shuffle playlist seems to play the same songs

[hypergreatthing]

Whenever i'm in the car, i turn on android auto and play a playlist that's already on shuffle, but on the way home i hear the same songs. I have 809 songs in the playlist, i don't think in a 15 minute drive i should be hearing the same sequence of songs.

[Fillinule]

Why do some songs on my playlist play more ofthen than others and how do I change this? I want all songs played as often.

[dcmrobin]

Please can we review this topic/problem again? It is now 2025, and my liked songs are playing the songs that I listen to most, instead of a true shuffle. It'd be nice to hear some of the ones that I haven't heard in a while, no? The smart shuffle was a nice addition, but the current normal shuffle option doesn't seem to be a true shuffle of one's playlist...

[Fillinule]

Anyone knows?

[Roadrunner54]

Well well Spotify you didn't like my post ? Instead of resolving this issue you just decided to delete my post (the truth hurts)? Well done Spotify, well done!

Instead of lying about this and saying this issue is solved maybe try to be transparant about the fact why people have to listen to the same songs over and over again. But I'm sure you won't and I wonder how long it will take before you delete this too.

[Joan · Accepted solution]

Hi there folks,

Thanks for all the replies.

We just wanted to reach out and inform you all of the intended behaviour of Shuffle and what to expect from it.

The default Spotify shuffle algorithm is designed to randomize playback order within a playlist or album and does not intentionally prioritize songs based on your listening history or perceived favorites. There are other options such as Smart Shuffle that can mix in recommendations or adjust sequencing, but even these do not explicitly prioritize your most-listened tracks.

If you notice certain songs coming up more often, it is usually due to the statistical quirks of randomness in large playlists, or because of specific playlist configurations—not because the shuffle algorithm is weighting songs by listening frequency.

Hope this clears things up. If you experience any anomalies or you believe shuffle isn't behaving as intended, don't hesitate to let us know so we can look into it and assist you. If the question you have is noticeably different from the discussion in this thread, please open a separate thread in the appropriate Help section.

Cheers!

[clownfragment]

Ok, the comedy of this is I'm literally a data scientist who has studied stochasticity (system randomness) across multiple domains, from number theory (emergent patterns in pi digit summations) to exoplanet signals to occurrences of medical malpractice. My whole professional life is dedicated to discerning causality from different types of correlated and "random" events.

I was so bothered by this spotify bullsh*t that I built multiple samples off of differing sizes of playlists. Short story, this mod response is just false. I don't know the "random" algorithm Spotify uses within playlists, but give me a couple months and some frustration and I suspect I could propose a hypothesis (I'll probably just cancel my subscription instead). In the meantime, please don't gaslight.

I miss Winamp

[Scottishvillain]

This can not be true. I have a playlist of 4822 songs, and I hear the same SEQUENCE of songs coming on across devices whilst all my devices are on shuffle.

So this is across different networks, on different devices and your "shuffle" manages to play the same sequence of songs across days? Quit the nonsense and fix the BASIC function

[KillerFangz]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Google Pixel 9, Windows 11 Desktop, and Windows 10 Laptop

Operating System

See above section

My Question or Issue

This is more of a bug report than anything. I have a playlist that is over 1500 songs. However, when I hit shuffle, the shuffle gets like 30-50 songs, and just loops through them. If I manually select another song in the playlist, it plays the song, then goes back to where it was in the loop it made, and on a repeat through the loop does not include the "new" song in the loop. The loop is consistent across devices and time. The only "solution" I've found is playing another playlist then going back to the one I want and shuffling a new loop of 30-50 songs. I'm 99% sure this will get turned down, but if you want, I can fix this bug myself with access to the code.

[SirRoxas]

I looked this up to. Whenever I leave the app (not closing it) and let it run in the backround. It'll soon loop back to the same 10 - 30 sequenced song.

So my fix to it was to clear the cache. I just did it and then I shuffled the like song playlist a couple of time. So far the sequence has not appeared yet

[Vasil]

Hey folks! 

Some of you have reported that only a specific bracket of your playlists is being repeated.

While the expected behaviour here is that Shuffle is completely random and shouldn't prioritize any songs, we've noticed your feedback and we're eager to look into this for you, so we'd like to ask you for the following details:

• The URI of an affected playlist.
• How many songs it contains and roughly how many of them get played & repeated?
• Does this happen with only specific playlists or all of them?
• The device this occurs on & its OS version.
• Your Spotify app version.
• The time & date this has occurred on so that we can check your activity backstage.

Tip: Note that clearing your cached data has been reported to reset this behavior.

Cheers! We'll be on the lookout for new replies here 🙂

@SirRoxas @KillerFangz @Scottishvillain @clownfragment 

[Loneliest_Cabin]

Hi folks, also worth noting that the shuffle behaviour changed fairly recently so @KillerFangz when you shuffle a playlist, and then click another track in the playlist or queue, it will play that track, but preserve the original shuffle sequence, so will continue with that sequence. To get a fresh shuffle, you need to toggle the shuffle button on/off. 

If you are experiencing repetition when toggling the shuffle button on/off, then please provide the details as @Vasil noted above.