Shuffle play is not random

[ws1482]

Shuffle play was bad before the update and now its worse. On my 442 song playlist, the same 30 or 35 tracks play over and over again and the other 400 songs I have barely heard once. I have had to delete songs because shuffle play was choosing them everytime I would listen. Spotify developers say shuffle play is random but how is repeating the same 35 songs over and over random. For some reason there is a higher probability of certain songs playing than others. This is a major flaw in the system. The shuffle play programs needs to be totally overhauled, it is awful

[gentileutente]

I wouldn't want to guess if something changes: we have been following and
contributing to this request for years; I'd expect official replies and
release notes. At least an heads up to avoid us the hassle of having to
investigate an issue again on our own, as if we are talking about some
natural uncontrollable event. It is Spotify... not a Volcano in the ocean.

[sunnysammut]

If you are listening to a playlist and it starts playing tracks that you do not have in your playlist, that is because Spotify has turned the playlist into 'Radio' so it plays similar music to what you have in your playlist. You need to go to Settings>playback and turn off "autoplay"

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/Radio-autoplay-when-playlists-end/td-p/1409436

[41i3h_tjx-bmo]

I was having the same problem. I had tried logging out and back in, restarting the app, unliking everything, and even playing anything but the playlist, still nothing. If you're dealing with the new version (~May 2018 and later) and you're on iOS, I found a fix.

For iOS...

       This will sound annoying since there's a reason you're trying to use Spotify on your phone, BUT login to your account through a computer or web browser. Since the newer mobile version doesn't allow for you to click on a song in a playlist or album and listen to the entire song, you need the web player or computer version.

Find the playlist and pick anywhere to start, just don't hit shuffle. Go to the screen where you can choose shuffle, click it. Double check by clicking the button that looks like a bunch of lines and a play symbol. If the queue is properly working, you can scroll and see the diversity.

[RickRocknRoll]

I appreciate everyone trying to get creative with ways to get a true shuffle of their entire playlist on Spotify. Truth is, none of these are a true solution.  Even 'shuffly' which was brought up before is a work-around and not a real solution. 

It's a shame that Spotify won't look at this community thread and do something about it. 

Especially now that Google and Apple are viable alternatives... Actually, Amazon too. 

I havne't really used Amazon (even the free with prime version). Anyone know if/how shuffle works on there? 

[ogvjrf8_2-r6k]

I’m so irritated! I’m taking a long road trip in a few days so I added about 100 new songs to my playlist because I’m sick of hearing the same 10 songs every single time (my playlist has 200 songs) after I updated my playlist I decided to test it out while I was cleaning my room and dare I say not a SINGLE **bleep** new song that I added played the entire 2 hours!!! They played the same **bleep** songs.The most frustrating  thing is I loved a lot of those songs but it’s to the point where I can’t even stand to hear them anymore because the **bleep** playlist over plays them and over plays them! I’ve had to delete so many of my favorite songs off my main playlist.At this point I’m thinking of making a separate playlist titled “the songs I used to love” Just so I can keep track of all the songs I deleted lol

[ogvjrf8_2-r6k]

Also does anyone know any good streaming sites that actually know what shuffle means 

[mattmate]

I experience daily the same issue as many others have expressed. The shuffle most certainly is not random - my library consists of over 1,300 tracks and yet the iOS app decides to play the same 100 or so. 

I’ve read through a lot of this forum; it’s truly shocking that Spotify - in the last four to five years - have not made one effort to fix this issue. Of course, some of us have managed to get a generic response from them. One that doesn’t help at all, but gives you some half-assed answer which communicates one message to me - “deal with it”. 

You’d think a company as big as Spotify would care about PR, as this can’t be great for theirs. Perhaps this issue needs more exposure: we should make a concerted effort to sort this once and for all. Maybe we go to the papers? 

Until we get this exposure, the best solutions I’ve found are as follows:

- Select a specific track in your library and shuffle from there to achieve SOME kind of shuffle

- Turn off the  ‘Autoplay’ feature, as I believe this has worked for some. 

[RickRocknRoll]

Yeah - I know what you mean. I have a 1300 song playlist and went through
the same thing. Pretty frustrating.

Eventually people will think I work for the developer of Shuffly (I swear I
do not).. but this app for a one time $1.99 will created a true 'shuffled'
version of your playlist on Spotify for your road trip or whatever you
want. This is what I've been using to 'shuffle' all my tunes... and
reshuffle too. 🙂
It's worth a try... I heard about it from someone else in this thread.

R

[_bvd_]

Hi Rick, I certainly noticed something. I've played several playlists in the last two weeks and I hear songs that I've never heard before! As far as I am concerned, problem solved!

[8ten5_-9lufjq]

4 years now and still having the exact same issue.

[Sechster]

To be honest.. I'm using spotify for years but that shuffle issue makes me crazy.. I'm listning to a playlist I made on my own where I add and remove new music time to time.. How can pressing a "Shuffle Button" lead into the SAME TRACK ORDER every god **bleep** time? 

--- Please fix it, I love spotify but this.. is a blocker for me. 

[h_8-mkjomxo1]

Seriously!!! I don't even know if posting this even help the issue. I mean, it's been years and nothing good ever happened to the shuffle algorithm. It is still as bad, no actually worst, then it was before. It's really tiresome. I mean you guys do know people pay for this right?!

Pleas do something about this.

[fqizb_zvd-fqr]

It’s really annoying the same thing happens to me too 

[Dvabau]

Yep, random is terrible - it's like an AM radio playlist. To get it started again, I need to ramdonly pick another track in my songs and then it will finally randomize another handful of songs. How about adding a "random without repeat" option, it would force the program to go through all your songs before it strats over again...afterall, there is a reason why I have saved 2,000+ tracks!!!

[MarcsterS]

I have gotten this problem too. Sometimes the song will be "random", but will still play in order from top to bottom. This happens with ALL playlist, except ones that were created by your account.

I had directly contacted support about this problem, and after going through hoops for days nothing works. I tried a different account, even a different phone and it's still the same. They didn't even seem to understand it themselves.

[discbuyertoo]

Many thanks, that at least suggests that they are aware of the issue - even
if they aren't solving it.

[Matt2h]

The main reason I joined Spotify perhaps 9 years ago was so that I could share what I was listening to (passively) on Facebook. That is now gone. Ok. I still love that it's on-demand music and it's become the platform I use to manage my music collection these days. But shuffle mode doesn't work. It plays the same dozen songs over and over again. At least Alexa does this. This is getting very annoying. I'm seriously thinking about canceling my subscription and migrating my music content to another service. 

[RickRocknRoll]

That's kind of why I was asking about peoples thoughts on the Amazon product. For a while they didn't have as much content, but is that still the case?  I've looked at their free with Prime version and I find their playlists to be a bit dated.  I also don't find it as user friendly (so far).

Have you tried Amazon? 

[pablosita]

How hard could it be to randomize a playlist, and let it play from begining to end, with no repeats of the same track? This would be great! I am really getting sick & tired of hearing a bunch of my 1400 songs every day, and never hearing others! At least this should be available on Premium, which I pay for.

[Jermophobe]

---

@tavasti wrote:

My solution to this random problem is listening tracks on order, sorted by track title. Every time I start listening, I select 'shuffle play this', and turn off random. So starting point is randomized by spotify, and then listening in track title order.

Sure not that random when reaching some Jean-Michel Jarre, Oxygene part 1 - Oxygene part 2 ... 🙂

This is such a great idea, I wanted you to know 👌 

I have been looking for a way to “shuffle” playlists while still listening to certain song groups (songs that each blend into the next, like some Muse, Pink Floyd, classical etc.) and never thought of this until I read your comment! Of course, it’s not perfect since some songs don't share titles, but for anything that does this is a perfect solution! 

Take care,