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.

[hypergreatthing]

Hey @hypergreatthing,

Thanks for getting in touch about this and welcome to the Community.

We can confirm that the shuffle option prioritizes the songs that Spotify perceives you listen to most, that's why some songs can come up repeatedly. However, there's this live idea about this topic. You can add your vote by clicking on the Thumbs up icon, if you'd like to have this option in the future. The Idea Exchange is a great way for us to see what our users are interested in and how many people like a certain idea. 

Check out this FAQ to learn more about it. 

If you need a hand with anything else, the Community is here for you.

[Ivelina]

Hey @keroberous,

Welcome to the Community!

Does this happen with a specific playlist or with other ones as well? If it's just one, you can re-create it and test to see if the same shuffle behavior would persist.

On another note, did you notice when this started happening and are you using a Bluetooth device? Have you tested if the same thing happens when you're logged into your account on another device?

If you haven't yet done so, you can log out > log back in twice in a row to re-sync your account and mobile phone and also disable the repeat function to see if that would make any difference.

Hope to hear from you soon 🙂

[asuca]

absolutely**bleep** shuffle system

[rome2324]

And this is the rub in not truly owning the music... It's a service and we're all stuck with whatever trash algorithm they apply to "shuffle". A 4 year old live idea for a true normal shuffle shows it doesn't fit in their plans. The alternative is to start over and they know folks with thousands of songs in a Playlist don't want to do that. But going to start researching other apps since they will not fix it... 

[keroberous]

Hello. It does happen with any playlist. Generally though, if I only pause for a few hours everything is fine; it's mostly when I pause listening and come back the next day.

It also isn't affected by whether I'm listening on my phone directly or on Bluetooth.

[oberkvlt]

@Eni The live idea you suggested is live for FOUR YEARS and people are complaining EVERY DAY. Just tell us you don't care at that point.

[Roadrunner54]

The only thing they care about is to play the songs that are the cheapest for them (or for which they are paid to promote). The shuffle is based on this only and so it will never change. It's that simple.

[Error__404]

Smart shuffle plays the same songs on my liked songs list every time no matter what song I pick it always picks the same songs from my liked songs in the same order. I think the stuff it adds is random but not sure.

[Layne2]

It keeps playing the same 10 songs over and over I have like 400 songs

[Monalicious]

Clear the cache. Worked for me just now. Hopefully, at some point, they will make playing certain songs more often a choice.

[lormaccone]

That's really so annoying, I cancelled my subscription (was a Premium user previously) and I've moved to the competition (YTM) which gives a far better experience. Too bad

[Gbmatt2719]

I would love to have an option to turn the priority algorithm off. I have curated my own playlist for a reason, and I don't like spotify prioritizing songs that are in the top 40 charts.

The whole reason I pay for spotify is to get away from top 40 radio 

[zx6dude]

I got so fed up with this issue, I moved to another provider. 

@eni a four year old "live" idea, with almost 4k votes is not really an answer.

It's obvious that Spotify is not going to fix this. It's also obvious they care nothing about their customers, as they don't even have the decency to say that they aren't fixing shuffle and why. Spotify prefers to leave customers hanging out for a fix that doesn't look like will ever happen. If it didn't in 4 years, I can't see it happening, unless it starts costing Spotify money. 

It's is such a shame, this issue made me leave Spotify, and Spotify's arrogance and lack of customer care, made me happy I'm not giving them any more of my money. 

[Lavizzal04]

This happens to me when I pick 1 song and let it continue to play after that song. It starts playing the same songs over even if it's not a related artist. I would like for it to suggest new artist. But it plays songs I've played in the past. Can you erase history?

[Chalky29]

lol the link to the live feature is years old. You still haven’t implemented it yet? The non genuine shuffle is then worst thing about Spotify. 

[gulfcoastPnut]

3 suggestions that actually help:

1) turn off Auto-Play similar songs and content under Settings & Privacy

2) change the Sort in my liked songs from "recently added" to [anything else]

3)  flick the list down and start play from any random song farther down the list

[dadonaskateboard]

So, this request as been ignored so many times, call me a skeptic but knowing how content and algorithms work i guess we can only draw the conclusion that playing the 'things we think you like' means they are driven by revenue. 

If anyone tells you they are choosing something for your benefit, assume there is a revenue opportunity helping them chose, and knowing how difficult it is for small artists to get heard on here it would not surprise me.

There will come a point where the algorithm becomes part of an anti-trust.

Very happy for spotify to educate me otherwise, but i pay for a premium service and have a large playlist i'd like to listen to, I appreciate introducing interesting stuff but i don't need spotify to mislead me and tell me that shuffle is not a random choice.

[Markolious]

I find that starting to play a different playlist than the one you were playing, and then once again trying to play the playlist you were originally trying to listen to will remake the shuffle 'list'. I have found that if you were attempting to continue to listen to a specific playlist on shuffle, and then for whatever reason you stop it by either exiting or changing devices, and then open the app back up and start trying to listen where you left off, that the shuffle 'list' that you were listening to is still active, and you will either continue listening to that same lined up list, or even backtrack on that same list a bit, which you already heard in that order when you were last listening.

We should not have to go about it like this though, especially as paying subscribers. Shuffle should be a true shuffle every time, and honestly there should never be shuffle 'lists'. It should be truly random every time, in accordance with your repeat options. The automix option in the settings should just be a button to toggle right next to the shuffle button on the main playing menu. For me, this was enabled by default, and I could see this contributing to the frustration people are having with shuffle. I keep the auto-mix option off as I already make make organized playlists with similar sounds and feels. A lot of people are probably not even be aware of this option, at all. We want a true shuffle. So give it to us. Sometimes I'll turn on smart shuffle to get some new stuff in the mix, but besides that, I want it completely random. It's not a lot to ask for.

[k9qd-y1_ufryc]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

(iPhone 15

Operating System

iOS 17.5

My Question or Issue.  I have playlists with over 200 songs but shuffle seems to play the same 50 songs or so.  I never hear the others. 

[BeeMae]

I'm experiencing the same problems discussed above.. time to return the good old days of ripping music 🙂 

(it's not like Spotify pays artists appropriately 🙃)

[jeffhdx]

Playing the songs which Spotify perceives to be most popular with the subscriber again and again only serves to confirm Spotify's algorithm and therefore the same songs will keep coming up. That's nonsense surely. If a subscriber has a thousand songs in his or her 'liked' section then that person has already expressed their wish to hear all those particular songs and not a hundred or so selected by a robot.