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.

[Rob_C]

Hi, just joined up here and can see a lot of people are having the same problem as I am - large playlists on shuffle playing the same group of songs each time you switch it on. 

To the  Spotify team - is there any info we can give you from our observations on the issue that will help solve the problem with rolling out the fix you applied to the desktop app, to mobiles/tablets?

I listen mostly in the car using the mobile app, my playlist contains around 1000 songs and it seems to choose songs that I have listened to all the way through once or more times before. It also seems to favour songs that I have manually chosen from the playlist and then the next time I switch it on, it will play a selection of songs from the album of that chosen song amongst the other usuals. 

I'm no programmer or code expert so perhaps I've over analysed this but regardless, I think all everyone on here seems to want is a shuffle function that will put each song played to the 'back of the pack' so that ALL songs on your playlist are likely to be played. 

Perhaps a button on the Now Playing screen to 're-shuffle' the playlist or reset the algorithm (if that's possible) would be an option?

A quick update on the how you're getting on with this issue would be great. 

[Bredbandsjezuz]

I just registered on the forum to bring light on this topic. I was surprised to find a three year old thread about it and the problem still not solved! How hard can it be to implement true randomized playing? With the shuffle function Spotify will play the selected tracks in exact the same order each time. That sucks. Come on Spotify, you are taking the company to the stock exchange but not listening to your customers. Not a good combination I'd say.

edit: okay, I was a bit categoric here. You actually do listen to your customers. I found a blog post about the shuffle function where it seems Spotify tried to accommodate to user requests for a better shuffle play function. Still, shuffle play in Spotify is no good since the same songs repeat every time I listen and are played in the same order. It's like Spotify takes all the songs in the playlist, calculates a playing order and comes up with the same result each time. Yes, there are songs in my playlists I've basically never heard since adding them years ago. Other songs come up every day. Please try to look at it again. Test the new solution with a group of critics, then release it.

[hans-jürgen]

I just noticed with desktop version 1.0.3 that disabling shuffle mode and enabling it again shows a completely new randomised play queue. I'm not sure if this feature is new, or if it has always been that way. Anyhow, it's worth a try for those who have problems with repeating songs too often. To check it you have to view your play queue in the desktop version, then disable shuffle mode which should result in top songs from the last artist, then enable shuffle mode again which should now show other random songs from your previous list than before. I used my "Library" playlist folder with about 40k tracks to check this.

[user-removed]

"and other clients will follow soon"

Meaning the new shuffling algorithim does not affect the mobile apps.......

Has this been done yet? The majority of my shuffling issues are on my phone!

[iamwolverine]

The playlist sorting needs to get shuffled / randomized with no repeats and then played through in that randomized order - repeating should only occur when the repeat buttons are activated

[iamwolverine]

It's not only that I don't want the same artist, I don't want the same song to be played over and over again - I have a playlist of more than 2000 songs and when I use the shuffle function I should not hear a song repeated for almost one week and yet I am hearing the same limited number of songs repeat through out the day - PLEASE FIX THIS!!! That is not what shuffle is meant to do!

[randyjanney]

So here's a kludge work around - works on Mac desktop, haven't tried anywhere else:

Open the playlist you want to shuffle.

Select any song. Then hit cmd-a (ctl-a on PC) to select all.

Hit cmd-c to copy.

Go to http://textmechanic.com/Sort-Text-Lines.html

Paste your playlist in the big text box.

Hit the Random button a few times.

Cmd-a select all, cmd-c copy.

Make a new playlist in Spotify.

Paste in your randomized list.

Play that list straight through. No songs will repeat until the end of the playlist.

[akirchner18]

I literally just had Under Pressure by queen play three songs after itself while listerning to a custom playlist on mobile and it wasnt a duplicate

[Duckdammit]

Same problem whether my MacBook or iPhone I keep hearing the same songs over and over and it's getting worse

[Duckdammit]

I've found that toggleing the suffle function does suffle but a lot of the same tracks keep reappearing. I use to own a CD player with a smart random that would not play a song that had all ready been played till it went thru the stack this was twenty years ago