So this turned out to be a very subtle difference between "Home Sharing" and "Music Sharing" in iTunes (I wasn't even aware there were two different ways to share!), combined with some incredibly bad UI in the prefs. How subtle is the difference? How bad is the UI? I only got this solved by filing a ticket with Apple and escalating it to a senior support rep. Together we puzzled over it for weeks, going through multiple phone calls, screen captures, trial and error, studying logs, and her exchanges with iTunes engineers.
The difference is outlined here: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201779 Basically, Home Sharing shares music between computers but also lets you transfer files between those computers, while Music Sharing only lets other computers access music for playback, without the ability to transfer files. With Music Sharing, play counts on the host computer are not updated when those tracks are played on clients. With Home Sharing, they do. But here's the kicker: The iTunes "Sharing" preferences do not make any mention of these two different techniques. When you go into sharing prefs and select "Share my library on the local network," you have enabled Music Sharing, not Home Sharing. Even if the box "Sharing updates play counts" is checked, they won't be. The only way to get play counts to be updated when clients play tracks is to turn OFF "Share my library". Then pull down File | Sharing | Enable Home Sharing. Seriously. Oh and p.s. When you use this technique, you solve one problem but create another - you lose the ability to only share certain playlists; you now must share your entire library, which can make it really slow to load the library on the client if the index is very large. ./s On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 10:53 AM, Scot Hacker <shac...@birdhouse.org> wrote: > With > iTunes 10 and 11, a common > problem > was > that iTunes play counts would not be updated when tracks were played via > Home Sharing, even if the "Home Sharing updates play counts" checkbox was > checked in prefs. > But since iTunes 12, I can't find > any mention of people still > having that problem. > It's as if it's finally been properly fixed. > > > Which is weird, because I fixed it under iTunes 11 but the problem > returned with iTunes 12. I've checked and unchecked that box, > deleted my com.apple.itunes.* plist files, > quit and restarted iTunes 'till I'm blue in the face, but songs played via > home sharing just won't update play counts. > > Anyone else? Any suggestions? > > Thanks. > > > -- "You're only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it." -Robin Williams >>> Birdhouse Hosting <<< Custom web and mail hosting services http://hosting.birdhouse.org d(-_-)b
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