Play counts not updating

[GregMac1213]

I've been trying to figure out the pattern of why my 3G Nano will sometimes update play counts and sometimes not.

At first, I blamed it on the alarm. So I disabled it. Everything seemed fine until a few days later when I realized my play counts were not updating again.

I have now found what I believe is the culprit: games.

To test:
I played a song and synced.
The play count updated correctly.

I then ejected, played a song, played a game (Vortex), and synced.
The play count did not update.

I ejected, played that same song again and synced.
The play count updated correctly.

It seems that if a game is played between syncs, any song played either before or after playing the game will not have its play count updated.

I tested this on my 5.5G 80GB iPod (with Ms Pacman), and that game does not affect my play counts.

[Sancroff]

Good work! Everyone who can reproduce this needs to report it to Apple. I'll be getting my bug-tastic Nano in a day or two. FedEx says it just left Memphis. I can hardly wait. :(

[tonyclifton]

i am not that fussed on play counts, although i would prefer if it worked. The nano is not bugtastic, I am more than happy with my nano so far, no problems at all so far everything smooth.

[GregMac1213]

Actually, there are quite a few bugs in the new Nano. Don't get me wrong. I love the form factor, the new interface, and the video quality. And I'm happily using it. (I'll be even happier when Apple sorts these issues out.)

But here's a rundown of the biggest issues I've seen so far. At least these are the ones I've sent Apple feedback about.

Play count update problems. This was my biggest issue since I have a lot of smart playlists that rely on play count/last played data. So at least I now know how to get around that one: don't play the games.

No support for compilations.

Menu settings reset to factory defaults when the Nano is reset.

Alarms don't work properly.

Coverflow is by artist and not by album. Therefore, I don't use it. (Although I would like to.)

[Natsmura]

hi i noticed the same thing on playcounts and couldnt work out what did it. thanks for working out the game connection -- i will certainly stop playing games

also as per previous posts -- two other bugs are

1) the clock for UK is set at GMT+1 when it should be GMT -- this makes all other international times wrong

2) you cant correctly view playlists in Nike+ -- v. annoying

[surgeDC5]

yeah im having the same problem too but its with my classic, dont really care too much about play counts not updating

[JazzyMac]

Dang, what in the world did Apple do????? :eek:

[tonyclifton]

Some of those are bugs and some probably arent - they just arent how you would have designed it, I have not come across any of those problems because:-

I dont use playcounts or pay attention to them - but this is a bug! and it needs fixed.

Havent had the compilation problem either, but only because I never used it, I have always made my itunes fool proof in that regard by custom naming things..so I never got dependent on it organising for me. - But this should be changed.

I havent reset my ipod but surely reseting anything should :) reset it? which would involve putting everything back?

I dont use alarms - but if this is the case it is a bug

I use coverflow by artist, thats how I would want it, I would be disappointed if it was the other way around so I understand, but I dont think this is a bug its just a decision apple made that should probably be changed to a customisable option.






Actually, there are quite a few bugs in the new Nano. Don't get me wrong. I love the form factor, the new interface, and the video quality. And I'm happily using it. (I'll be even happier when Apple sorts these issues out.)

But here's a rundown of the biggest issues I've seen so far. At least these are the ones I've sent Apple feedback about.

Play count update problems. This was my biggest issue since I have a lot of smart playlists that rely on play count/last played data. So at least I now know how to get around that one: don't play the games.

No support for compilations.

Menu settings reset to factory defaults when the Nano is reset.

Alarms don't work properly.

Coverflow is by artist and not by album. Therefore, I don't use it. (Although I would like to.)

[tmhallam]

My nano problem relates to videos

I have found when a video comes to the end, the nano just stops, rather than reverting back to the menu as my 5g ipod did

Problem is, when synching, it doesnt record the show as having been watched, making the "unwatched shows only" option in the playlist selection meaningless

Anyone else have this problem?

[GregMac1213]

Some of those are bugs and some probably arent - they just arent how you would have designed it, I have not come across any of those problems because:-

I dont use playcounts or pay attention to them - but this is a bug! and it needs fixed.

Havent had the compilation problem either, but only because I never used it, I have always made my itunes fool proof in that regard by custom naming things..so I never got dependent on it organising for me. - But this should be changed.

I havent reset my ipod but surely reseting anything should :) reset it? which would involve putting everything back?

I dont use alarms - but if this is the case it is a bug

I use coverflow by artist, thats how I would want it, I would be disappointed if it was the other way around so I understand, but I dont think this is a bug its just a decision apple made that should probably be changed to a customisable option.

A simple reset should not reset customized menu views to the factory defaults. At least it doesn't on any of my other iPods. That's why I consider it a bug.
A restore, however, should reset the menu options to the factory defaults.

Regarding coverflow: I'm sure my problem stems from the lack of compilation support. If it supported compilations, then I could live with coverflow by artist instead of by album.

[GregMac1213]

My nano problem relates to videos

I have found when a video comes to the end, the nano just stops, rather than reverting back to the menu as my 5g ipod did

Problem is, when synching, it doesnt record the show as having been watched, making the "unwatched shows only" option in the playlist selection meaningless

Anyone else have this problem?

Well, good grief. That's happening on my Nano as well. sigh...

[tonyclifton]

Yeah the coverflow issue is just a decision by apple that alienates some people as it isnt how they use/search their music, it just happens to suit me and again I dont use compliations in the same way so I am by pure luck immune to that problem - however it should be fixed as i would be ####ed if my compilation were all over the place :(

A simple reset should not reset customized menu views to the factory defaults. At least it doesn't on any of my other iPods. That's why I consider it a bug.
A restore, however, should reset the menu options to the factory defaults.

Regarding coverflow: I'm sure my problem stems from the lack of compilation support. If it supported compilations, then I could live with coverflow by artist instead of by album.

[Mawdryn]

My nano problem relates to videos

I have found when a video comes to the end, the nano just stops, rather than reverting back to the menu as my 5g ipod did

Problem is, when synching, it doesnt record the show as having been watched, making the "unwatched shows only" option in the playlist selection meaningless

Anyone else have this problem?
I have this problem often with my new Classic 160. It's very annoying, but resetting the iPod always fixes it. Of course when I reset, I lose all my custome menu settings. And resetting does not correct the playcount for stuff you already watched.

Another problem I have is if I scroll fast forward in a video to the end, it just jumps back to the point where I started scolling from. Stopping short of the end works fine. Is this a problem on the Nano as well?

[riceman]

i'm having a problem with non-updating playcounts too. also with the movies stalling at the end.

what's interesting is that the playcounts update on the actual nano; if you go to itunes and look at the playcounts within the nano's movie section, they are updated from the nano's POV. for example, say video X got 3 plays before you put it on the nano. then you put it on the nano. while you use the nano, you play video X twice. when you connect it back to your PC, the playcount on the main itunes section will still be 3 but on the nano's movie section it will be 5. it will be 5 even if the video stalled at the end both times.

i also tried putting videos in a playlist and it still stalls.

videos on my old 5G pod video don't stall. however they no longer skip to the next video, but go back to the menu (maybe this started happening a long time ago but i never updated the firmware til recently).

oh well. i just hope the patch gets made.

[doctorfrog]

I've been noticing this as well. Since I integrate smart playlists based on play count and last-played status, this is a pretty irritating bug. Basically, I'll play music all day, and when I re-sync, I find that my iPod has reset to whatever playlists, counts, Podcast and Movie positions, etc. that it originally had on last sync.

The most irritating thing is that this is an intermittant issue. This might happen after I've played five songs, or it might happen only after I've played 50.

Here's a voodoo (based more on superstition rather than trial an error so far) fix I've been trying:

Windows XP, latest iPod Nano firmware, latest iTunes. Disk mode.

1. When you're about to sync, load up iTunes immediately. Wait for it to load before connecting iPod.
2. Connect iPod. Sync.
3. Disconnect iPod rudely. In other words, don't click the little eject button, and wait the now-interminable eject process to complete. Pull little blighter right the hell out of there.
4. Go about your daily business, play music, movies, podcasts. Don't play games, just in case this is the bug.
5. Go to step 1. Success?

[riceman]

has anyone here had the playcoount problem and NOT played any of the games? i'm thinking maybe the initializing of the games does something weird to playcounts. just brainstorming (after reading the first post.

[Code Monkey]

I use coverflow by artist, thats how I would want it, I would be disappointed if it was the other way around so I understand, but I dont think this is a bug its just a decision apple made that should probably be changed to a customisable option.It's a bug with or without compilation support. Coverflow should always be by album artist, that's the whole point of making iTunes pay attention to that field in the first place. If you've tagged all your albums as you want them, then they will continue to only coverflow by artist because you won't have something like "Various Artists" in an album with multiple artists, but for people who have, then they would sort properly. Currently, though, there is no way to achive this and eveybody who spent all that time retagging the artist field with "Joe Musician and Guest" knowing that the album artist of just "Joe Musician" would keep everything in its right place is hosed. Even in iTunes when you sort by "Album by Artist" it's actually the album artist field that gets used if it's filled in, ditto for coverflow. It's supposed to use the album artist, whoever coded it for the iPod wasn't paying too much attention.

[Sancroff]

has anyone here had the playcoount problem and NOT played any of the games?
Yes. So it is not specific to playing games after all.

[GregMac1213]

Yes. So it is not specific to playing games after all.

I've also noticed that assigning ratings on the iPod will disrupt the play count updates as well.

To test this:

I played 3 songs.

While the third song was playing, I gave it a 5-star rating on the iPod.

I played 2 more songs after that. This was a total of 5 songs.

When I synced, the play counts for the first two songs were updated.

The play counts for the last 3 songs (the one I gave the rating to and the 2 that followed it) were not updated. Nor was the rating transferred to iTunes.

So until Apple releases an update to the Nano, I've stopped playing games, assigning ratings, and using the alarms. So far, my play counts have updated without fail.

I would also suspect that making an on-the-go playlist would cause issues with play counts. (I'm wondering if anything that touches the database on the iPod affects play counts.)

Has anyone tried that?

[doctorfrog]

Has this issue been resolved with the latest firmware?

[GregMac1213]

Yes. At least on my Nano, it has.

I've tested games and assigning ratings multiple times. And play counts synced correctly every time.

[riceman]

mine still don't. maybe it's because i'm manually managing files? is it working for people who are auto-managing and not manually managing?

[Code Monkey]

mine still don't. maybe it's because i'm manually managing files? is it working for people who are auto-managing and not manually managing?If you manually manage, data is NEVER synced back to iTunes. That's just the way it is. I don't think it should be that way, but that's the way iTunes has handled manual management from the very beginning.

[riceman]

that explains alot :) thanks.

however, i do seem to remember my shuffle playcounts updating on my main iTunes playlist when i used to have one... maybe i'm mistaken

[Code Monkey]

that explains alot :) thanks.

however, i do seem to remember my shuffle playcounts updating on my main iTunes playlist when i used to have one... maybe i'm mistakenThe shuffle works differently from any other iPod. There is no internal clock, there are no internal playlists. Essentially, it's a hybrid manual mode since it never does anything fully automatically, whether you're using the autofill or drag & drop. All the shuffle does is flag a given track as played/not played between trips to iTunes. If it's been played, even if it's been played 1 billion times, playcount is incremented by 1 and the last played date is set as the time of the iTunes sync.

[doctorfrog]

Not fixed for me: a day's worth of listening wiped out by a short game of iQuiz.

[Code Monkey]

Not fixed for me: a day's worth of listening wiped out by a short game of iQuiz.That's a whole other bug, though, it at least beats it not recording the data at all, sort of...

I know, I think this last batch of iPods are shameful in the state they were released. I'm curious to see them once they actually work, for now, I'll keep my money.

[GregMac1213]

Not fixed for me: a day's worth of listening wiped out by a short game of iQuiz.

My counts were wiped out today too. :mad:

I'm not sure what happened. I had previously tested play counts with Vortex and Klon###e.
But not both games during the same session. That's the only thing that was different that I can think of. I played both games last night and didn't re-sync before heading off to work today.

So it's either that, or there's another scenario that will wipe play counts that I'm unaware of.
I've specifically avoided iQuiz since several people reported that it was still broken.

[rockmyplimsoul]

My counts were wiped out today too. :mad:

I'm not sure what happened. I had previously tested play counts with Vortex and Klon###e.
But not both games during the same session. That's the only thing that was different that I can think of. I played both games last night and didn't re-sync before heading off to work today.

So it's either that, or there's another scenario that will wipe play counts that I'm unaware of.
I've specifically avoided iQuiz since several people reported that it was still broken.On my 5G I have this same issue when I play games, but only when I've played 50-75 songs since my last sync. Maybe it takes a certain amount of memory usage before the symptom appears?

[GregMac1213]

On my 5G I have this same issue when I play games, but only when I've played 50-75 songs since my last sync. Maybe it takes a certain amount of memory usage before the symptom appears?

Good observation. I played at least 52 songs today. (Fortunately, I remember which albums I listed to, so I just counted the tracks.)