Your Ideas At Work: Shuffle Improvements

[meahtenoha]

The Community Ideas Board isn’t just about requesting new features. It’s also about improving the features already in Spotify.

Take our shuffle algorithm for instance.

The Idea “Implement an actual shuffle function” by Community user @RoninTheOrigina  gathered over 850 votes.  Users were vocal in their comments about what they wanted (and didn’t want) when it came to shuffling playlists.

We then passed this knowledge on and our teams got to work.

The result: an improved shuffling algorithm that avoids playing a couple songs from an artist too close together.

If you’re thinking, “that sounds kind of vague, what are these improvements” then fret no more.

Spotify’s @lukasP  has written an extensive blog post on how we gathered user feedback on Shuffle, analyzed their comments, took a hard look at our previous algorithm and found the best way to bring the improvements users wanted.

We’re aware this doesn’t fix all shuffling issues forever. Rest assured we are still working on this though.  You’ll also see the new algorithm in other clients other than desktop soon.

Now go hit shuffle on your favorite playlist and reap the benefits of your hard work clicking that Kudos button.

Enjoy!

[RolandSolc]

Hi,

I also found out that shuffle works quite strange (spotify web app). After some googling I have found easy but manual solution from another spotify comunity thread (comment by Stranger makred as solution )

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Windows-Web/Shuffle-repeats-songs-too-often/td-p...

but works only in desktop app. Solution si to create playlist in desktop app and then play it on any device with shuffle off.

Best regards

[wilson9cl]

Shuffle still isn't working for me.  I thought this might help a little.

private int RandomSong(int min, int max)
{
Random song = new song();
return song.Next(min, max);
}

[wirelessneo]

this issue definitely isn't fixed...I have about 2500 songs. the same EXACT song will play multiple times in a one-two hour window for about 50 songs and everything else is ignored. Driving me nuts! I'm a premium user and all are downloaded. this seems to happen more on my PC than on my Android, but it happens on Android too

[mfugel]

still not random shuffling....that is what is reallly needed...dont replay the same 20 songs or so...shuffle means shuffle and play all songs...PLEASE PLEASE

[Yoshi900]

Um, seriously it's not that hard, please simplify the code.

just use a RNG (random number generator) + exclude if it has already played that number (song) then once all of the tracks have been exhausted then remove all the excluded numbers and start again....

edit: I would like to add I don't care about if an artist gets played twice, the code should be simple and using a RNG on the totally number of songs in a playlist should be all that is needed, because with a truly RNG will be random, but with excluding songs it has already played (based on number rather than artist) is better.