Playlists containing only podcasts always played in Shuffle mode

[Karnaplosky]

Plan

Premium

Country

Spain

Device

Samsung A42

Operating System

Android

My Question or Issue

I just realized that when a playlist only contains podcast episodes, the shuffle or sequential playback icon has disappeared.
All the episodes play randomly and not in the custom order I've configured.
The workaround I've found to make that icon reappear is to add a song at the end of the playlist.

[Karnaplosky]

Thanks for the reports, everyone!

Our tech folks will investigate further. We'll keep you posted here as soon as we have any new info to share, stay tuned! In the meantime, make sure you're always running the latest Spotify updates.

Cheers 🤘

[Vasil]

Hey @Karnaplosky,

Thanks for reaching out!
The missing 'Shuffle' button is an expected app behaviour when it comes to podcasts, as this option is not available for them. Adding a song to convert the list to a mixed content playlist is a clever workaround though! 

We tried reproducing the described behaviour but on our end the queue follows the playlist sorting and does not shuffle the podcasts at any point as it should be doing by design. With this in mind we'd like to know if the issue appears only when you're using your Android app. If this is so, then it might be related to some specific cached data that might have gone corrupted, causing what you're experiencing in the process. 

What I'd recommend in this situation is clearing the cached data first. To do so - follow the steps here and then log out of the app and back in twice in a row to trigger a manual sync of all your settings and data. If this doesn't help out, you can go a step further and perform a complete clean reinstall of the app. This will remove all Spotify-related data and install the app anew, which will hopefully resolve the issue 🙂

Fingers crossed! Keep us posted on how things go 🙌🏼

[Karnaplosky]

I promise I remember seeing that option in the lists with only Podcasts until not that long ago.
Anyway, I've started by clearing the cache, logging out and back into the application. It worked!
Thank you very much, Vasil.

[IMIvy2]

I'd like the ability to shuffle my playlist of podcasts and then have the podcast page to play them in order. That's the reason I made a playlist in the first place. It was there until recently. It was a good feature.

[Karnaplosky]

The trick to make the shuffle button appear is to put a song in the podcast playlist.😅

[mmortal03]

I'm having the same problem. My podcast-only playlist has started playing in the wrong order. I add new podcasts to it frequently, but it is no longer following the order as shown. It has worked fine for years, and only stopped working recently. I'm not sure if it's wrongly playing "shuffled" (I know this isn't even a feature for podcasts) or "reverse order" or what exactly, but it's simply no longer playing in the viewed order, whether that's the "custom order" or "recently added" sort.
I've tested both the official release channel, and the latest beta channel versions, and neither one is working correctly on this.

Clearing the cache doesn't fix it.

Pixel 6a, latest OS and security patch updates.

[OscarDC]

Hey @mmortal03,

Thank you for joining the conversation.

We appreciate all the info you've included in your post. To continue investigating this behavior, would you mind confirming if you've already performed a clean reinstall of the app on your Pixel? If not, we'd recommend following the steps mentioned in this article. 

If the issue persists, could you include in your next response the exact OS version, along with the Spotify version you're currently running?

Lastly, since we couldn't replicate the issue on our end and if possible, could you record a short video where we can take a better look? You can attach it to your next response by using the Insert Video option in the post editor. You can also upload it to YouTube or Google Drive and share the link with us (make sure the video has the permissions for anyone to watch it).

We'll be waiting for your response. 

[mmortal03]

Since I don't want to do a fresh install on this particular device, I just tested it on a fresh install of Spotify on an older Android phone, and it is doing the exact same thing.

Based on this result, the phone model and the Android OS version likely don't matter, but here they are:

Moto G5 Plus, Android 8.1.0, Spotify version 9.0.48.367

Google Pixel 6a, Android 15, May 5, 2025 security update, Spotify version 9.0.48.367

To be sure, the bug is not specific to this beta version of Spotify, because the recent versions from the stable channel in at least the last month have been doing this exact same thing. Not exactly sure when it first started.

One way I've found to make some sense of the bug is to start playing wherever I'm at on the playlist on my phone, and then open up the desktop version of Spotify and check the now playing queue. The next item in the queue, if the bug wasn't there, would be identical to the playlist's order, but, instead, it shows some different order of the podcasts that are contained in the playlist, and it's not obvious how it is coming up with this order.

FYI, I don't keep the desktop version of Spotify open in the background on a regular basis, but after fiddling around with going back and forth between playback targets, and then playing from those various targets, the bug has at least temporarily resolved itself and the queue now contains the correct next podcasts in order from the playlist. Who knows if it will stay this way.

[Dessi]

Hey @mmortal03,

Thanks for all the info you've provided!

If the issue persists on a difference device as well, then it's possible that it might be account-related so it'd be great if you can ask someone to log in their own account on your device to check. If they don't have such a playlist, they can either create one or you can share yours with them for testing purposes. You can also share it here if you want and we can also check if we get the same behavior.

It's also worth creating a new one with podcast episodes just to see if it works properly. Can you also confirm if everything's in order with your music playlists? 

Since we weren't able to reproduce the issue on our end, it'd be really helpful if you can send us a screen recording so that we can have a better understanding of what's happening and to check if we're not missing something. If the file is too large to attach, you can upload it to Google Drive (make sure to allow general access to the file) or as an unlisted YouTube video. 

Keep us posted.

[mmortal03]

Thanks, Dessi. I'm seeing it happen again. My initial theory is that it might have occurred after editing the playlist order from inside the Android app. (This was not an implemented feature until recently.) But doing that doesn't immediately cause the buggy order behavior, so I'm still not sure how to reproduce it.

One way to clear the buggy order after it has occurred is to go in to the Windows app and reorder the playlist there, by simply moving/dragging one podcast around a spot or so. This seems to clear the buggy order in the queue, even though it doesn't fix whatever is causing the problem in the first place.

[Vasil]

Hey @mmortal03,

Thanks for the update!
We'll be on the lookout for additional replies in this thread in case you manage to reproduce and record the issue and we'd also welcome any further details you may find. Keep in mind the additional troubleshooting steps @Dessi has mentioned and let us know when there's anything new to share in that regard.

Much appreciated! Keep us in the loop 🙌🏼

[IansChonkyCat]

I am also currently experiencing this issue. I have several podcast playlists I've made out so that I can skip episodes without needing to do so manually, the clear cache and sign in and out twice trick works only for a playlist I am currently on, if I switch to a different podcast playlist it will still be shuffled, and if I switch back the originally unshuffled one will be shuffled again. I have also deleted and reinstalled the app to no avail (which is a major hassle since I had over 300 separate episodes downloaded that I now have to re-download one by one.). Android version 9.0.50.416 on q Samsung Z Flip 5 most recent update. Additionally this issue is only on mobile as I can use Spotify through a PS5 or desktop and not have this issue, but that is very inconvenient because I primarily use my phone for Spotify

[Yordan]

Thanks for the reports, everyone!

Our tech folks will investigate further. We'll keep you posted here as soon as we have any new info to share, stay tuned! In the meantime, make sure you're always running the latest Spotify updates.

Cheers 🤘

[mmortal03]

I just noticed on the Desktop version that it's now showing my "podcast only" playlist with Shuffle selected, which could explain the incorrect order. Keep in mind that that option isn't even present on my Android phone. I went ahead and disabled Shuffle on the Desktop, but this did not automatically fix the queue order. Manually starting another podcast on the playlist after deselecting Shuffle corrected the queue order. Now we will see if this permanently fixes it. (I don't know why it had Shuffle enabled on the Desktop in the first place, but hopefully this resolves it.)