Why do my play counts reset to zero randomly?

Has anyone heard anything from Apple on this?

I was able to use a script to restore some of my play counts, but I am in basically a limbo where I don't dare connect to genius, the Itunes store, etc. lest my genres and albums get changed. It seems like that is a "feature" of the new itunes- "We change your genres to what we want and decompile your albums into compilations because we do what we want and who cares about you!".

Yeah, real nice way to treat your loyal customers.

I keep hoping they'll change their mind and fix this, but it seems like I may have to resign myself to life after itunes.

I am surprised that there isn't more popular outrage. It's people's private property being tampered with without permission. I mean, that's why we don't pirate, right? It's supposed to be property? You wouldn't pirate a car, they say, okay, well, you wouldn't scratch up someone's CD collection, would you, Apple? I mean, I bought into the system, I buy all my music (From companies other than Apple these days- they've lost my business because connecting to the itunes store seems to trigger changes to my collection.), you'd think they'd let me organize it how I want it and not unilaterally change the genre, albums names, etc. to fit their system.

Anyhow, all my new music purchases are now from other companies.

@CharmCityCrab,

You raise an interesting point regarding AppleCult's silence on this issue (and presumably others).

I assume that this and other such forums have been set up with AppleCult's permission so surely someone from the organisation is monitoring activity and reporting back to AppleCult HQ.

If so, and they've not responded so far, then it seems to me that they really don't give a flying kcuf about their customers and will simply carry on in their dictatorial way to impose AppleCult values on everyone.

What options are available to people who want to switch from iTunes and iPods? I love my iPod, I've had it since 2007, it's used extensively every day and it's now my main source of music as I decided not to bother buying a new CD player when my old one gave up the ghost, but it WILL need replacing one day.

Reading other posts on this topic, it seems that AppleCult have maybe stopped developing the iPod in favour iPhone etc - what other devices are there on the market if I ever needed to replace my beloved iPod, and what other music database systems are there that could replace iTunes? I know there's Windows Media Player, but I've never used that - is it as good as iTunes (was, pre V11) and will it sync an iPod or does AppleCult have a stranglehold on that too?

Unfortunately, for people with large music collections who want to have their entire collection on one unit, the ipod classic is the only viable option I know of, and Apple seems to only begrudgingly continue to produce it (No real updates on it in five years, not included in advertisements, promotional materials, presentations, etc..). There are a lot of other MP3/AAC players for small collections or to carry about a portion of your collection (Android smartphones will even serve for this, in addition to dedicated players), but nothing that's 160 gigs like the ipod classic for those of us who have, say, 90 gigs of music, and place importance on having it all "on hand" at all times without an Internet connection being necessary to access it.

Other media software have in some cases managed to reverse engineer support for ipods and such. How good that support is, I don't know. Apple designs them to only work with itunes, so other companies have to sort of do their own legwork to get things done without having access to stuff they'd typically be given to support a music player from a company that wanted it to be able to sync with other software. I remember once reading about software that could support syncs of songs without album artwork a couple years ago (Hopefully most can do better than that).

As far as naming other music software, I'm going to put that in a separate post in case it gets deleted (I'm not sure if we're allowed to "name names" on this forum). If it's not there after a few minutes, you can assume we can't.

Other music software for Windows includes MediaMonkey, WinAmp, SongBird, and Amarok. I can't speak to whether or not there are Mac versions (I have a PC), nor to whether any of these are any good, especially when it comes to syncing ipods. I've tried the first two of them out briefly as music software and found they were alright in some ways, but missing key itunes features like smart playlists that made them difficult for me to personally envision as itunes replacements (Your mileage may vary). Also, one imported all my playcounts and another only imported *some* of them. One imported my ratings, one didn't have ratings. One did let me make cover art take up as much of the screen as I wanted (Which was pretty cool).

I haven't tried syncing any of them to my ipod yet, because I'm afraid of screwing something up. That'd probably be my last step after bascially making a final decision to go with that software.

Obviously, I take no responsibility for any of this software and anything it might screw up. Use at your own risk, etc.. I'm just mentioning it because I was asked what I've heard of that's out there. Whether it's any good or not is an open question.

I'm testing some of it out occasionally to get used to it in case I have to make a switch. What I really *want* to do, though, is stick with itunes. I just think them to stop changing genres, album names, track numbers, etc. in order to do that. I'm not sure if turning off everything that connects with Apple's servers is a long-term answer (For one thing, they may not allow it in subsequent versions and, for another, I lose key features like genius and CD import track name recognition and so on and so forth)- it's just what I am doing for now.

I'm having the same problem, some of my songs are resetting their play counts randomly. What I've figured out is it's only affecting songs I've bought through iTunes and it's seems to be because iTunes is making some sort of changes to the songs, resetting the play counts in the process.

For example, I went to my Recently Played playlist and noticed songs in there with no play counts. One of them was "N*ggas in Paris" by Kanye West and Jay-Z. When I bought the song, it listed the artist as "JAY Z and Kanye West." When I clicked the song to play it from that playlist to start its play counts back up, it changed the artist name to "Jay-Z & Kanye West." It did it on its own right then and there.

I figure whatever function iTunes is using to make those kinds of changes to my music info, it is resetting the play counts when it does it. I have the option "Share details about you library with Apple" checked in Preferences in iTunes, but before I did that the problem was still going on. Hopefully it will only reset items once and that's it.

Has anyone noticed this issue starting again since the fix?

It just happened to me again tonight. Only happened on one album, and I was able to restore that album's play counts because I've continued to copy and paste my library into an Excel spreadsheet just incase it cropped up again.

Was just wondered if it has begun to happen to others again since they "fixed" their iTunes library.

Just want to quickly raise my hand here and add another user to this issue. Reset play count and multiple versions of songs have been a constant headache for me since upgrading to iTunes 11. This is really frustrating since many of my playlist are based on whether or not I have listened to a song, and how many times, and there's no way to get the old play count back. It's things like this that make me glad I don't shop on the ITMS anymore... Past purchases coming back to haunt me.

What's more, my iPhone seems dead set on restarting my playlist and re-playing the same songs I've just listened to if it hasn't been playing for a little while, or if music playback has been interrupted by another app. I know that's a separate issue, but it cropped up around the same time as the iTunes 11 update.

Those of you still having issues, have you tried the fix outlined by jet9football, talios and myself on page 6 of this thread? jet9football gives the clearest steps on fixing this.

Since upgrading to the latest iTunes and replacing the last iTunes 10 database file, I haven't had the issue a single time.

To add to the list that no one cares about (except those on it)...

Play counts reset to zero, album titles changed, some of the song info for certain iTunes Store purchases changed (ie. track numbers, sort album, etc.) a bunch of songs previously deleted by me show up with that iCloud thingie, and songs that were in my library that went missing and had to be downloaded again. Oh yeah, and then there were the songs that wouldn't play anymore! Those had to be deleted and re-downloaded (is that why we got the "Purchased" link under Quick Links in the store?). I'm still discovering songs that don't play. The only songs tampered with were iTunes Store purchases. I had never normally allowed my info to be shared with Apple, and I keep the iTunes Store disabled whenever I'm not actively browsing. The problem has not recurred since I disabled all of those settings (or if more songs have disappeared, I haven't noticed it, since I also disabled that iCloud crap). I complained via the iTunes Feedback form.

I don't get super-technical in how my library is organized, smart playlists, etc. But I have made some custom adjustments to how things are organized and did utilize play counts in my own way so these bugs from Apple were a serious annoyance. Plus, you know, it'd be great to not have songs go missing. I just want Apple to leave my library alone.

What I have noticed with this problem is a) it only happens with itunes purchases and b) it appears to only happen to me once I have bought something new from the store. Over the past 3 weeks I have switched to buying from another mp3 store and haven't had any problems with playcounts etc. Anyone else notice this or is it just me?

Yep, itunes purchases only reset, and when something new is purchased, although I also questioned if it wasn't happening at sync's. I looked through the steps on page 6, but am unwilling to go through that much stuff and still have to redo a couple of months worth of song additions and plays. Here's my solution, and I hope Apple monitors discussion threads on occasion: I am not going to buy from iTunes anymore. Once the gift cards I received for Christmas whittle down, my account will sit at zero. I'm no longer researching problems or going to the discussion groups for problems anymore. Fix your problems yourself. I'm getting my music elsewhere. They can let me know when they're worth going back to.

Not sure where my post from yesterday went, but I did get an email from the Apple Support community with instructions on how to restore the library to the pre-upgrade values, including playcount. For me, that was on 12/7/12, and here we are at 2/10/13. I've listened to, and purchased, music since then, so I am reluctant to do the restore. Since I only have a few songs with zero play count, so the damage of doing a restore is greater than the damage Apple has done so far, I am looking for a way to edit my existing playcount. I found an old xml file and looked up a few songs that now have zero play count, so if I could edit my existing library files, that would be the best answer for me. Is that possible? I'm on Win7, iTunes 11.1, and I have located the itl and xml files, but the itl is cryptic. Anyone have any suggestions?

Hi nycedigz,

I found myself in the same boat as you—stuck between the rock of upset play counts, and the hard place of reverting to an older library. I decided my month and a half of recent plays was more important than a couple hundred messed up purchased songs.

Fortunately there is a solution, albeit a tedious one: the Add or Subtract PLay Count v2.0 script, available for free here: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=addorsubtractplaycount

My process was to open my most recent "normal" library (for me, from 12/2/12), create a playlist of all purchased files (including a play count column), and export that playlist as a CSV. Then I go back to my "real/up-to-date" library, and switch back and forth between iTunes and Excel and use the script to adjust the play counts accordingly whenever I come across a song or album that I don't think shows the play count it should.

If you find the script as helpful to you as it was to me, you may want to consider making a small donation to the author. I know it saved me lots of time and trouble!

Cheers

Yep, I have the same problem with my play counts resetting themselves 😟, at first I thought it was just a glitch on a Kings of Leon album, but the same problem is cropping up with some Death Cab songs, Fun. and some other stuff! This is with all the purchased stuff, and I'd appreciate it if Apple could sort this out! iTunes 11 is proving to be much more trouble than it's worth... 😠