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Another first world problem – itunes playcount has stopped working – ATM

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I updated itunes at the end of last week, and perhaps co-incidentally playcount has stopped working completely. Nothing being recorded in the playcount column. Any thoughts on how to solve this? Yes have done a basic google and nothing recent that provides a how-to would appear to be on the apple help forums or similar.

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  2. If you’re on a Mac, run Disc Utility – First Aid. That might resolve whatever issues is causing it. I
    f you’re not on a Mac I can’t help.
    I can say that I have checked and my iTunes [same as your version, updated last week] is still updating play count as normal.

  4. I realise ‘ours not to reason why’, horses for courses etc. but why do you need to know how many times you’ve played a song? Not snarking: I genuinely can’t imagine why. Is it so you can target playlists at lesser-played stuff, or something?

    • I mostly use that facility on my music player so that I notice what I’m neglecting.
      When I go to (semi-) random play, it defaults to choosing songs with zero plays for “next”.

    • I like the playcount function, though as others have said, mostly as a way of finding tracks that are un(der)played – I have a number of smart playlists centred around playing tracks that have never been played, played less than X times, unplayed for 12 months and so on…

      In a small sample of myself & Mrs Mickey, playcount is also an interesting way of seeing what our listening habits are… whereas my 160GB iPod is mostly full of tracks I’ve listened to 5-10 times, with a relatively small number played more, up to (say) 40 or 50 times, Mrs Mickey’s has a top tier of tracks played literally hundreds of times, then a bigger bunch of 50-70 plays, then pretty much all unplayed…

  5. I’ve ditched iTunes – I’ve no need for it especially since eMusic stopped interfacing with it and I have a non Apple mp3 player.
    I now use Music Bee which I’ve tried before and it didn’t quite measure up, but I’ve since revisited and it’s come on a bundle. It’ll import playlists, playcounts, star ratings etc from your old iTunes library. However, it doesn’t rely on their rubbish artwork/track listing service and you can configure everything and make it work the way you want it too which suits me fine. Combines all the good stuff about iTunes and gets rid of most of the irritants.

    It won’t sync iPods if you’re managing to keep one serviceable but it plays nicely with most non Apple devices/phones/mp3 players and you can ‘sync’ your music in the iTunes way if you like. It’s fab.

      • I installed Music Bee on my “other” laptop a few weeks ago, to compare it with Media Monkey, which is my default player.
        I hadn’t yet got around to giving it a proper test, but if it doesn’t work with iPods then that’s a deal-breaker for me, as I have two working 160GB iPods.

    • The burning question is, can it reconnect all the albums iTunes has split into multiple pieces, and, even better, not break them up again. This is a feature of which Apple are most proud having been in the core functionality for years but I find it a royal pain in the arse.

      • Yes – or more importantly – the user can manage albums and tracks in whatever way suits them – but does have a bit of a learning curve in understanding how to configure it the way you want it – different M.O. to Apple Software which is all pre-set and locked down so it “just works”. You can properly edit mp3 tags etc, and reorganise music files and loads of stuff that iTunes simply can’t do.

        • Not sure what you mean by that – I can edit mp3 tags and reorganise music files in iTunes, I do it all the time. I find the important thing is to do everything manually and not to let iTunes assume it knows best. But it’s not ‘locked down’ in the way you suggest.

      • I’m not sure what “breaking up albums” means in the context of iTunes. In what way?

        I’m always a bit baffled by people’s iTunes horror stories. I’ve used it since 2004 with literally not a single problem. It’s very rare for me to need to use it since the advent of Apple Music but even so, the idea that it’s “locked down” or “forces” you to sort your music in a certain way has never been my experience. (And you can easily bulk edit MP3 tags in it.)

        • Same here. I do hanker after the relative simplicity of iTunes about 5 versions ago, because it now has a lot of ‘functionality’, as the barbarous jargon has it, that I don’t need or want, but still…

          • They’ve recently pulled apps from the iTunes interface, which will have significantly decluttered it, I imagine.

            Admittedly I haven’t used Windows since about 2006/7 so maybe the Win versions of iTunes are buggy or somehow radically different from the OSX versions, but iTunes’s core functionality has always done exactly what it says on the tin, for me.

            • Read a massive whinge about that from a bloke who’s got over 2000 apps on his phone! Unless he’s some sort of pro apps tester that seems a bit excessive.

              Just been having a fiddle and discovered that if you go to Songs view and then select Show Column Browser from the View menu, it’s 2010 again. That’s a result, for me anyway.

        • Another fan of iTunes here. Never had any problem that I couldn’t resolve with a little fiddling about. (And I’m totally fussed about having all the info and artwork 100% correct so that it comes up on my car’s stereo display for the enlightenment of my passengers.)

    • @moseleymoles
      I’ve updated my iTunes and the play count works fine, so I can’t experiment with your prob. Have you tried unchecking the play box (in songs mode: VIEW → SHOW VIEW OPTIONS → STATS), then quitting and restarting iTunes and then checking play box again?

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