Shuffle only working on part of Playlist

[1116074400]

I am playing a 434 song playlist on a Windows Vista desktop, but operating from a Win10 Laptop.

I have long felt that shuffle is not very random, but in the last few days I have noticed something specific and cannot find reference to it on the community.

Basically shuffle seems to limit itself to the top portion of the playlist depending on how it is sorted. Whether it is limited to 50, or more I have not and don't have the time to determine.

So if sorted by song title, the shuffled playlist only contain songs beginning A-D. Same if sorted by Artist - A to D again (ignoring "The"). If by time added to playlist then only the most recent etc.

That is not shuffle, and also means that there must be a collection of tracks that would never be played in shuffle!

It sort of overwrites everybody's previous concerns about the less than random nature of shuffle, something that as far as I can tell has never been addressed.

Spotify would be better if it worked properly and stayed working.

(Paid member for many years!)

[1116074400]

OK not many people having same problem, so it will never get fixed.

Time for Deezer?

Couple of observations:

Shuffle still seems to work OK on my works Windows 7 desktop.

Just used my IPhone to shuffle the playlist, and only got old songs from playlist (i.e. songs added over a year ago). Don't know if that is relevant.

What I do know is that at the moment Spotify is severely restricting the "random" nature of a shuffled "large" playlist that should give me a varied selection of music over several hours, and its really beginning to annoy me.

Hey good news is that I have got badges!!!! Don't want to seem unthankful, but I would rather see some action on this issue!

[1116074400]

OK more thoughts

Firstly Spotify are not going to do anything about this. Its alright having a community like this, but it generally means that no particular thread gets strong enough to get their opportunity.

There are more threads having the same issue.

It would appear that instead of shuffling the whole list, is only loading 50-100 or so from the point at which you start playing the playlist, and then shuffles that subset. If you scroll down to the middle of your playlist, start playing it then select the shuffle, then you will get a shuffled play queue that is based on a set of the next 50-100 tracks in your playlist (however it is ordered).

It did not used to do this, I would say this started around the New Year for me. Therefore it is strongly likely that Spotify did this (although there is a chance that it is a Spotify interaction with the OS of the device. But I assume it is Spotify. So Spotify can undo this. But some of the other threads I have read go back to early 2015. So clearly Spotify are simply not going to address this issue.

If I had the time to waste I would try to move to something like Deezer. Its got the obscure tracks that I have found and love here on spotify, I might lose a few, but most would be available.

But I have not got the time, so will try living with this for a while longer. You never know anouther update might just make this issue go away one day.

At least I get a badge for this post as well. Woop Woop

[pepperezzy]

Thank you I will try that! Cheers

[fyorasilverwolf]

I'm having the same problem.  I don't want to switch to anything else, though. I'm trying to figure out some way to work around it, such as by making separate playlists of a random selection of songs (only made up of whatever number it is willing to shuffle) and shuffling each individually in turn. Because I've definitely noticed it's not playing all of my songs, since I haven't heard a particular song in DAYS, despite listening to the shuffled songs until their "end" at least twice per day.

[ql]

I've definitely noticed this too.

Right now I'm shuffling somewhere around 2,000 songs on my main Songs playlist, and you can definitely tell that it seems to be weighted in some way. Songs that I added recently play much more often than older songs, and the only older songs that play are ones I had tonsof plays on, not the lesser-played ones.

[1116074400]

I think the bias you refer to has always been there, even when it appeared to be shuffling the whole of a large playlist. I once read an article from a statistician that suggested that truly random shuffling can throw up such an appearance.

But this new issue is definitely not a "bias" issue.

So I would suggest the workaround for it (not a solution) is when you want to shuffle play, you load up your playlist, decide how to sort it (song title, artist, album, date added). Then you start playing from somewhere within the sorted playlist, then switch shuffle on. You will then get a shuffled selection from, I guess, around a hundred or so of the tracks that follow your starting point.

THis is most probably easier than setting up individual playlists (I cannot see how to do this easily, and without losing some of the more obscure but wonderful tracks that I have found)

But of course that means that spotify now do not have to explain or revert the annoying change in their playlist shuffling.

But it does mean we get some more community stars!! 🙂

[rednblu]

>> As described at this site << my friends discovered a way to--

*Randomize to a "copy" of your playlist outside Spotify-- then

*Cut to your queue.

Cut only 50 tracks at a time to your queue if you are using 1.0.20 or progeny. (laughing)

When you Cut to your queue, you prevent repeats-- because the tracks that you Cut are no longer in the "playlist".

[ajerap]

Get the same probleme with the spotify shuffle , and really thinking about moving to an other music supplier... I get a 700 songs playlist , and it s always the same 30 songs playing again and again, running me crazy, i cant listen those songs anymore.

is it so difficult to put a really shuffle solution ? or a way to easily change the order of your song in a playlist to listen normaly . And not an external solution with an other web site....

Hope it s will be fix soon 

[ema1596]

I've solved the problem Spotify made when they wrecked the shuffle ability last summer.  Download an earlier version and turn off automatic updates, and voila!  Functionality is back.  I do miss some of the new features though 😕

[juanlive-6]

Apparently, it was fixed in the last update for Windows!

It took only 8 months for they to solve it.

[1116074400]

Not fixed as far as I am concerned, the behaviour has not changed. It will only shuffle around 50 songs from your current starting point in your playlist.You can change the order of the playlist and you can start at different points.

Only updated Vista on desktop to Win 10 last minute, so both laptop and desktop running Win 10.

So still in the same position as far as I am concerned and still a total lack of time to do anything about it, and a total lack of concern from spotify.

[ema1596]

They may have claimed to fix it but at the moment I'm still having the same issues. I updated to the latest version of Spotify a couple days ago, but now I'm rolling back again. If anything it's worse...

[juanlive-6]

No, they didn't claim it. I tried myself. May be you have to change the playlist once to force it to re-shuffle it.

I have the version 1.0.37.150.gad02a02e for Windows 7.

I ordered a 200 songs' list alphabetically, then I played it in random mode and it showed songs beginning with W and N, while before this upgrade it only appeared up to E or F.

[ayersap]

I have the same problem.  Very annoying.  I hope it gets fixed.

[dennisje182]

Same here, noticing it always plays a portion of a large playlist. All songs around the same letter

[rednblu]

          My friends constructed a Shuffle
            That works on AllOfSpotify--
    Surely Spotify could Shuffle 9000 tracks
                And play all 9000, yes?

When we want to explain to Spotify how their Shuffle should work, maybe it would help to give them an example of how a Shuffle should work on the whole batch of tracks.

My friends constructed a Shuffle that works on  AllOfSpotify . . . .


            AllOfSpotify_Radio >>  https://open.spotify.com/user/rednblu/playlist/4BIEfdQC3CXOa1N0mTFAEy <<  AllOfSpotify_Radio . . . . .

To play that truly shuffled stream of tracks--

* Turn off the Spotify Shuffle-- You would not want the Spotify Shuffle to do its usual--put the first 50 tracks or so into an endless loop.

* Start from the top of  AllOfSpotify_Radio .
* Play through until you want to stop.
* When you restart, just search for where you stopped, and start with the next track.
* Whenever the track where you stopped is not found, just play from the top again.

Surely, Spotify could make that computer algorithm work on any of your 9000 track playlists, right?

And surely Spotify could automate that process to reStart on the next track after you last stopped, yes?

[evermoor2]

So I noticed this behavior if I start playing with shuffel setting already on, turning the shuffle function off and on again seems to make it actually shuffel again... 

[pepperezzy]

Thank you - will try it! Cheers

[BRITLER]

I am having the exact same issue. It is only playing the most recently added items, IE: the top portion only. Even if I go back to the very first song added to the playlist with it on shuffle, it will play that song and then revert back to the top portion only. 

Are we just SOL? Kind of **bleep**ty considering this is a premium account.