Smart Playlists not syncing correctly to iPhone/iPad with iTunes Match

For me, it looks like a problem with iOS 7. I only can sync smart playlists if I turn off the automatic update of the playlist on my iPhone5 with iOS7 but it still works with my iPhone 4S which is still on iOS 6.

I've also been experiencing this problem, for years now, with iPhone 5s, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3. I actually talked to apple customer care today. The chat representative said they didn't know how to answer questions about music on a telephone, and then when it was escalated to apple customer care phone support they guy asked me "What do you mean by 'smart' playlists"? I don't think is getting resolved anytime soon.

Okay, yes, thank you. I thought I was going insane. For example, I have a smart playlist I sync just with my iPhone (5 running 7.03) called "iPhone New." It's the most recent additions to my library. On my phone, it looked just like another playlist, which was, wait for it--"iPhone Old"--the stuff I had never gotten around to listening to and now have to decide if I even want to keep it. However, in iTunes, looked fine--even if I looked at the contents of the smart playlist on the iPhone while synched--looked fine. But on the phone, totally wrong.

Also, I don't listen to music in the cloud. Don't run Match. None of that. Just can I please play the music on the phone. Please.

Creating an "iPhone - New" playlist that says "Playlist is iPhone New" did the trick. It's any smart playlist pulling from any other playlist that appears to work, since that explains why one of my "criteria is [Playlist Name] + [some other stuff]" always worked.

Oddly, on the iPhone (while synched), in iTunes, I get the "This smart playlist depends on one or more playlists that cannot be found" error...which is rubbish, because obviously they can be found since, well, the error-ing playlists work fine.

Sadly, despite the utter disaster that iOS 7 Music/iTunes 11 is, this is still better than my Android experience. Even more sadly, I have two members of my family that need phones and was about to push them to Apple since iOS 6 (for me, anyway) worked great. Now I'm not so sure. Because this is rubbish.

Anyway, thanks for the dummy playlist trick. It worked.

Yoink's and JBGROUP1's advice worked. adding playlist IS music worked great! thanks!

After 20 minutes of my iPod Touch 5G trying to sync, I would get the error '9 apps did not correctly sync' or something like that. ericsiegel01 solution is the only one that worked for me. I had a playlist called recently added that was including recent podcasts. Changed it to music and everything is working as it should. Why Apple had to remove podcasts from iTunes is still a mystery, but it is obvious they didn't test it very well.

The folks running itunes must have only one way of listening to music: THEIR WAY. If the itunes developers actually listened to music with playlists on multiple devices they would have noticed this total Cluster.

Clearly there are not enough people in itunes development that listen to a lot of multi-artist music either since they haven't fixed itunes to list a multi-artist song no matter what artist you look up under the artist tab.

These problems would have been fixed TEN years ago... if they hired someone to read these forums and simply make corrections.

You really do NOT need a massive new building in Cupertino to figure this out.... these forums provide FREE bug fix recommendations on a regular basis!

Call me over to Cupertino for a week and I can fix problems that haven't been addressed in 10 years of devs monkeying around.

Another voice to the crowd, I've been getting the same problem for months now, none of my smart playlists update on the iphone, but new music is still synched. I managed to fix it somehow for a couple of weeks, but now it's back to the same behaviour. How can such basic functionality go unfixed for so long, unoticed by apple?

Had the same problem since upgraded to iPhone 5S.

The workaround with the second playlist works...

But why is this workaround still needed if this problem is known for years now? Smart playlists are essential functions of iTunes and the iDevices. I don't want to use workarounds forever, it's NOT a great experience...

I have a few different smart playlists and it seems to me that iTunes Match only has problems syncing my "New Music" or recently added playlist... Its nothing fancy just set to only have music and to have all songs added within 1 month.

I spent a week emailing back and forth with someone from iTunes support which got me no where.

Adding the Playlist - Is- Music restriction stopped the play list from showing up on all my devices besides my computer.

This is soooo annoying help!!

Suddenly noticed my old iMac, which used to contain my music library (since moved ot a mini server a year ago), had itunes still automatically syncing via wireless. I rarely use it, but the other day I needed to check something on it and noticed Itunes was trying to sync to my iphone, I had no idea it was doing this. When I turned of the wireless synching on the old iMac, lo and behold, my playlists updated.

Somehow I think it was picking up the latest music from my server, but the playlists from the old iMac.

Ok, this worked for me. My PLAYLISTS all stopped working after IOS 7.0.

I tried a couple fixes. Anyway, what finally worked was a setting on my iPhone.

Music Icon / More / Shared. There's a red checkmark in front of one of my "libraries". I moved the checkmark to my other "library," synced my phone with my iTunes, and now my playlists on my iPhone are syncing again.

One other thing I changed...

In iTunes on my computer, under my iPhone's music settings, I went to the "Music" upper tab, clicked on "Sync Music" and checked "Selected playlists..." with the playlists I wanted synced.

Hope this helps!

Oh, and turn of WiFi syncing on iTunes.

This worked for me! Thanks!

Yes this worked for me! Added Playlist IS Music under playlist options. Great!

The first half of your post seems to have fixed it! Switching the library brought all my missing playlists back. Thank You!