counts to update across all of my devices because that is a major way I organize my music. I hope apple is listening; i'll also post in the indicated feedback section about this issue.

It's a brute force method, but you only have to do it once.

Sort iTunes by Plays. Then select tunes with the same play count and use Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes Append to Comments script to append the play count to the Comments field in the selected tunes. Use a code like PC1 (for "play count 1") or some such.

When iTunes finishes matching, you can create a smart playlist that sorts by the PC code and playcount number.

Append to Comments script: use http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=appendtocomments

I don't see the point if it won't update new playcounts. You would have to do this every day.

Same problem here, I depend on the Last Played list heavily. I was in the Apple store this afternoon and asked the genius bar guy if he had heard anything about this issue, after looking online he said he can't find anything about it but that I should be patient because they'll probably fix it soon. I hope so this is a deal breaker for me.

22 days and counting. Still no response. Still no fix. Sigh.

I started getting messages tonight that my version of iTunes was not compatible with iTunes Match. I'm using the latest version available. I'm hoping that means there's a pending release of a new version that will work with an updated version of iTunes Match.

I just noticed an issue with playcounts today 12/10. I have iTunes Match, but it is not enabled on my iPhone. playcounts are NOT updating even in this case. Just wanted to add this comment to the thread in hopes the error gets attention.

To clarify: I've had match for 2 weeks and the playcounts haven't been updating since then. i just didn't notice it. but i have albums I bought the same time as I got match.

I spoke with Apple Support today and they told me that with the latest update of iTunes, the Play Count feature has been removed!!! I find this very hard to believe, and asked them if they were sure and they confirmed it. :-( Has anyone else heard about this?

I turned off match on itunes, turned off match on my iphone. synced the phone via USB, all my plays (mostly it seems) while on match updated in the itunes database. i then switched to manually manage the phone, selected all tracks and deleted from the phone. then switched back to itunes management. synced the phone again to put all the music back on. The cloud icons are gone, smart playlists work again, counts update on wifi sync. its like my match $25 beta tester experiance was over. should they figure things out, ill turn it back on.

for $25 i expect the features that worked before to still work. this to me was a $25 downgrade in features.

I just spent about an hour on the phone and finally got the totally unsatisfactory answer "this may be something that Apple isn't going to support any more"  The support person was looking at this thread, trying to find an answer.  I'd guess giving this answer means they can close the support ticket and they don't have to hold it on the bug list.