playlist stops playing on iPhone

Question

playlist stops playing on iPhone

I have a smart playlist in iTunes (version 12.1.2.27) called 3-star rock. The criteria are: genre is rock, last played is not in the past 30 days, grouping does not contain Holiday, rating is greater than 2 stars, limited to 5000 songs selected by random with live updating. It plays on my Mac, but when I try to play any song from it on my iPhone 6 Plus, it plays for a few seconds and stops; and the Music application reverts to the previously selected playlist or iTunes Radio station. Other playlists, including smart playlists, work as expected on the iPhone.

Probably unrelated: annoyingly, the playlist on the phone always has the songs grouped by album, in reverse alphabetical order by artist. I include this fact because it does affect the way I use the playlist: I set it to shuffle, and I scroll around at random to select a starting point.

iPhone 6 Plus, iOS 8.3, null

Posted on May 5, 2015 10:20 AM

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Answer 1

May 5, 2015 12:04 PM in response to Rick Montgomery

It won't let me edit, so I'll reply to myself. I tried deleting the playlist and creating a new one with the same name and similar but not quite identical criteria (used Genre contains Rock rather than Genre is Rock, raised limit on number of songs). It had the same problem. I removed the Grouping criterion. Verified that Holiday music was added to the playlist. Problem continued. Re-added the Grouping criterion, and removed the Last Played criterion. Playlist content changed. Problem continued. Deleted both criteria. Same thing. Removed the rating criterion, so the only thing left is "genre contains Rock" - it worked. Re-added the other two criteria; it failed again. Deleted all criteria, put back the rating as the only criterion. It failed.

So, to review:

Genre is/contains + Rating greater than + last played not in the last + grouping does not contain -> failure

Genre contains + Rating greater than + last played not in the last -> failure

Genre contains + Rating greater than + grouping does not contain -> failure

Genre contains + Rating greater than -> failure

Genre contains + last played not in the last + grouping does not contain -> failure

Genre contains -> success

Rating greater than -> failure

By the way, I've tried playing the very same tracks outside of the context of the playlist. They play just fine.

I'm stumped, and tired of playing this game. Has anybody else seen anything like this?

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