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.

[uofmars]

It is so very sad that this issue is on threads from 2012 and sill no fix. Who is working on this George R R Martin. I should get a reaction from my premium payment each month for a feature that has never worked and is so important to so many. FIX THE SHUFFLE OR HAVE THE GUTS TO TELL US YOU DON'T CARE.

[bntski23]

The shuffle function still does not shuffle. I still hear many of my songs over and over, while other songs I feel I only hear them if I pick them. I like all the songs in my playlist. I would like to hear them all. 

[actualccb]

It seems to me that all these complaints, frustrations and suggestions can be solved with one new preference addition in the playback area: repeat songs yes or no. Yes=whatever Spotify wants to do, leave it as is.

No=no repeats within a single session, even if it is paused. If someone leaves the playlist, plays something else, it starts over. 

If songs are added during playback it is fair if the playlist is not updated for playback until the playlist starts over. Same, if a song is deleted during playback, it could still play until the playlist is restarted. 

[Bazman1981]

This looks to be a big problem! I found a post from 2 weeks ago, and was then directed to this post from 2012! Wow! I've got married and had a daughter in the time since this was posted! I'm sure you could fix the shuffle fucntion!

I clicked on shuffle all my songs the other day, and played it through my Sonos. I would expect every song to be a different artist as there are thousands of songs, but nope, it just seemed to want to play chemical brothers.

Please, please fix this problem. Don't be too clever, just shuffle the songs. 

If you want to be clever add a "Super Shuffle" which plays only your favourite songs, or the most recent, or the ones that are most istened to by other people.

Keep the shuffle pure, simple and true!

[PepijnNL]

Found this and the one you marked duplicate (https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Randomize-Shuffle-ENTIRE-playlist-Shuffle-ALL/idi-p/14...) and finally I know what is wrong with what I'm hearing in Spotify. It has been bugging me since I started using it. I noticed earlier today when I started a song from my playlist that I added a few days ago to let someone hear it, and I left it to shuffle from there, and noticed I was hearing song after song that I hadn't heard in ages while I shuffle this playlist every day.

I just can't believe you guys thought this was a good way to do this... You call this an idea? No, this is a bug you need to fix. If this is 'by design' as engineers have a tendency to say, then the design is moronic. It's insane to see that this is something that you've left to fester for years already...

As for "Implement a shuffle function that allows me to listen to every single song in a playlist one time before any repeats are played"... that would be a randomize function (as Winamp called it). It's not quite the same as shuffle, but yeah it would be a very good feature to implement (and that actually would be a new feature). It always baffles me how modern music players lack in functionality compared to what Winamp was doing 20 years ago.

[user-removed]

 As an addon here is an interesting article about what the idea behind shuffle is:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Community-Blog/Your-Ideas-At-Work-Shuffle-Improvements/ba-p/728963

[Javierba]

Guys, unfortunately, nobody is even reading the comments. This thread is going for ages and they did none to change it.

This is not a difficult issue to fix, thay are making millons of dollars with this and still the same **bleep** is going on.

Maybe it will be fixed by 2099, but I'm afraid I will not be here at that time

[djmanosv]

I think after latest update that the shuffle works better now. It plays songs that were never played before from a playlist of 600++ tracks. In general I hear songs that I had added but never heard before 🙂 

Can anyone confirm that shuffle works better ? 

[actualccb]

Two points: (20180105) iOS Spotify App, current. 

1. The shuffle (now) seems to work fine to a point. Then when it breaks down maybe around halfway through (Using a 100 song playlist) it decides to start repeating and it will play mostly repeats. I can keep skipping to a non-repeat and the shuffle “seems” to start working again. 

2. I am using iOS and I noticed when I select to view the queue, the upcoming song list is not repeats and is very acceptable however Spotify is not playing from the queue! This seem like a major glitch. 

[Scooter666]

An interesting observation i have since made is the fact i use spotify when im at the gym using my 4g phone data the shuffle seems to be good! However when im at home or using spotify on my laptop using my home wifi connection the problem of only selecting a few different bands from my extensive collection are shuffled . Which is why im reporting here.