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Unrated playlist does not work

This used to work before installing IOS 7, and I've retried it multiple times with different methods on each patch release up to 7.0.3.


The problem is with a certain type of playlist that I need on the iPhone. The playlist is called "Unrated", the idea being a can rate all music in this list so I only play the stuff 3* and above and unrated stuff of course. This is done using smart playlist and setting rating to zero stars, limited to 1gb with live updating and random. The playlist is created fine on the PC and I can see and play music from it. When I plug the iPhone in to sync I can see that the iPhone sync settings on the PC shows the "Unrated" playlist which I select for syncing along with similar one for 4* and 5* playlists. I can the calculated usage I create and I select these for syncing in iTunes on the PC. After selecting sync and watching the 1gb of music copy acros and the sync complete, when I look on the iPhone to look at the new playlist, it is there. Howerver, when selecting it it is empty.


As I said, this is a tried and tested method, I'm not ute if it 's a problem with the software on my phone or the PC or both. Has anybody else experienced this? I wonder if someone could give it a try to see if they experience the same issue? If you find/know a fix/workaround I'd love to know.


I have a iPhone 4S and the software on PC and iPhone is the latest available.


Thanks

Tiroan

iPhone 4S, iOS 7.0.3

Posted on Nov 5, 2013 3:48 PM

Reply
9 replies

Nov 5, 2013 3:58 PM in response to Tiroan

I have a smart playlist for unrated songs and it works fine on my iPhone 5 w/ iOS 7.0.3. I auto-sync to selected playlists, and this one syncs just fine and the contents on the iPhone agree with iTunes.


In my case, in addition to rating criteria there is an additional "Playlist Is ..." criteria since I hang all my playlists off of a master playlist that contains everything I auto-sync (my library greatly exceeds the capacity of my iPhone). So in your case, you might try adding criteria like:


- Playlist is Music (where "Music" is the general category for all music items), or

- Media Kind is Music


See if either of those help.


Also, are you an iTunes Match user? (I'm not, just checking)

Nov 12, 2013 4:11 PM in response to rockmyplimsoul

I have the same issue. I downgraded iTunes back to v11.1 and still have empty smart playlists when using Rating="". Interestingly, the songs do get transferred, as I can see them on my iPhone5, just not within the smart playlist. I'm considering rev'ing back to 7.0.2 IOS to see if the problem existed then.


I tried adding Kind=Music to the smart playlist, that did not make any difference. When I view the smart playlist on the iPhone from within iTunes, all of the songs are listed. They simply do not show up when I view the smart playlist on the iPhone itself. Frustrating.

Nov 13, 2013 9:33 AM in response to Tiroan

Anyone having problems with these smart playlists please go to http://www.apple.com/feedback and submit the bug to Apple. I have talked with their support regarding these bugs and they have told me that Apple recognizes it as a bug, but they have no timeline for a fix because they have not had enough feedback or bugs reported regarding it so they assume no one cares. We need everyone to submit their feedback so that this can be fixed sooner rather than never. Thanks.

Mar 16, 2014 9:09 AM in response to Tiroan

I have solved this issue on my iphone 4 by creating the normal unrated smart playlist and including it in the sync as normal. I have additionally created a smart that only includes items from the "unrated" playlist (not other conditions in this) and sync this to the iphone as well.

This holds the exact same items in the playlist as the original unrated one but allows the iphone to play the mirror unrated playlist songs that I want from the original list.

They are marked as auto updating but due to the apple bug with the orginal list, the mirrored list only takes a snap shot of the songs each time I sync to itunes.

Hope this helps in the short terms until apple release an bugfix.

Jun 10, 2014 6:20 PM in response to tracie-dave

Note that the reason Timbog's workaround does the trick is because his smart playlist is referencing another playlist (i.e. "Playlist Is ...") which is why it works for me too.


However, you actually don't need two playlists as he's suggested, simply define the zero-star smart playlist as:


Match All:

- Rating is <null>

- Playlist is Music*


* Where "Music" is the general category for music items in your library, it can act as though it were a playlist for smart criteria.

Unrated playlist does not work

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