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.

[jhartikainen]

I found an easily reproducible case where the shuffle feature repeats songs in the exact same order. It's still an issue as of writing this in the latest desktop client.

More details in the thread here: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoing-Issues/Desktop-client-shuffle-plays-tracks-in-exact-same-or...

[Bodestone]

It is much worse than that. It is a randomiser to play +/- about 20 tracks from where you are.

Also 7-10=1.

So on a 300 track playlist you may slowly drift through it but are far more likely to be stuck in the first 3o tracks.

I have tested this exhaustivly on the windows interface and  the next track is always within one page up or down of the previous.

I investigated this possibility quickly as I had long suspected that the Samsung music player did similar but It's range from current track is probably +/- >100 and so harder to spot on a 1300 track playlist.

I have now stayed on the same page of 14 tracks in the windows app for 40 minutes while typing this, playing some scrabble and watching Sliders. The current track has returned to that page 3 times that I have seen. There are over 200 tracks in this playlist.

[Kara_Sinatra]

It seems like shuffling playlists isnt working as well. I specifically make playlists that are approx 8 hours long to listen to while I'm working. It doesn't shuffle through the whole playlist. It plays so many and then stops. When I start it over it goes back to playing the same ones. 

[swagmacjagger]

seems to happen to me as well and it drives me crazy

[Bodestone]

I contacted Spotify Support directly after seeing all the comments here and my testing. Apparently shuffle works perfectly for long playlists.... Unless you are playing them in a client.

For many clients apparently only the first 100 song IDs are sent to the client and it shuffles them rather than just getting a random song ID at the end of each track.

They did say that they would take the thoughts on board but then suggested I try the community, despite the fact that my opening sentence sais to them that I had already posted here.

[actualccb]

Please clarify client, you mean other than Spotify desktop and mobile apps or say Waze that can “connect” to Spotify or vs. Web?

Thank you very much for your post. If I could click a “like” button for it I would.

[jsanch1137]

I am having issues with the "shuffle" feature as well. The shuffle is made up of a total of the last four albums of music I have saved to my library and only those four albums. I skipped about 18 songs looking for something new, but the shuffle playlist was depleted before I found any. Please fix this quickly!

[rednblu]

    >> The shuffle plays only the last four albums . . . .

If that happens, the pointers and buffers of your Spotify shuffle are wrong-- so just initialize your Spotify shuffle under Windows 10 and player 1.0.70.388 by the following.

* Sort YourMusic on Artist.

* Double-click on any random track that you see-- to play that track.

* Look at the "Next up" section of your Play queue and turn your shuffle off and on while you watch-- Keep toggling your shuffle off and then on until the "Next up" section of your Play queue has Artists from the top of your ArtistsSort as well as Artists from the bottom of your ArtistsSort.

The cause of the problem.

At times any of the following can scramble the pointers and buffers of your Spotify shuffle so that it does not work right:

* Booting your computer,

* Starting the Spotify player,

* Trying to turn the Spotify shuffle On when you are not playing any track,

* Using the Spotify Connect feature to play on another computer,

* Using the Spotify Web player and then shuffling in your 1.0.70.388 player,

* Adding tracks to YourMusic; Deleting tracks from YourMusic,

*     . . . .

Whenever the Spotify shuffle does not work for you, just initialize your Spotify shuffle.

And enjoy the music that you want to hear . . . .

[Bodestone]

Spotify support did not specify the exact meanin of the term Client. I took it to be any 3rd party integration however.

I'm still not totally convinced though as after the voice command to shuffle my playlist on Google assistant I could change the track in the official Spottify windows application. When doing so next track was always only +/- ~10-20 tracks from the last.

As I say though, they do claim to be looking onto it. In the mean time I have a couple of months on my trial to decide as the only reason for subscribing was for randomised playlists via the Google Home. I currently can't use it.

Roadie, thanks for your possible fix but this does not work when using Google home. I did see it make a difference in the windows app as on the first 2 tries it bought in bands that were not even in the playlist.

What you are saying is that you have to apply a complex series of actions to fix shuffle even with official Spotify software.

Even after applying this my playlist  on the Mini is still just randomising the 1st 100 tracks added to the playlist, or a tiny selection either side of that selected via the windows application after playback has been voice initiated

[rednblu]

Thanks, @Bodestone.  You have given us very useful information about Google Home and the Mini.