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!

[edwjack23]

The only workaround I have found is to start the playlist on chrome with the Web Player. Then it will shuffle the whole playlist and you can cast it to wherever you want. Not perfect but it works for now until they fix the mobile app.

[StephenWA]

I really don't think they are going to fix it.

Face it... if they wanted to fix it, it would be fixed already.  This isn't rocket science.

[Sebak1981]

Really really getting fed up with Spotify.. first it was the stunted android app that won't let you rearrange your playlists song order, only able to do that on a laptop, go figure, known issue for years and still not fixed.  Now this, finally set up a banging stereo in my new place, turns out casting is stunted as well.  Why am I even paying for this?  Because I'm stupid is why.. thank god for competition, I hope Tidal actually appreciates it's customers because that is where my money is going next.  Bye Bye Spotify!

[Jeaynde]

I'm having the same problem. I'll start playing a song from my playlist on shuffle, and when I cast to Chromecast, it'll switch to the first song in the list and then the same songs will get put into a queue every time I cast, sometimes even in the same order. I contacted support about this and all they said was that they've notified the developers of the issue. So it'll probably be fixed about never.

Edit: I forgot to mention two things; firstly, this is happening while playing from a Samsung Galaxy S7, and not iPhone. So it's clearly not a device issue. Secondly, I've tried a lot of steps to fix it, such as clearing cache in Spotify, restarting Chromecast, rebooting my phone, and even third party apps (Spoticast just wouldn't work at all). Nothing fixes it, so it's an issue with the Spotify app. 

[PRoFe-SaLMoN]

When Spotiffy will fix this? Is a guhe bug. 

[Sebak1981]

Tidal seems to be the same but with more bugs.. If you look at their reviews in Google store ppl complain, tidal responds with automatic message to contact support, if they do support tells them it is a known issue, months go by and no fix, people return to Google store to complain about that, receive same automatic response

These companies just don't care, probably won't till they figure out how to turn a profit everything else is not priority.

Another fun issue with casting to Chromecast:  256kbps AAC max.. So if you like the extreme quality setting ( 320kbps ogg vorbis) you're not getting it when casting

[joimagg]

Same problem here! Fix please

[1apx4_m0l-7t3]

I've had the same problem casting to Chromecast via iPhone 6+ and iPhone 8+ and it's a major pain in the **bleep** - who wants to listen to the same few songs? If I wanted that, I'd listen to the radio, not Spotify.

It's definitely a Spotify issue they're aware of, but aren't doing much about yet as they've marked it "Not Right Now." Go here to up-vote this issue:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoing-Issues/Connect-only-plays-100-song-chunks-of-playlists/idi-...

[diogoap82]

Same problem to me...

Since I've been using Spotify, shuffle function have never worked well. I hope they hire some of the old Winamp software engineers to implement this simple feature in a decent way...

[4l-t6_tj149ut]

I followed the suggestion to unpair my newly acquired Google Home thing and that solved the playlist subset shuffle problem for me. Casting from android phone to Sony TV. Cheers

---

@naien wrote:

FWIW, I only noticed this weird functionality after adding a Google Home device to my... um... home. I unplugged it, but this was not sufficient to resolve the issue. I then accessed the "Google Home" app on my phone and unlinked the Google Home device and rebooted my Chromecast. This appears to have resolved the bad-shuffle topic for me.

---

[mslemos]

I have this problem on Android too. 

If I play my entire library with shuffle on, it will only play about 3 different artists. 

[METRIZE]

Not fixed since 2016? What the **bleep** Spotify you suck

[godsgrannie]

Does anybody know whether this applies to android auto shuffling too? 

I've arrived at this post after researching into it after considering chucking my Google home out of the window for continually 'shuffling' the same narrow slice of my library. At least from all this I can see its Spotify's fault as opposed to the Google hardware. 

[tlathbury]

How come no one from Spotify is responding to this issue ????  It's been over 2 years

[deadgreysnow]

I can attest that it is not limited to Chromecast since I don't even use one. I have tried spotify premium for the third time now, and shuffle has been a joke for at least 3+ years, probably since the beginning. Used it on iPhones, Pixel, Alexa, Home, PC, PS4: always a POS. Actually seems to get worse when you actually pay for the subscription. Screw Spotify.

[deadgreysnow]

I have been complaining about the shuffle for almost 4 years. I assure you, as long as you're paying them, they couldn't care less. Spotify is a dirtbag company.

[Sebak1981]

So I've tried a few other streaming services and they all suck one way or another unfortunately.  My long term solution now is to put up the cash and just buy the **bleep** music from stores like Apple's and just play it off a home network for convenience.  This has the advantage of not having songs disappear off my playlist because an artist decided to say FU Spotify, plus you actually get to own the music now instead of renting it, you can play it on anything and in any way you like and noone can take it away from you ever, how novel is that?  The supposed lower quality of iTunes is not so low when you consider Spotify streams at 256kbps as soon as you use it with a Chromecast anyway.  So yeah, when I finally free my music from this terrible service I will be a happy person.

For now though, a very crappy workaround to at least some of the issues casting a large playlist to Chromecast, I just stop casting and hit the shuffle all button again and hit cast again.. still the selection will be 50 or whatever the stupid limit is of songs around the area of the one the randomizer landed on but at least it is not the exact same 50 songs it picks every god **bleep** time I hit shuffle while casting to Chromecast.

Anyway, music is a wonderful thing, if you're here please do yourself and everyone else a favour by finding a way to ditch this wretched service that is ultimately driving the experience of enjoying music down for everyone.  These gready tech nerds do not deserve your money, we will all be better off when these guys finally shut down

[TheDefender]

I am having the exact same issue!!! I have added about 4000 tracks to "songs". It only shuffles my most recently added. Spotify please fix!

[Rod7]

I have the same problem. I think I will have to abandon Spotify if they can't provide a solution

[Rod7]

I have exactly the same issue. Driving me nuts