Cannot shuffle playlist when connected to bluetooth in my car

[herbert_jarrod]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

iPhone 13

Operating System

iOS 15.6.1

My Question or Issue

I purchased a new iPhone on May 12th this year, switching from Android. I've had an issue since then as far as I can tell.

I start my car, my phone connects to the bluetooth, and I pull up a playlist and hit the green Play/shuffle button. Spotify will choose a random song from the playlist and start there, but shuffle immediately turns off. The play queue will be in the same order as the playlist itself.

On the play screen, with the Play Queue open, I can press the shuffle button. It turns on for a second, shuffles the queue, and then turns itself back off, putting things back in order. I am unable to find any way to prevent this behavior while connected to my car.

I did discover today that it is specifically when connected to my car; I disconnected from the bluetooth and was able to shuffle without any problems. As soon as I reconnected, it went right back to shuffle being off.

Has anyone seen this behavior before, or know what might be going on? It's very frustrating not being able to listen to music the way that I want.

[GustavoMendoza]

After reading this issue in various posts all over internet, it seems a
compatibility issue with the Bluetooth driver of the car. Somehow the car
overrides the setting of the phone and the only way I made it work was
enabling shuffle via voice command on the car. After enabling shuffle mode
in the car via voice command, I can enable shuffle mode in my phone and use
it as normal.

Bad news is you have to do this workaround every time you connect your
phone to the car.

[Ebcut]

OMFG THANK YIU SO MYCH I BEEN STRUGGLING WITH THIS BS FOR SO LOMG

[satt_mereno]

I wanted to report that I was able to resolve the issue with Spotify shuffle on my 2013 Mazda 3 iGT.  

Attaching a reference photo.  I never thought to use any of those buttons absent playing music off of a USB drive or something like that, but there is a "shuffle" button within the music player in the car's entertainment interface.

So hitting "Shuffle" there does activate it within Spotify and allow you to properly do a shuffle on a playlist or liked songs.

Thankful to have a fix for this one -- it does seem you have to hit shuffle again each time you get in the car and set up your music but that is a small price to pay.  Thanks for everyone's help.  

[Julesmay]

My shuffle is greyed out so can’t do that.

[Lulufaaaaa]

I've got the same problem with my car - 2013 model Mazda 6. It has been working fine for years since 2018, however, just recent couple of month, when I try to shuffle my playlist while connecting to car blutooth, it won't allow me doing so. The same issue also happen with Apple Music, however, not with QQ music. I'm now clean reinstall my Spotify and see if it works. 

[lazur-e]

I have exactly the same issue in my Mazda CX-5, however I'm using Android. So don't think this is limited to Apple. Works perfectly in other cars though. 

[Julesmay]

I was beginning to think it was Apple so it’s down to Mazda or Spotify to solve then!