iTunes 9 + Smart Playlist + Live Updating + iPhone = FAIL

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Update #3: I was playing around with my smart playlists this morning and discovered an additional tidbit of information that may be useful for some. When syncing smart playlists, pay attention to which column you have the ordered the music by.

As you can see in the above screenshot I have my playlist sorted by ‘Date Added’ which is exactly how I want things ordered. Once I synced my iPhone playlist showed my music sorted by ‘Date Added’ as well.

If I were to have ‘Play Count’ selected as the column to sort by and then synced my iPhone, then that playlist would display the songs ordered by ‘Play Count’

I found this out while playing with the Apple Remote app for the iPhone/iPod Touch. The selected column to sort by also effects how playlists are displayed in the iPhone Remote App.

Update #2: New updates that came out kinda fix this problem. Read more here.

I noticed the other day that Smart Playlists were not syncing correctly to both my wife and my own iPhone.

I found one fix that allowed the sort order to be correct, but disabled the Live updating function of the Smart Playlists. Which meant that every time an attribute of the playlist was updated (Such as rating a new song for my ‘5 Stars’ playlist) nothing was updated upon syncing with my iPhone.

This totally defeats the purpose of a playlist that automagically updates my iPhone with the last 100 added, or top rated songs. ARGH!

Alas, after following a suggestion from this discussion thread (Thanks Dave Jelfs!) we now have a solution. In fact there’s even a bonus side effect for those who only want to sync music, and not video within your playlists.

Update: Joel S points out that this is not totally accurate. “In my own testing, these playlists will still include Music Videos.”

First find your Smart Playlist in the sidebar.

Screen shot 2009-09-27 at 8.11.22 PMCtrl + Click on the playlist and select “Edit Smart Playlist”

Screen shot 2009-09-27 at 8.27.49 PMA new window will appear with all the settings for that particular playlist. Add a new rule  of ‘Playlist is Music’

Screen shot 2009-09-27 at 8.11.39 PM
Click to view

You’ll notice ‘Live updating’ is still on.

Now sync your playlist with your phone. TaDa!

While is is a workaround it does allow for the playlist to be synced, auto updated and appear sorted as you wish on the iPhone.

Like my previous troubleshooting articles I hope this post will be quickly updated when Apple roles out a fix. Until then, happy Smart Playlist syncing!

As with everything YMMV. I was using the following setup.

Macbook Pro 1.83 Ghz
Snow Leopard 10.6.1
iTunes 9.0.1
iPhone OS 3.1

If you have an improvement please leave a comment.


88 thoughts on “iTunes 9 + Smart Playlist + Live Updating + iPhone = FAIL”

  1. Unless you synch your entire music library to the device, I think this will prevent the playlists from updating on the device.

  2. Solomio, You don’t need to sync your entire music library for this to work (nor does this workaround change the way your device will sync).

    I have (under general options) ‘Sync only checked songs and videos’.

  3. In reference to the ‘update,’ if you specify the rule “Media Kind is not Music Video,” you can eliminate those from the playlist.

  4. Wow, AWESOME!!! Works!!! Funny workaround, how did you find this out??? Anyhow, thanks for posting and sharing! This was bugging me since my iTunes9.0 and iphone 3.1 update.

  5. Big thank you from Germany, this fix totally does the job for me! How in the world did you find out about it? Anyway, thanks!

  6. Thanks for this very helpful tip, but it’s only a partial fix for my situation… still waiting on Apple to truly fix it.

    This does solve the order problem for me, but the “live updating” glitch is still not resolved. For example, I have a “5 Stars” smart playlist which includes all songs that have 5 stars – when I rate a track with 5 stars on the device, the playlist is not updated on the device.

    I’m using iTunes 9.0.1.8 on a Windows XP PC, with an iPhone 3GS running software version 3.1.2.

  7. Thanks for figuring this out. Have to admit I’m wondering if it’s the lines that you added in or if it’s just the fact that you made a change to the playlist that made it wake up. Now if we could just figure out a way to rename the standard playlists….

    Thanks again,
    -drmike

  8. thanks man! this really solve my problem

    i looked everywhere and didnt find the solution

    this was very simple n easy!

    tnx!

  9. Works well for music but not for podcasts. Does anyone know how to get smart playlists for podcasts to update?

  10. Turns out adding “Playlist is not Music” will fix live updating smart playlists of podcasts. Wow.

  11. Nice Tip!

    However, smart playlist likes ‘Recently played’ won’t not be updated on the device, if user add the ‘playlist is (not) music’ rule to their smart plyalist.

  12. Another successful workaround. Big thanks for the info. One less headache. Ask apple to hire you, they need smart people working there. =)

  13. THANKS SO MUCH
    I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE THIS PROBLEM OUT FOR SOOOOL LONG.
    THANK YOUUUUUU

  14. Thank you so much – this problem has been annoying me for months and driving me insane! Such an easy workaround, cheers for sharing!

  15. *weeps with joy*

    Thanks! Worked liked a charm. Was thinking purchasing a Zune was the only way to end the pain.

  16. This worked for me. Thank you very much. I am disappointed that Apple has not fixed this yet. After all, iTunes is important software for Apple. Apple hasn’t even suggested your helpful workaround.

  17. I’m glad to see this post has helped so many people. I can’t wait to updated it saying Apple has fixed the problem!

  18. This is great, the only playlist it doesn’t fix for me is one that I put all my podcasts in so I can play them all in the order I want.

  19. Thank you! I’m glad I decided to google this problem. This has been annoying me since it started happening.

  20. I checked forums for this problem as well and it dates back to 2006… that’s 4 years ago… What the hell have the programmers been doing?

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