The iPhone “stowaway” playlist glitch - Macenstein

The iPhone “stowaway” playlist glitch

Hey kids, here’s something fun to try! Connect your iPhone to iTunes, and then hit the little arrow that shows you what your iPhone thinks you have synced. On mine, despite only having 4 playlists set to sync in iTunes, the iPhone thinks I have 17 playlists on it.


Above: I only have 4 playlists checked to sync, yet the iPhone is showing me 17 in iTunes.

When I actually open the “iPod” app on the iPhone and check my playlists, I see that it has put 9 playlists on my iPhone, desite me checking only 4.


Above: there are 9 playlists where only 4 should be.

If I open one of these non-sanctioned playlists, something really interesting happens (well, interesting to me, anyway). All of them show the entire contents of my iPhone’s iPod media: audio and videos.


Above: Each of these mystery playlists holes all my iPhone’s video and audio files

What about you guys? I spoke to 2 other friends with iPhones and they each found at least 1 non-synced playlist had stowed away on their iPhones as well.

Comments
10 Responses to “The iPhone “stowaway” playlist glitch”
  1. Brian Burns says:

    I have no encountered this, but I did run in to something weird.
    I synced full albums on to my iPhone but when I go to view an album it only shows 7 tracks. 7 tracks is just enough to list songs without scrolling.

  2. DAve says:

    This happened to me, too. I got about 4 or 5 extra playlists, which went away the next time I sync’d.

  3. Bob says:

    Adult Shows…. Don’t forget to filter your pictures kids before you post them on the internets! People might take them the wrong way

  4. Slacker says:

    ‘Adult Shows’ eh? 😛

  5. Settle down class. That “Adult Shows” (LOST, HEROES) is only a way to differentiate that playlist from the “Kids Shows” (BARNEY, SPONGEBOB). I suppose I could have sad “Grown Up” shows, but that seemed lame.

    All my porn is in the “Porn” playlist, which would not fit on an iPhone.

    🙂

    -The Doc

  6. Midnight says:

    I’m having exactly the same issue. And no, it does not disappear after a sync.

    When you try to play any of the stow away songs, though, they just skip and you move on to the next available song on the list. The stow away songs are obviously not on the iPhone (some of them are HD video trailers who do not sync or play on my iPhone anyway.)

    Sigh. Just another 2.0 bug. But good that it’s not just me.

  7. Seth says:

    I recently upgraded to 2.1 (I never did the last few upgrades – my last version was 1.1.3) and the exact same thing is happening to me on my (original 8GB) iPhone.

    I’m glad I found someone else having the same issue, but has an answer been found? Obviously, 2.1 didn’t fix it! Maybe 2.2?

    Does Apple know about this?

  8. sang says:

    same thing is happening on my new iPhone… really wish this can be fixed. it’s kinda annoying to see the extra playlists pop up above my other playlists.

  9. sang says:

    seems like the problem only occurs when I have movie synced. if i don’t sync Movies, the extra playlists go away. now why i can’t sync Movies by playlist on iPhone is beyond me..

  10. John Frum says:

    This glitch occurs on iPods too. It makes selecting tracks by playlist on an iPhone or iPod a pain. It apparently happens to lots of users, yet references to it are scarce.

    It’s great that this problem has been given a name (“stowaway” playlists). What’s the rest of the solution?

Leave A Comment

ADVERTISE ON MACENSTEIN

Click here to inquire about making a fortune by advertising your game, gadget, or site on Macenstein.