Smart Playlists MISsorted on iPod since iTunes 9

I don't have a solution but I can add to the problem.

I keep a shuffled regular playlist of all my music in iTunes and sync it with my iPhone. It frequently comes out alphabetized on the iPhone and I have to resync until it the sequences match.

It is important that they match so I can delete the ones I've already played to avoid repeats. Since the date last played does not sync reliably either, I can't use that instead.

Since the date last played does not sync reliably either, I can't use that instead.

There must be something unusual about the "Last Played" field. I bought SuperSync to move my iTunes library and all the playlists and tagging from my old computer to my new one. It does a fine job in general (except some album art inexplicably doesn't transfer), but it doesn't transfer any of the "Last Played" dates. I emailed SuperSync support about copying that field, and received the reply "Can't be done." I know Music Rescue doesn't copy that field from the iPod to iTunes either; Apple must have some odd format for that field.

On 25/01/2010, at 6:12, SteveJ1 <stevej1mac.com> wrote:

>
> There must be something unusual about the "Last Played" field. I
> bought SuperSync to move my iTunes library and all the playlists and
> tagging from my old computer to my new one. It does a fine job in
> general (except some album art inexplicably doesn't transfer), but
> it doesn't transfer any of the "Last Played" dates. I emailed
> SuperSync support about copying that field, and received the reply
> "Can't be done." I know Music Rescue doesn't copy that field from
> the iPod to iTunes either; Apple must have some odd format for that
> field.


FWIW Last Played and Rating are the only (?) fields stored solely in
the iTunes library file, not the music files themselves. Both can be
read and written through AppleScript.


Sent from my iPhone

On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:49:22 -0800, JTB wrote:
> it with my iPhone. It frequently comes out alphabetized on the iPhone
> and I have to resync until it the sequences match.
>
> It is important that they match so I can delete the ones I've already
> played to avoid repeats. Since the date last played does not sync
> reliably either, I can't use that instead.

How many resync's does it typically take? I've notice on my Apple TV
that a sync will sync the last played date from the Apple TV, then
upload songs, but for playlists based on last played date it doesn't
take into account the new date until after the sync completes. Syncing
twice seems to fix it for me.

Am 25.01.2010 um 11:07 schrieb <tidbits-talkemperor.tidbits.com>
<tidbits-talkemperor.tidbits.com>:

> There must be something unusual about the "Last Played" field. I
> bought SuperSync to move my iTunes library and all the playlists
> and tagging from my old computer to my new one.

Why so complicated? I used the Migration Assistant to move the files
in my Home folder to several new machines. I never lost a single
entry in the iTunes Library that way...

Udo

Why so complicated? I used the Migration Assistant to move the files in my Home folder to several new machines. I never lost a single entry in the iTunes Library that way...

Because all my music files for the MB Pro are on an external hard drive, since I have 115 Gb of music files and only a 160 Gb internal drive. Thus, Migration Assistant copies only the iTunes Library file, but none of the music that goes with it. Copying the music manually from the external drive doesn't properly link in the iMac Library; iTunes on the new iMac opens showing all the music, but when I try to actually use it, that dreaded "can't find" icon appears beside all the song titles.

I have not been able to figure out exactly what I have done to make the alphabetization sync work incorrectly. Since I sync once a week at the most it is hard to keep track of. But I am still looking.

As for the played date, I gave up on it years ago and no longer routinely check it.

On 2010-01-27, at 11:53, SteveJ1 wrote:

> Copying the music manually from the external drive doesn't properly link in the iMac Library; iTunes on the new iMac opens showing all the music, but when I try to actually use it, that dreaded "can't find" icon appears beside all the song titles.

Go into iTunes prefs, Advanced, and change the Media folder location to where you copied the files to. iTunes will go through your library and relink them.

After that you can reset the library location and iTunes will continue to keep track of them.

Cheers

On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:53:38 -0800, SteveJ1 wrote:
> Because all my music files for the MB Pro are on an external hard
> drive, since I have 115 Gb of music files and only a 160 Gb internal
> drive. Thus, Migration Assistant copies only the iTunes Library file,
> but none of the music that goes with it. Copying the music manually
> from the external drive doesn't properly link in the iMac Library;
> iTunes on the new iMac opens showing all the music, but when I try to
> actually use it, that dreaded "can't find" icon appears beside all
> the song titles.

I've done this many times. My music has been on internal drive, network
drive, currently on a firewire drive on 4 or 5 macs going back to the
1st version of iTunes.

1) Let iTunes manage your library. Set the iTunes Media folder location
in the Advanced settings to where you want the music. I recommend
putting it in a subfolder of a volume rather than the root.

2) When you want to change to a new computer copy the folder from the
old one to the new one, copy the iTunes library folder from your home
directory to new one.

3) Set the location of the iTunes on the new computer where you placed
the folder of music.

If you have your own layout for music/videos/etc... and don't have the
"copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library" turned on
then itunes stores the full path to each file in the library file and
when you change some of the pathing itunes will lose track of the files.

But i believe, but it's been a long while since I tried it, if you
locate one of the missing files iTunes will try to locate other files
that are also missing based on the one you picked.

>> Why so complicated? I used the Migration Assistant to move the files in my Home folder to several new machines. I never lost a single entry in the iTunes Library that way... > > Because all my music files for the MB Pro are on an external hard drive, since I have 115 Gb of music files and only a 160 Gb internal drive. Thus, Migration Assistant copies only the iTunes Library file, but none of the music that goes with it. Copying the music manually from the external drive doesn't properly link in the iMac Library; iTunes on the new iMac opens showing all the music, but when I try to actually use it, that dreaded "can't find" icon appears beside all the song titles. Have you told iTunes where to find your music files. In iTunes Preferences the far right icon, the one that looks like a gear, labeled 'advanced' allows you to tell iTune where your iTunes Music folder is - it is a 'browse' operation. I keep my entire iTunes media & music on a large external hard drive. Use firewire for fast access as iTunes plays the music from the external hard drive and you don't want hiccups. John Ferman