Hi Kirsten, nice to meet you. There are several … gotchas… with play counts in playlists vs the album page for in library vs out of library content. I’ve pointed this out before, but, probably has gotten lost.
The point is that if you add a track to a playlist in Roon, Roon does know what track is being played and is adjusting the play counts on the album page, it is just not displaying them in the playlist.
Just using the album page:
Using “Evelyn, the Modified Dog” by Frank Zappa as an example. If I go to Qobuz and play the 192 version without adding it to my library, Roon will track the play counts. Obviously, if I go to a different Qobuz version, the play count is 0. If I add the 192 version to my library, the previous play count from the “not in library” version carry over now that I’ve added it to my library. If I play increase the play count and then remove it from my library, the play counts are maintained back to the non-library version.
Playlist with only a non-library streaming track:
If I add the non-streaming track to a playlist in Roon, it shows a play count of 0 on the playlist; always, the play count does not increase on the playlist page. However, if I play the playlist, the play count on the not in library album page does increase.
Now, If I add the album to my library, the play count that existed for the non-library track carries over when I add it to my library. If I then add the same track to the existing playlist that contains the non-library version, when I play the playlist (now of two tracks - the non-library version and the library version), the track count for the library version goes up even when I play the non-library version. And the count for the non-library track stays at 0.
Even more interesting, is if I then remove the track from my library, and play the non-library version again. In the playlist, it will keep incrementing the counter pointing to the removed and unavailable in-library version. This continues until I add the album back in again to my library.
When I do that, the in-library version has the old lower play count and over-writes the play count of the not in library version, in essence dropping those play counts that occurred between the two additions and one removal of the album from the library.
Quick walk-through
The first track is added from the not in library version, note, that the play count has never changed. I played it several times (6), then added that album to my library, and then added the track to the play list. I played it 7 more times for a total of 13 times. I then removed the album from my library. I then played the non-library version 3 more times. As I played it, the play count for the unavailable and removed “in library” version kept incrementing to 16. The out of library album page also showed 16 plays.
I then added the album back into my library. And, added the same track back onto the playlist. The “newly re-added to my library” track had the old play count of 13. Even more so, the play count on the “out of library” album page was reset back to 13 as well.