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

[pixelriffic]

Holy **bleep**!  I never thought of this as the motive.  Like most, I just thought the developers were just lazy or careless.  I think Elmerb may be onto something.  It makes sense they would rather ignore playing more costly songs, repeating the cheaper ones, and then just shrug when asked why this is.  

Ironically, it was the work of the developers that won me over as a paying customer in the first place with the desktop and mobile apps.  The shuffle issue may just end up being what drives me away.  

[Yoshi900]

I have just been gifted a sub to spotify, and i noticed the shuffle is not really a shuffle at all.... 😞 

It honstly feels like a RNG (random number generator) which will get repeats. 

e.g. (sudo code) 

get number of songs in play list 

number of songs in play list = 180 

RNG 1-180 

play number 50.

If it is a RNG it has a high chance to repeat, 

what they need to do is still do a RNG but keep a log of what it has played and exclude that from the 180 it has choosen, but of a recode for that function but should be easy imo. 

edit: I would like to add I don't care about if an artist gets played twice, the code should be simple and using a RNG on the totally number of songs in a playlist should be all that is needed, because with a truly RNG will be random, but with excluding songs it has already played (based on number rather than artist) is better.

[Muhlex]

The problem also only occurs for me on mobile, Desktop is shuffled as it should be. However, I'm pretty sure it's got nothing to do with financial motives:

Try sorting a playlist with a lot of tracks by Title in the app and hit shuffle afterwards. If you check the songs that are up next, all of them will start with either a number or an early letter in the alphabet. It just takes the first 50-100 or so songs and shuffles them, leaving you with no chance to listen to the rest ever.

So yeah, currently the only solution seems to be to manually shuffle your playlists with an external tool and not use shuffle play at all if you're on mobile. No idea how this is an issue that already persists for years getting no attention.

[user-removed]

So I took off shuffle and ordered my songs by title and even then it only plays a portion of my songs. I'll play about 30 songs and it'll go right back to '0-100' This is ridiculous

[austintruchan]

Issue is occuring with me as well, but only on mobile iPhone. Mobile will only shuffle the ~50 most recent songs I have added to my library. Mind bending that spotify has yet to fix this. I honestly don't understand. It works fine on desktop, but now on my iPhone? How is this even possible? 

[austintruchan]

Oh WOW! I actually just figured it out. 

To get ACTUAL Shuffle on you iPhone for all of your songs, you need to "Sort By Title", and then shuffle. If you "Sort By Recently Added" and then shuffle, Spotify will only shuffle the most recent ~50-100 songs. "Sort By Title" will shuffle your entire library. 

To filter your songs, you need to scroll up in you "SONGS" page, and select the hamburger menu icon next to the filter search bar. 

So glad I figured this out, but still, come on Spotify. This needs to be clearer.

[briardoty]

There really needs to be an option to switch between truly random shuffle and whatever Spotify's current algorithm is. How is that not a feature yet? As a sofware developer, I know this would be extremely easy to implement. Considering discontinuing use of this service altogether.

[user-removed]

I went and complained directly to spotify under the "technical issue" section and thy pretty much haven't helped at all. Gave me a free month though but I'll probably let my subscription run out after it

[Jassu]

It seems that they just dont care...

[user-removed]

They don't. When I told them I was considering leaving they said that's ok. "No hard feelings"

Also this new daily mix is the same as the shuffle. I'm not sure what the point is unless they're going to make the shuffle a true shuffle

[Androidoveripho]

You can also press the three lines in the top right corner while on the now playing album screen. This will show you your song line up you can select by song and press remove to remove repeated songs or ones you don't want to listen to. You can also select songs and press play next which will make it the next song regardless if it's a part of the playlist. I think Spotify gives us the tools to make our playlists random but the user has to be proactive in using those tools. I also have found that my shuffle button gives me the same shuffle every time it is not random on each click of the button. This is also coming from a Spotify premium user as well as an android user.

[shuffl3]

I think the actual issue is that Spotify loads lists of songs in batches. The Spotify application only shuffles the portion of the list it has downloaded thus far.

If I just hit shuffle play, it repeats the same 4-5 artists / albums over and over, but if I scroll down to the bottom of the list and back up I get a proper shuffle.

It's just an issue with their caching / infinite scrolling mechanism.

[Androidoveripho]

On the now playing screen looking at your album artwork and artist/song on
bottom tap the three horizontal lines in the top right corner, as long as
you have mobile data or WiFi connection you can remove songs as well as do
a selective shuffle by drag and drop. Yes it would be nice to get a true
shuffle from the tap of a button but this doesn't mean that Spotify doesn't
provide the tools create a true shuffle. Download feature has nothing to do
with song line up. You can download playlists, albums, etc while connected
to WiFi then listen on the go with no connection to reduce data costs. To
do this turn off mobile data in settings of your phone before launching
Spotify. --see photos--

[Androidoveripho]

On the now playing screen looking at your album artwork and artist/song on
bottom tap the three horizontal lines in the top right corner, as long as
you have mobile data or WiFi connection you can remove songs as well as do
a selective shuffle by drag and drop. Yes it would be nice to get a true
shuffle from the tap of a button but this doesn't mean that Spotify doesn't
provide the tools create a true shuffle. Download feature has nothing to do
with song line up. You can download playlists, albums, etc while connected
to WiFi then listen on the go with no connection to reduce data costs. To
do this turn off mobile data in settings of your phone before launching
Spotify. --see photos--

[RABFM]

If shuffle simply didn't repeat a song UNTILL the playlist had been fully played that would solve the problem. Is that hard to introduce Spotify?

[dalybr]

I agree with the other respondants. Very frustrating. Makes me want to give it up. If they just came out and gave an honest answer that would be fine. 

[Taymaster]

Jeez add an actual random shuffle already. I have to update my software like every 3 days.. you're telling me you can't have both an actual shuffle and your crappy algorithm shuffle both in the UI? I bet a CS graduate fresh out of college could add this feature in like an afternoon. Like seriously...c'mon

I'm not leaving, because your software is amazing, but it's silly to ignore a repeated request by your users. I'm sure some are actually leaving, cause it IS really frustrating when you have to keep skipping the same songs in a 16 hour playlist that you start a shuffle on frequently.

I would bet a grand that more people would use the actual random shuffle then your shuffle. 

Keep up the good work(except for your shuffle related work, which is A$$)

[acron1hm]

It wasn't great but somehow you made it worse. If I wanted to hear the same songs on repeat I would turn on a radio. Fix this or I quit

[DannyO]

From my personal experience (i have been observing how the shuffle is created for a while), the algorhythm will pick the songs in the playlist that you haven't played in the gratest amount of time. For Example, if you play a song in a playlist (all the way through) and then immediately re-shuffle, the song you just played will be at the bottom of the queue or very near the bottom.

This is a bummer because if you play a playlist all the way through and go to play it again, the new shuffle will be almost identical to the previous shuffle since the first track you heard on the previous shuffle was the least recent track played, thus it gets priority.

Spotify needs to fix this and add another option to actually randomize.

[oriolukasz]

In my opinion the shuffle play is not random, but it is somehow made for the user that is listening. The songs you played the most/ the songs that fit well together are simply put together.