iTunes Not Syncing Tracks in the Correct Order

Hi tt2.

My playlists are always sorted with Playlist Order and Ascending ticked. And I have the Manually manage music and videos option unticked and Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected ticked so playlists are updated without me doing anything else when I plug in my iPhone.

I have a couple of questions for you that are probably not relevant but I'm curious about:

1. Why is the Sort By option only available when I first open iTunes and then seemingly not again when I start to look at playlists? (it disappears from the View drop down menu as an option if I click on various playlists down the left of my iTunes).

2. If I DON'T right click on the playlist name and use Copy to Play Order what order would the tracks be copied in? If tracks are arranged numerically on the left isn't that's the order they would be copied in anyway?

Because this incorrect ordering has only started recently, as I said, with newly added tracks appearing at the top of my playlist rather than the bottom (and with my playlists still sorted by ascending playlist order) it suggested to me that maybe it was a device error rather than the fault of the arrangement of the tracks in iTunes or even an iTunes fault so I restored my iPhone and for now at least the syncing is producing the desired results with new tracks appearing again at the bottom of the playlist on my iPhone instead of at the top.

Hi tt2.

I think I get it. I've seen the View > View As > Playlist option before of course (I think that's the default option for a new playlist isn't it?) but always prefer to use the View > View As > Songs option which keeps the list visually shorter by doing away with the artwork.

I also understand the way the chevrons work. The odd thing that was happening as I said (with my playlists sorted by ascending order, chevron pointing up) was that if i added say, five new songs in iTunes to (the bottom of) my playlist that had a couple of thousand songs in it already, after I'd synced, the list would appear on my phone with those five songs in that order I had added them, at the top of my playlist and then the rest of the songs underneath them in the order they appeared in iTunes. So not reversed, kind of cut and pasted from the end of the playlist to the beginning of the playlist, if you get what I mean.

Anyway, a rather odd quirk I thought and it appears to have been solved (for now) by restoring the iPhone.

Thanks again.

Hi again tt2. Seems you're always helping me out 🙂 Thank you.

Sorry if I'm being really dim here but if I connect my phone and then right click on the playlist name in the sidebar and use Copy to Play Order, I don't seem to have the option View > Sort By > Playlist Order anywhere. Exactly where am I looking for that?

Is this a new feature by the way? In the past iTunes would always sync in the order I arranged tracks in my playlists without my having to tell it 'how' to do it.