Why do my play counts reset to zero randomly?

Yes, I downloaded an album on Monday, synced my iPod and my play counts etc all stayed unaffected.

I've just done another sync and again, nothing appears to have been changed. Previously, I was finding that not only were random songs having their play counts reset, iTunes was overriding random manual changes that I'd made e.g. where I'd changed a genre from what iTunes has decreed to one that I though more appropriate, capitalising all of the words in a song or album title (I hate it that whoever puts this on the store doesn't capitalise correctly, a particular bugbear of mine lol).

The wierd thing was, was that when I attempted to correct what iTunes had changed, as soon as I hit the enter button, everything for that particular song was reset to how it was before iTunes got its grubby hands on it.

As I say, this "solution" appears to be working for me as I'm not that bothered about the Cloud, missing artwork (which is often still incorrect anyway) or sharing my information with the great God Apple, it may not work for others who need to have these options set.

I hope this helps others though.

Time for some trial and error. I went into preferences>store when the damage was done I had cloud, sync information across devices and share details with apple checked. On a hunch I unchecked cloud and sing devices. Then went and did a purchase. Then tried sinking my iPod. No new 0 tracks besides of course for the one I just purchased. So it looks like it's either the iCloud or sink playback across devices that's at fault. I don't care about either of these so I'm not going to check somebody else can do that!

Yes, Windows is affected. I have the same problem with Windows Vista. Plays scrubbed to zero randomly for songs - I hadn't noticed the purchased only thing, and will double check -- and half moon appearing for TV shows that I know I have watched.

I don't use Cloud Match and regularly (at least daily) sync two devices (iPad & iPod Touch) to my PC.

I did some testing and had hoped to get a little closer to a conclusion but I think I'm more baffled!

Since this problem started my choices in Preferences->Store have always been:

Y - Show in the Cloud purchases

Y - Sync playback across devices

N - Automatically download artwork

Y - Share details with Apple

To test the observations made by others I swtiched them all off:

N

N

N

N

Then I purchased a song from iTunes. My 'zero plays' playlist showed just that new song.

Synced with my iPhone. The problem did NOT appear. Still just the new song in my zero plays.

I then tested other combinations. Each time purchasing a new song then syncing with my iPhone:

Y

N

N

N

The problem did NOT appear.

N

N

N

Y

The problem did NOT appear.

N

Y

N

Y

The problem did NOT appear.

But then I went back to the original configuration that had always been present since I had this problem, expecting the problem to re-appear:

Y

Y

N

Y

But the problem did NOT appear!

Any theories?

Did you close and re-open iTunes? I spent several hours talking, emailing, sending logs and even installed a program from Apple to monitor my system on 12/11/2012. Of course, I didn't get any answers about whether they know what exactly causes the issue or if they even had a clue.

Yes, at the end of each round, i.e.:

Set preferences

Purchase

Sync

Close iTunes

Open iTunes

Set preferences

Purchase

Sync

Close iTunes

etc

Who knows, maybe they fixed it! <keeping fingers crossed>

I wonder if it is because I didn't play any songs on my iPhone in between the syncs?

In my normal usage I had played songs on my iPhone while at work; then made a purchase from my Macbook at home; then synced. In other words I had data going two ways during the sync. In my test I had data going one way only (to my iPhone).

Well, I just tried it and it is still "Zeroing" out tracks on me. 😠

I'm having this same issue on a Vista PC.

The trigger seems to be that Apple is attempting to change our songs to match what's in their store. So, for example, if you have a Weezer album that you've classified as "Rock" and Apple has classified as "Allternate", it's going in and overriding your genre choice and switching it to alternate. If you try to switch it back to "Rock", it'll eventually switch it back to "Alternate" again.

Also, if you have bought, say The Styx Wooden Nickel Years collection, which contains the tracks from their first four albums, and separated it out into the albums (Styx, Styx II, etc..) with revised track numbers, itunes is going in and terming it back into the Wood Nickel Years collection and reverting to the original track numbers.

In the process of Apple doing this, or in the process of switching the genres back, somewhere in there Apple reset all the play counts for the "disputed" files to zero.

I think zeroing out the play counts is a bug, but it's a bug related to an obnoxious disrespectful "feature" they've implemented- modifying user files without permission and undoing many years worth of end-user music organization (genre settings, album names, etc..) without warning or permission.

I've responded by blocking the i-tunes store, disabling genius, and basically trying to do anything I can to keep itunes from pinging Apple's servers, because they always seem to serve back things that ruin my music collection, and re-mislabel things I've fixed after Apple does it the first time.

One problem is that Apple has taken away our ability to organize our libraries the way we want to. I don't think they consider that part a bug, and we're all going to have to decide whether to disconnect our itunes players from Apple's servers or switch media players if we can't handle it (I don't think I can).

The second problem is the zeroed out play counts. That's something they probably agree is a bug and will likely get fixed eventually, but they can only fix it in the sense that it won't keep reoccuring after a certain point. What about all the tracks that have already been zeroed out? Apple won't let us manually set play counts, so we can't get those back short of playing the last few seconds of each of hundreds of songs over and over again adding to the count one play at a time, and I don't even know how we'd determine what the old play counts were in order to do that even if we were able to devote the time and energy. Plus, the last played date for all of them would move to which ever day it was done.

They play counts are just lost, and it not only effects the songs themselves, but it makes other play counts less useful. If 500 songs in my library of 12000 plus are zeroed out, how can I compare the play counts to each other? Like a list of "most played" is going to not really be the most played songs and a list of "least played" isn't really going to be least played. Everything is skewered by changes to a portion of the songs. The play counts that haven't been erased are less relevant now. I almost wonder if I'm going to have to start everything over at 0 just to have play counts that make sense relative to each other.

I don't know what to do. It seems like the first order of business would be to restore those play counts so my library makes sense again (Whether I stick with itunes disconnected from apple, reconnect it with apple, or try to transfer to different media software that would port my playcounts)- but it seems impossible.

Second order of business is whether I can stick with itunes or not at all. I mean, ultimately, I lose a ton of features cut off from the itunes servers. Any new device wouldn't be supported, etc.. But if I switch music software, it may not have the features I want, and no one seems to sell anything with the capacity and battery life of an ipod classic (I really value having all my music at my finger tips). My ipod needs to be replaced, it's been a long time, and I've put if off for years because it's not affordable, but I'm going to have to bite the bullet and do it soon, which would be the logical time to leave Apple behind if where they're going isn't a place I want to follow. But what other music players are out there that'll hold 120 gigs like my classic does (or 160 gigs, as the current classics do)? The other brands are all much lower capacity. I have a cheap Android phone with an SD card, but even that tops out at 32 gigs- for *everything* including music, not even just music. And I've got 90+ gigs I want to be able to cart around.

This is a sad, frustrating, and confusing time. I spend hours a day listening to and organizing music. It's an oasis in a world of stress and anxiety. Now it is a source of stress and anxiety. My music collection has been altered in ways I can't fix, Apple seems to be moving in a direction I don't want to go, and no one I know of is offering a music player hardware/software combo that is a replacement that can handle what my ipod class and itunes used to be able to do.

What do you guys suggest?

So I see that iTunes 11.0.1 is out - any idea if this fixes this issue at all?

Well f**k - nope. Just purchased an album I'd been meaning to grab for awhile and blam - another 1000 files instantly got zero-play counts. Now bringing my 0count up to 3722 😟

Apple - you really suck.

CharmCityCrab wrote:

I spend hours a day listening to and organizing music. It's an oasis in a world of stress and anxiety. Now it is a source of stress and anxiety.

You summed it up perfectly for me there CharmCityCrab.

I've never made any edits to song info so the fact that I have the problem too suggests there are at least two different routes into this mess. With respect to the changes to song info have you been able to identify reproducible steps that cause the zeroing?

I thought I was on to something with the purchases but ever since I played with the preferences I haven't been able to cause the fault again. Perhaps the mere switching off-and-on of these preferences has solved it? Though that makes no sense to me at all.

By the way, with those zeroed songs are all of them those that you'd changed the info for? Or is it a mixture of purchases and info-changers? Or any other pattern?

talios wrote:

Well f**k - nope. Just purchased an album I'd been meaning to grab for awhile and blam - another 1000 files instantly got zero-play counts. Now bringing my 0count up to 3722 😟

Apple - you really suck.

I'm wondering why you get hammered with such large failures when I'm seeing <40 each time. Do you have any theories talios?

It's probably due to the size of the library. Bigger the library = more counts messed up. That's one thing they asked me to provide (all the different media types, how many, what size, etc).