Can't Sync Playlists Since Turning on iTunes Match

I am having the same frustration since purchasing Itunes Match. I can no longer 'hard sync' my playlists from the computer to my iphone 4s, this is crazy! If this is indeed not operable then I should have been alerted to this BEFORE I shelled out the big bucks for Itunes Match. BIG BUMMER!!!!!!

Lizzy,

Turn iTunes match off on your phone. Re sync & then click on the music tab on your computer. Make sure all your playlists have check marks & hit apply. All your your playlists should be on your phone now. Do not turn iTunes match back on your phone until this bug is solved. Like I said earlier iTunes match is enabled on my iPad & I do not have the problem with my playlists disappearing. If you ask me I think iTunes match is still beta & they are using us as guinea pigs to report all the problems. I have apple care & it is amazing that after almost a month now none of the advisors have a clue on how this software works. They have even sent my case to the engineering dept with no results yet. It is beyond me how Apple could release a program & all the advisors are clueless on how it works. I am just hoping Apple comes out with a update soon that will help solve most of everyone's problems.

Yeah, I have the same problem. It is frustrating as I can see so much potential with iTunes Match. I just hope they sort it out.

Right now, I buy iTunes songs on the iPhone then I can't find them again on any playlist on the phone! I just have to remember the name of the song/artist and search for it manually. Not very intutuive.

Sure the whole turn off iTunes Match and resync thing works, but what a stupid way of doing things! Seems like something Microsoft would have designed.

Notice how after turning on iTunes Match manually manage music and videos has now been turned on (summary tab) . Drag and drop seems to be working just fine for me. Same with tones. Books. So on so forth

Really? On my iPad it says:

"###'s iPad can access music in iCloud. Songs can be downloaded and played via wi-fi or a mobile network"

Then I get a list of my playlists that I can sync or not, but nothing else is able to be manually managed. Tones and books can be synced but not on an individual basis - it is all or nothing in each category..

If I make a change to a playlist on the Mac, it doesn't seem to make it any better on the iPad. The order is messed up too. I have no idea why the music on each iPad playlist is in the order it is now. It is not alphabetical or anything...

Once you have check marks next to each playlist that you want to sync in music tab on your mac sync your phone. All your playlists should be on your phone. Now turn itunes match on your phone & sync again. when you click on music tab on your mac you will no longer see your playlists & will show itunes match on. After the sync in all likely hood all your playlists will be deleted from phone. This is ok, you will see the sync wheel on phone spinning now. just let it spin until it stops. I have over 250 playlists & it took 4 hours to stop spinning on phone. once the wheel on phone completed all my playlists were back on my phone. I then added a new playlist to my itunes library & about 1 minute later that playlist was now on my phone. Did not even have to sync to do this. For the last 2 weeks I have been working with a senior advisor from apple care & he really helped me. The problem we were all having was once we turned match on the phone our playlists would come off of the phone & we were all freaking out & cursing itunes match. None of us myself included did not know that all we had to do was wait for the wheel to stop spinning on our phones & then our playlists would be there. Hopefully this will work for everyone & I will keep an eye on my playlists to make sure they stay put now.

I was also told that before youu enable itunes match on your phone you should click on music tab in itunes where summary, info photos movies etc is and if a play list named voice memos shows up and is checked un check it. All I know is iunes match now works perfect on my phone.

None of this changs the fact that direct syncing is disabled when iTunes Match is turned on on an iDevice.

Michael,

I am not 100% sure what you mean by direct syncing as if I add music to my itunes library I do not even have to sync my phone anymore. After about 30 seconds to a minutes any changes that I make in my itunes library are then made to phone. If I sync with the usb cable the changes are also made. If I sync with out the usb cable the changes are also made but now with itunes match enabled on phone I do not have to sync at all for music it does it automatically. the only time i think i would need to acutally hit the sync tab now is if i make changes to iphoto, tv shows, movies etc.

When I saying "direct syncing" I mean either connecting an iDevice to your computer via USB or via Wi Fi and clicking the "sync" button in the lower right had corner of iTunes. With iTunes Match enabled music does not "sync" in the traditional way we are used to thinking about it from iTunes. Other content, such as eBooks, videos, or photos are sill synced via USB or Wi Fi. But music is not. That is managed directly on the iDevice. This is why all the usual options we are used to seeing in the Music tab of the device summary are no longer there when iTunes Match is enabled.

Michael,

Ok i pretty much understand what you said but i do not understand why this is a big deal now. now that I have itunes match enabled & is now working perfect any time that I add music to itunes it is automatically going on my iphone with out me doing anything. Michael please explain why the music should also be able to sync with the usb cable or wifi. You are 10 time smarter than me when it comes to this stuff & always value & enjoy reading your posts.

For some people it is a big deal. If it isn't for you then that's cool.

Basically, either option is available to you but it's a matter of preference and situation.

A) use traditional static sync with select settings via iTunes via USB or local wifi. But you need to be in proximity of your iTunes/Computer setup.

B) enable iTunes match and pluck what you want out of the icloud via stream or download. If you are a non Sprint iPhone user, beware of 3G data usage or download option on wifi network. But this can be done without your iTunes/Computer having a local connection to your iDevice.

The only major flaw in the iTunes Match for me is new smart playlists show up as empty on all iDevices. I remedy this by creating a regular playlist in my iTunes library and copy contents from smart playlists to new regular playlist. It's an extra step but it's an effective way to gather a good chuck of music and use download all option to get it locally on my iPhone.

I then periodically go to settings-general-usage and wipe my music files. That give me a chance to start clean and pick what really matters to me at point in time. The power of the cloud is simply have anything anywhere anytime for those unplanned hankerings for a song, album, artist that I forgot to sync while near my iMac or at home. This is particularly relevant when at the gym and my 'new music' has gone stale and need to rely on a few classics to get me through those much needed last 20 minutes. ;)

The traditional method is still available and you can certainly flip back to iTunes Match. It's just not an on demand an instantaneous flip of the switch unfortunately.

*instantaeous in terms of it takes several minutes to an hour to get all your iCloud library metadata locally to your iDevice. That doesn't make it very effective to flip on iTunes Match when you want a song right there and now but have been synchronizing traditionally.

I agree that the song(s) do get downloaded to your iOS device - but why do the playlists become disordered? My purchased playlist is quite lengthy and the latest song is no longer the last one in the list. It is somewhere else in that playlist and if I can't see it, I can't remember it.