Why can’t i only play songs in my playlist?

[New user]

I was putting some songs into the queue but when it was time for the next song it turned to some random song! The same thing is happening with my playlists, i’ll play it and naturally, expect it to keep going in order as i do not have shuffle on. But instead, it starts playing songs that are not even on my playlist. This happens when i have shuffle on as well

[New user]

Hey folks!
 

In case you're on the free tier of the app, this is expected behaviour on mobile, as playing on demand is a Premium-only feature (unless you're playing on desktop).  If this happens on Premium as well though, we'd like to investigate a bit more. 

How does your queue look like when you're playing a playlist? Are the rest of the playlist items queued up?
We'd also like to know if Smart Shuffle is enabled when this happens and if the issue can be observed while you're playing from your devices only or via external devices as well. In case this happens only with external devices - what is the connection type used? Is it Bluetooth or Connect?

And to begin some troubleshooting here, you can also try removing your cached data to see if that would make a difference 🙂

We'll be on the lookout for your replies.

[JackiePN]

I am having the same issue! I can't play any of my playlists or even Spotify's without a suggested song coming in and then it never continues with the playlist.

What is happening please and how to stop this

[JackiePN]

All of my playlists have more than 20 songs, however, Spotify keeps playing suggested songs after each song in my playlist.for example:I open playlist Cry Love first song, ,Have a little Faith in me, next comes a suggested song then another and another, I have to manually put in my songs each time and it does this on every playlist, including Spotify's. And, I PAY for Premium

[Vasil]

Hey folks!
 

In case you're on the free tier of the app, this is expected behaviour on mobile, as playing on demand is a Premium-only feature (unless you're playing on desktop).  If this happens on Premium as well though, we'd like to investigate a bit more. 

How does your queue look like when you're playing a playlist? Are the rest of the playlist items queued up?
We'd also like to know if Smart Shuffle is enabled when this happens and if the issue can be observed while you're playing from your devices only or via external devices as well. In case this happens only with external devices - what is the connection type used? Is it Bluetooth or Connect?

And to begin some troubleshooting here, you can also try removing your cached data to see if that would make a difference 🙂

We'll be on the lookout for your replies.

[Stella_mon]

I just downloaded the update today (desktop, macOS) and am having the same issue or similar issue: Spotify is not limiting the shuffle to only the playlist I'm in. I have a premium account, have Smart Shuffle turned off, cleared my cache and restarted the app. I'm playing music via the desktop app and streaming to an external bluetooth speaker. Here are the actions that lead to the unwanted behavior:

- Playback settings: Crossfade songs, Automix, Mono audio all "Off". Equalizer "On".

- I navigate into a playlist via the sidebar nav. Home --> Your Library --> click a playlist 
- Shuffle is turned on (again, not Smart Shuffle)
- I click the play button directly next to a song listed in the playlist (main view). Song plays.

- I click the "next" button via the bottom menu controls

- A song plays from another playlist 

- With every "next" button click, songs shuffle across multiple playlists

Note that this behavior happens regardless of where I'm streaming to (external bluetooth speaker or laptop); playlist order (custom, date added, title, etc); playlist setting (public or private); play button location clicked (within playlist screen, next to the song, bottom menu). 

Is there a setting I'm missing?

[MartinT]

Hey @Stella_mon,

Thanks for the detailed walkthrough of how things happen on your side. 

As a next step to try we would recommend performing a clean uninstall of the app. It's a more thorough removal of Spotify and it will help you start with the app anew. 

You can follow instructions on how to perform it in this article. 

Hope this helps out, keep us posted.

Cheers.

[New user]

In the past few days, I’ve noticed that Spotify is frequently (as in approximately every third song) playing “recommended songs.” I have the smart shuffle turned off and even turned shuffle off completely in desperation, and they still play. Additionally, it’s the same songs over and over again that I do not want to add to the playlist, and I don’t see a way to hide them. I have almost four hours worth of music in the playlist I’ve been listening to recently so it should not be due to lack of content. I sure hope there’s a way to fix this, or I’m going to have to find another music platform. Thanks to anyone who can help!

[Stella_mon]

Hi Martin,

The clean reinstall worked! Thank you for the suggestion. 

[Jose89fcb]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

Device

(Samsung note 9)

My Question or Issue

Hola muy buenas, tengo un problema y no se como solucionarlo
Mi problema es que cuando seleciono una cancion de mi lista de spotify en ANDROID aparece otra

Aqui abajo dejo una imagen

[Anamarie1]

My spotify playlists won't let me play only the ones I'm on right now, Like I click the play button on all the songs in the playlist including the green play button and it won't work.

[New user]

I tap on a playlist, it plays first song then random songs , some never even listened to. On scheffle it doesn’t play any song from my playlist. Happened after my iPad was off for a few weeks. Have cleared cache, toggled off autoplay, reinstalled app… basically everything the community suggested. Doesn’t help.
Spotify on I phone is working normally.
Can you help?

[Shaz_Simone]

I have spent the last week putting together an extensive playlist for a party. I have roughly 5hrs of music and have Spotify premium. Smart Shuffle is NOT turned on. However, no more than 3 or 4 songs in, the playlist jumps to random songs that are not in the playlist. I have just uninstalled and reinstalled the app. This did not help. Any advice please?? 

Spotify: is this a known issue that is being worked on? If not, I'll  be cancelling my subscription, since a music streaming platform should have the option of being able to play only a list of isolated songs.

[Rahhhh]

I have premium and my playlist is over 70 hrs long but it has only worked when offline since it wont be able to find random songs to play otherwise once it finishes the first song I can’t find any way for it to go back on the playlist

[Mcapp]

Agreed.  This is ridiculous.  We NEED the ability to turn this off or I will terminate my subscription.

[Yordan]

Hey everyone,

Here are some things you can check if you notice this behavior:

Spoiler

• Make sure Smart Shuffle is in fact toggled off: check if the button is greyed out both in Playlist view and in the Now Playing view. If the playlist was downloaded with Smart Shuffle activated, I'd recommend removing the downloads and trying again.
   
• Leftover songs in the queue from a previous listening session: you can remove those with the Clear queue button.
   
• Autoplay is toggled off: when the current queue ends, the feature automatically generates a new one with similar content so that the playback doesn't stop.
   
• Check 3rd party apps linked to your Spotify account and remove them.
   
• The playlist might be collaborative: someone else whom you shared the playlist with could've added the song.

Another thing worth mentioning with the desktop app is that the "search in a playlist" feature acts as a filter, which will only play the results that match the keywords you've entered. This post goes in-depth on how to circumvent this, check it out, if you haven't already.

Also, if you're using the free version of Spotify on mobile and your playlist has less than 15 songs, Spotify will add suggested songs to it, so to prevent this, make sure to add more tracks.

Hope this info was useful. In case the issue persists, feel free to share a short screen recording which captures the described behavior in action so we can investigate further.

Cheers 🤘

[Josh661]

Didnt work for me

[Sambo5]

Tell Spotify to make it more free to use, I don’t care about ads, just let me listen to music without having to pay money.

[PotiSi]

In the playback section in settings on iOS there is an option to turn on/off automix. Turn it off. Job done. 

[Xochoco]

But it only does this occasionally.  Most of the time, my free use app will play my liked songs list on shuffle.  But sometimes it will randomly decide to only play recommended songs.  I guess free users can just go jump in the lake. 

[Xochoco]

I cleared the cache for the app. Seemed to help. Cheers!