iOS 5.0.1: Smart playlist not updating

I've had the same problem on my iPod touch 3rd gen, but I have found a way to refresh them that works sometimes. I think these smart playlists are cached in memory or somehow linked to the running app. If you force the Music app to quit, and then re-open it, you should see the playlist matching the one in iTunes. However, it might render the Music app totally unusable. It starts up and then quits about 30 seconds later without doing anything. I haven't been able to figure out why it works sometimes, but not others. This happened to me on a car trip where I was a thousand miles from my computer, leaving me with a useless iPod. I wasn't very happy as there wasn't much to listen to on the radio in mid-New Mexico.

I much preferred how smart playlists work on an iPod Classic. My smart playlists are primarily to select music than I haven't listened to in a while (I've got almost 8000 songs). On the Classic, you could play a playlist through to the end, and it would then re-calculate it without having to sync up with the computer. Unless that was a feature of manually managing content...

I'm having EXACTLY the same issue too and still getting nowhere!!
I've had 2 different iPhone, restored countless times and created hundreds of different playlists but for some reason the smart playlists that I create are simply not updating themselves. The only way to update these is to sync my handset with the computer every time...very annoying!!

I've been attempting to analyse this issue myself, for at least as six months.

It would appear that the erratic behaviour of Smart Playlists is probably due to the rules of the list, and that the more complicated the rules, the more likely the Playlist is, to not update on the iPod.

My experiments centre around an iPod Classic, rather than my ipod Touch. But if you say it's happening on a Touch as well, then that suggests even more strongly that it's the complicated Playlist rules rather than the iPod itself.

The only option really, is to pin down the exact cause until it works, and then change the rules to fix it. It could then also be reported as a bug to Apple, but I wouldn't hold my breath that it will ever be fully resolved.

My solution is to accept the issue and Sync my iPod with iTunes frequently enough that I can live with it. As you've probably found, iTunes can sort these issues out without a fuss.

My post was originally in response to dbro1988, and that appeared to be similar to the issue I've been having with Smart Playlists.

However, reading your post carefully, I spot something different. If you Manually Manage your iPod rather than use Sync, then surely Playlists modified on the iPod will not be updated in iTunes? That's the purpose of Sync - to synchorise the iPod and iTunes to become one.

There is an issue, in that some Smart Playlists do not always update, but it would appear that this is due to the complexity of the Smart Playlists themsleves. For example, I have one Smart Playlist that refers to other Playlists, and sometimes, it does not dynamically update, while other times, it does. Another Smart Playlist never dynamically updates, even though it should.

With regard to your problem;

• can you confirm whether you are using Sync to manage the iPod, or Manually Manage?
• can you post up the rules of your Playlist (possibly with a screenshot of the rules box) so we can check to see if there is anything which would prevent it updating?
• Do you have any Smart Playlists that update as you expect them to?

Hi,

No problems I can easily describe the issues that I'm having for you.

I have always had smart playlists on my iPhone created so that any songs I have recently added or any songs that I have recently played are shown in these playlists. Then all of a sudden this stopped happening so whenever I would play a song it wouldn't show within this recently played playlist and when purchasing new songs with iTunes they wouldn't show in recently added either.

I've always had my devices to sync with iTunes automatically and not manually ever since I can remember.

However my issue relates to the playlists not updating themselves on the actual device rather than in iTunes as I find it pointless of having a smart playlist that only updates once its been synced with my computer, especially that these are supposed to be live.

The rules that I for these playlists are very simple. It's made up of date played or date added within the last 2 weeks, simple as that. They work in iTunes itself but as soon as these are being synced to an iPhone they aren't updating at all when I'm on the move.

The first thing to say is that all iPods are less capable than iTunes. Just look how small they are, compared to full-blown computers. So I suspect that explains why iTunes manages to update without an issue, while iPods do have issues.

It does appear that Smart Playlists on iPods are a bit temperamental, or erratic. In the recent exchange of views I've been having with another user here in the forums, he suspects it's the rules of the list, but I haven't been able to pin this down to any particular rule, or combination of rules. I still wonder if it is a particular type of song that causes the issue. Could it be, for example, a song that's set to skip when shuffling? Or is it any one of several factors, such as fixed number of songs in a Playlist, or who knows what.

As you may be able to tell, I'm no closer to solving this riddle or finding a fix or work-around. I suspect it will always be that way. The only thing to do is accept it and "work with it".

To that end, I Sync my iPod whenever the opportunity presents itself and try to avoid getting hung-up on the iPod's temperament!