Implement an actual shuffle function

[RoninTheOrigina]

Yes, you read that right.  The "shuffle" function in Spotify is nothing more than a randomizer.  There's a difference?  YES.

RANDOM - Play one song.  The next song can be ANY song in your playlist.  Including the one you just listened to.  Though I've never had this specifically happen, I literally just heard the same song that I heard 2 songs ago.  This is how Spotify's "shuffle" currently functions.

SHUFFLE - Take your entire list, shuffle them (like cards), and play the first song in the shuffle.  Once finished, move that song off the pile.  Once the pile is depleted, shuffle the deck again and start over (maybe pop a message up).

I know enough about programming (not much) to know that shuffling is probably a bit harder than random, but come on.  I may be in the minority, but I don't have a lot of little playlists.  I have one list with nearly a thousand songs in it, because I like all the music, and am rarely not in the mood for one of those songs.  But what I can't stand is hearing the same song over and over again.  I think there may even be songs in my list I haven't heard yet, while I've heard others 4-5 times.

I know it may not matter much, but I would probably lay down the money for at least a year subscription if this feature was implemented.

EDIT: Another user pointed out that I can see what all is queued up in my shuffle by clicking the Play Queue link, and that Spotify supposedly sets up a rolling shuffle of 50 songs.  It would be nice if this range could be expanded to say 50-100% of your playlist.

EDIT 4/6/12: I just dealt with the same song 16 tracks later.  The song played the first time yesterday afternoon.  I went home, listened for a bit on my home PC (just a few songs), then started listening again this morning.  If the list recycles itself after a day, or if you log in from another computer, I see that as an area for improvement.

[thedemosthenes]

My issue with shuffle play is the way it shuffles. If I put 3-4 albums in a playlist and hit shuffle, I don't want to hear a shuffle of each individual album. I want to hear songs from all the albums randomly. Instead, I'm stuck with listening to one album at a time on shuffle, when there are 3-4 albums in my playlist.

[tjh5wp]

I apologize to whoever wrote the code for the shuffle (randomization) feature, but it's absolute trash. It will probably be the reason that I unsubscribe.
I love love Spotify, but it's pretty apparent that there was minimal effort put into the integration of the actual randomization of songs through shuffle.
Please correct me if this has been due to updates or even worse (less random) shuffling than usual.

Best,
Tyler

[Caette]

My shuffle does not seems to work well. For instance, I  have a few genres. Instead of shuffling them, it will play a bunch of say, Christian, then a bunch of oldies, then a bunch of country, etc. Shuffle to me means to mix them all up. It's very frustrating. All of this songs are on one playlist. Not sure, but it seems to choose them in the order they were saved as well.

[JennaElizabeth]

Please help. Shuffle playbis stuck on. Its so annoying that im paying  a monthly fee when i can choose which songs i want to listen to. When iv gon to click the little green arrow buttons that says it will turn it off. It pops up i have to be a premium member its super frustrating. Can someone help me or i want to cancel my subscription as i cant listen to the playlists i have.

Thanks  

[rednblu]

>>>>  Can someone help me

I always shuffle 9000 Spotify tracks by the following steps.

* Copy the ["HTML links" for the tracks I want to shuffle] into the top panel of >> this page. <<

Then click the specific two controls on that page

* "Randomize the order" RadioButton
* "Sort list" GreenButton.

Then

* Cut all the resulting lines from the bottom panel of that page to into a [blank] Spotify playlist named "Shuffled".

Then

* Play the playlist "Shuffled" after turning Off that buggy Spotify "Shuffle" thing.

If you don't want repeats, occasionally delete the tracks that you have played so that when your buggy Spotify player forgets where you stopped playing, you can quickly find your NextTrack by consulting your History to see what track you PlayedLast.

---

My friends have given me "programming fixes" for the various bugs that crash the many begotten buggy Spotify players when using the above [Shuffle fix]-- So if your Spotify player crashes, please give me the "symptoms" leading up to the crash, and I will see if my friends' [Encyclopedia of "programming fixes" for the buggy Spotify players] is complete.

Best wishes and Remaining cool . . . .

[fallingurie]

So I haven't ever noticed any songs repeating on shuffle, which is good ! However, I did notice a problem on a playlist that I have of 143 songs, with three artists (although one of those artists only has abt ten songs in the playlist so it's more like two). The amount of songs I have are about equal for both of the two artists. When I hit shuffle play, it seems like the app just splits the two artists separately. Yes, the songs themselves are shuffled, but there's around 10-30 songs in a row of the same artist without switching to the other artist. And it just switches back & forth. I already have separate playlists for each artists, and I have this playlist so I can listen to both bands TOGETHER. & then spotify just goes and splits them in half anyways. I end up just editing the order of all the songs to intertwine both bands, but it's really annoying and takes a long time to do.

I have screenshots of this if you'd like proof. Thank you so much for listening.

[rednblu]

>>>>  Can you help @JennaElizabeth?

Hi, @JennaElizabeth!

According to my friends' [Encyclopedia of "programming fixes" for the buggy Spotify players], your little green arrow button has a bug in it if it says you have to be a premium member to turn off the Spotify shuffle.

Even my Non-Premium account does not get that buggy message.

Please try the following,

* Don't click that little green arrow button.

* Click "Playback" in the upperLeft of your screen.  Then click the "Shuffle" line in the DropDown-- Does that "Shuffle" line have a CheckMark in front of it?-- Keep doing [Playback, Shuffle] until the "Shuffle" line under "Playback" is UnChecked.

* Then can you play your playlists as you expect them to play?

Cheers . . . .

[teollo]

I used it today, no improvements. it's always the same. 

thanks

[rednblu]

Are you on mobile, @teollo and @JennaElizabeth?

[mramsden90]

It should play each song once and then move on when shuffling. I have updated my app, I still get the same song popping up over and over again. The playlist is over 200 songs, and there are artists who are just getting entirely skipped because of this weird loop glitch.