Shuffle only shuffling small subset of large playlist, when streaming to other device from iPhone

[Garbonzo]

I'm on an iPhone 6s, I have a playlist of just ~8k songs., and I'm noticing weird behavior with the shuffle feature. Here are the steps I take to recreate the issues: (I am also attaching a collection of screenshots that are numbered based on the lists below, so you can see what I am seeing)

Here is what seems to be working:

1. If I have shuffle off, and then select a song from this playlist, and then view my now playing queue, I see the ordered list of songs (as expected)
2. While still viewing the "Now Playing", if I tap the shuffle icon, I see that it shuffle to a seemingly random assortment of the songs in my big playlist (although I do see an eerie number of tracks by the same band, I'd expect not to see so many in a shuffle of 8k songs)
3. If I tap the shuffle button again, it correctly disables shuffle and I see my ordered playlist again (good), starting at the location in the ordered playlist of the currently playing song.

Here is where it gets weird:

1. If (while still on the iPhone) I choose to stream to another device (like my laptop, or my chromecast audio), it switches and plays just fine
2. However, if I then choose to enable shuffle, I can see when viewing my "Now Playing" on my phone that it is showing a random assortment of just a teeny tiny subset of my entire 8k song playlist. This is a problem.
3. If I then tap the shuffle icon to turn shuffle off, it goes back to the ordered play queue (expected)
4. Tapping shuffle icon again gives me a new play queue, but it is definitely only shuffling a small subset of the 8k playlist (and the subset seems to be in the vicinty of the last played song). I tried this several times, going between shuffled and unshuffled, and each shuffled playlist is only shuffling a small subset of songs, near the song currently playing.
5. With shuffle still on, If I select a particular song from my playlist, and then view my play queue, It shows me a new shuffled playlist (which is consistent with what the desktop app does), but the play queue is still a shuffle of a limited subset of the full playlist. 
6. However, if I then tap the shuffle icon to turn off shuffle, my play queue does NOT go back to the ordered playlist, it goes back to the previous shuffled play queue. This is a problem.
7. If I go back to my playlist and choose a particular song, and then view my play queue (shuffle is still disabled), then I DO see my ordered playlist in the play queue (which is expected)
8. Tapping shuffle here again, my play queue is a shuffled subset of the large playlist (bad)

So... it seems that the shuffle feature behaves strangely (only shuffles a small subset of the full playlist) when you are connected and streaming from the iPhone to another device. 

Does anyone know a fix? Is this a known bug? Thanks!

[bwturner]

@patsmith

I understand completely. I became a Spotify disciple after spending
literally thousands of dollars on CDs that I ripped using Apple lossless
into my iTunes library. I simply could not afford to buy all the CDs that I
have songs from in my Spotify account so tolerate the lower stream quality
and crippled shuffle feature as penance. Being an audiophile has certain
disadvantages when you are not wealthy enough to support the habit. 🙂

[Hazeltwist]

Just wanted to thank you for this conprehensive investigation and detailed reply.

As a chromecast user this echos exactly my experience and describes the problem well.  Unfortunatly for Chromecast users there is no such easy workaround as using airplay, and chromecast takes the local device/app out of the picture.

The ony 'workaround' is to use an alternative to chromecast for streaming from device such as a bluetooth receiver.  That, or spotify could sort themselves out.

[bwturner]

@Hazel,

You are welcome and I was glad to do it. If my assumptions and conclusions are correct I can see why there would be a limit on the number of songs placed in a queue for every Spotify user with a large playlist. Consider that there would be thousands of users trying to shuffle a 1000+ song playlist simultaneously. That means their servers would have to manage a 100 song queue for every one of those users the way it is now designed. If they seriously want to address this issue maybe a reduction in the queue depth would be in order. I'm not sure what is magical about 100 songs. Personally, I like the ability to choose the location for offline music file storage as a better solution. I know it won't work for everyone but a 4 TB NAS is much less expensive than a 1 TB iPad or Android tablet on which to store them. In fact, my next email to their support team will be to suggest that.

[tlathbury]

Very interesting,  just tonight I played a large Spotify playlist (2500 songs) on my Echo Show and it shuffles properly !  I was pretty sure that combination hasn’t worked before.....I think it’s Spotify connect.  Maybe something got fixed ?

[drunkenpumpkin]

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@tlathbury wrote:

Very interesting,  just tonight I played a large Spotify playlist (2500 songs) on my Echo Show and it shuffles properly !  I was pretty sure that combination hasn’t worked before.....I think it’s Spotify connect.  Maybe something got fixed ?

---

I'll have to try it out when I get home

I have a few 2,000+ song playlists so I'll try that casting to my google home and see what happens - I'll know pretty much straight away if it works after a few skips lol

[mattcampbell9]

I'm just adding my voice to this, I guess the only real solution is switching to Amazon though. Too bad.

[drunkenpumpkin]

Can confirm it's still the same terrible shuffle issues

Tried a ~900 song playlist and got artists A-B playing and that was it

SORT**bleep** OUT

When shuffling on my pc or phone it's fine - when you cast or use android tv app it shuffles horribly

[Swipe650]

I read about a dirty worksround to this online which involves cutting your playlist songs and pasting them to a webpage that is able to randomise the order and then paste them back in your playlist. This is a pain to do but does get around the issue. I tend to do this once a week. The other alternative would be for Spotify to have a randomise button that did this for playlists.

To randomise your songs in your playlist from the Spotify deskstop app do the following:

- Go to this website and remove the text from the input box: https://textmechanic.com/text-tools/basic-text-tools/sort-text-lines/

- Go to your playlist in the desktop Spotify app and highlight the first song and then press ctrl + a to select all the songs

- Press ctrl + x to cut them to the clipboard

- Paste the ciipboard contents into the website above and click the random button once

- Then copy the text back to your clipboard (ctrl + c) and paste back into your Spotify playlist by pressing ctrl + v

TIP: I recommend you keep a backup copy of playlists first in text files just in case something goes wrong so they can easily be recreated. To do this pres ctrl + a and then ctrl + c to copy rather than cut and paste into a text file

[Bigarthur]

Thanks for this, much appreciated- I’ll give it a go.

[wohfab]

Totally ridiculous, this isn't even properly adressed..

[bwturner]

Not to beat the proverbial 'dead horse', let me add some additional info I've learned recently regarding this issue.

On the Spotify PC app, you can enter Advanced Settings from the Settings Menu and find/change where all of your offline music files are stored, to a degree. Any location on the local device is available. However, if you have a LAN storage device (NAS) and attemp to click on Network, it does nothing. The Spotify app does not allow you to set an NAS or other network location to use for offline music storage. Moreover, on the iOS app, you cannot enter Advanced Settings and the storage location for offline files is, by default, the local device. The app does not see or allow the use of any network locations.

As I had mentioned earlier, one workaround is to use Airplay to play large playlists by streaming them from the local iOS or Android device to your Airplay enabled speaker or receiver. The potential downside is that your music is being streamed twice over your LAN, once from the Spotify servers via the internet to your local device and again from your local device to your Airplay enabled device. If you've sufficient bandwidth on your LAN there shouldn't be any problems. I do not experience any issues like dropouts, pauses or skips and I'm using an older Netgear R5400 dual band router. For those who have beefier, more robust routers like used in gaming, this should be a piece of cake.

Personally, I think Spotify needs to allow both the PC and mobile device apps to use LAN storage locations for downloaded music files. This would allow the Spofity app to handle the shuffle and therefore eliminate the 100 song shuffle limit when using Spotify Connect. Any other suggestions on how to solve this problem? I will be happy to forward to the Spotify Tech Support team. Also, please feel free to confirm or refute any info I've learned and posted.

[t-et_8sn590m]

I’m not sure if it’s a fluke (or if I’m about to jinx it!) but mine seems to be shuffling properly this afternoon... The only thing I did differently is putting it on verbally rather than via my phone, i.e. saying “Alexa, play [playlist name]” then “Alexa, shuffle”. I’ve checked the queued songs because I thought I’d imagined it, but neither the artists or songs are close alphabetically & it’s a good mix of artists. The playlist has 5000+ songs. Fingers crossed this continues!

[StephenWA]

Today would be a good day for Spotify to fix this issue.

[Sambinizone2]

1. I too have now usally found that using roku it would shuffle the right way when it first realeased back on then started shuffling certitan number of songs now has of April 2 at 9:30 pm when i cheked to see if it worked with the shuffle because the app had updated and with the ui for it was tweaked a little i also dont want to jinx it but yeah it works shuffling entire playlist right dont know what happend but if spotify fixed this with latest update then thank you spotify for the march 29th update because will be using on tv more oftten till it crashes again

[Bigarthur]

Seems to be fixed for me too! Don’t want to celebrate too soon just in case I’m wrong - but currently casting a large playlist very randomly....

[Hazeltwist]

Can I just check--are people talking about this being fixed when using
Chromecast?  Really hope so!

[Bigarthur]

Yes, using Chromecast audio and casting from an iPad using the Spotify app.
Seems to shuffle randomly- still can’t quite believe it as it has been a problem for soooo long!

[Hazeltwist]

Thanks.  I'll hope my stuff updates.  Don't know if it's a factor, but
I'm using the Android app.

[bwturner]

Sounds like good news. I'll have to check when I get home today to see if it works from my iOS device and Spotify Connect.

[bwturner]

Last night I started up my large playlist and used Spotify Connect to stream it to my Denon AVR. I immediately checked the queue and it was truly random. That was very encouraging. This morning I started the same playlist and it was not random at all, all songs were chosen from among the first 100 in the playlist after having started it on the native iOS device. Heartbreaking! Come on Spotify, make this work for everyone all the time please.