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.

[jmrozek]

The last week or so I've been having trouble with the shuffling. It RARELY, if ever, plays my most recently added songs on a playlist when I shuffle it. Not sure why this is happening but it's kind of annoying because 1. It's never happened before

and

2. It doesn't make sense that it would shuffle only half of my playlist? And not include recently added songs on that playlist.

literally makes no sense whatsoever. I even deleted and recreated the playlist and it didn't change anything.

[rednblu]

           How can I fix Spotify's shuffle myself?

What I see from @Tjabber's very useful graphic above is that the free market does not pay the people who create the real value-- Are the artists in the first column with Napster at the top the people who create the real value?

If the free market will never give you a shuffle that works, how could you make a "user programming fix" yourself so that you are satisfied with the "shuffle"?

My friends made the simple fix of --

* Checking before Spotify plays the next track-- checking to see if that track has already played in the last 60 days-- If that track has already played in the last 60 days, then skip to the next track and repeat from above [Checking before Spotify plays the next track . . . . ]

The result is a feed that has >> not played even a single repeat << track in the last 60 days of  15,192  tracks played-- The sole purpose is to ensure that the Spotify player keeps playing some track that you haven't heard yet.

Here are the next 6,000 tracks in that perpetual feed that has zero repeats >> https://open.spotify.com/user/rednblu/playlist/4BIEfdQC3CXOa1N0mTFAEy << -- for Spotify to ReverseEngineer

As suggested in the preceding 135 pages of suggestions, complaints, rants, and raves-- hearing Spotify music in good variety is what we must have-- never playing the same song twice--. scattering our whole collection over time-- getting around to playing every single track-- even our newly saved tracks.

Spotify assignment--
* (Read again what the OriginalPoster says repeatedly "what I can't stand is hearing the same song over and over again")-- repeat-- da capo-- D.C. al Coda.
* First simple case to solve-- Reverse engineer for us that successful All of Spotify perpetual feed demonstrated in 6,000 track segments above-- Zero repeats of the same song in any 60 day period, for example.

[hjesse7]

Still experiencing lack of shuffle. Same songs still seems to pop up. I like, however, how we can change and affect the queue in real time, that's helpful, though adds some labor to the process. 

[sublymeguy]

It still works very poorly. I have thousands of songs and yet I get repeats after 15 songs or so. Can you please fix? 

[user-removed]

I'm sorry, but when you're talkin about a free market, sooner or later people are going to look for some acceptable alternative.

Sure, no doubt, Spotify is a good platform. And that's not the point we're talkin here about.

To implement a fckin workin shuffle feature isn't that much nor hard work.
I'm expandin my several playlist day to day and NO i don't have time to "user fix" my playlists every darn time i add some new tracks.

Implement a workin shuffle function. That's all we want. If they rather listen to the opinion of the 'free market' instead of they payin customers, we have a serious problem.

AND SRSLY WHAT **bleep**TY SUPPORT SITE IS THIS, CONSTANTLY HAVING LOGIN PROBLEMS SAYIN MY PASSWORD IS WRONG EVEN IM GETTIN TO MY FACEBOOK ACCOUNT. WORST SUPPORT SITE EVER!!


Greetings

[rednblu]

Well said!

  Thanks for fighting with the LoginProblems so that we could read your poem and send to you our applause!  We are all on Your side. 

So by what date did Spotify promise to give us a Working shuffle?

[badgaz]

Why is this still a thing?

[breal82]

I'm also pissed to listen to the two previous song. Bring back the shuffle button or make it optional in the settings

Thanks for making that happen!

I'll miss the old songs I found.

[rednblu]

              Why is this still a thing?

The Original Poster, @RoninTheOrigina, so wisely detected the occurrence of this fatal bug by the following measure-- "what I can't stand is hearing the same song over and over again".

My friends have constructed completely successful "user programming fixes" for this fatal bug in all the Spotify players, and my friends explain it this way--

The necessary cause for the failure of the Spotify shuffle on any 9000 track playlist is that the Spotify shuffle lacks the following processes--

* Never play a track that has played already from shuffle mode in the last 30 days-- skip to the next shuffled track instead, looking for the next track in the shuffled queue that has not played already from shuffle mode in the last 30 days.

* If all the tracks remaining in the Shuffled queue have already been played in the last 30 days, then reshuffle and play from the top of the newly shuffled queue-- Again imposing the above condition of [Never play a track that has played already from the shuffle mode in the last 30 days]-- This reImposition of the [Never play ... ] condition makes sure-- in particular-- that the last 10 tracks in the previous shuffle will not play again for 30 days.  Get it?

So what do you get from imposing the above two processes to the tracks inserted onto your Spotify play queue?

My friends imposed those two processes to the tracks posted to their automatically replenished "All of Spotify" feed and-- sure enough-- my play of tracks from that "All of Spotify" feed has >> zero tracks repeated << for at least 30 days and counting.

[bbr]

Are we having different algorithms in different apps? I am on iOS and my problem is, when I add a new album to my playlist, shuffle makes me listen all the songs of the newly added album and then the others, which is not shuffling at all.