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

[user-removed]

They can but have not for reasons unknown but I can guess.

Solution: Sort playlist by title and turn off random.

[Dvabau]

Yeah, the only problem is that it starts from the beginning when you relaunch the program then you have to just pick a spot where to start it again. Did that for quite a while.

[stenetts]

Once I said I would be taking my bussiness elsewhere, a post that seems to have been removed, I received an email direct from Spotify, saying; We are sorry you are going to jump ship because of this issue, we know the shuffle problem upsets a lot of our users, it is unlike other apps, where they shuffle whole playlists while ours only shuffles the next song. (whatever that means!) However your feedback is appriciated. I then e-mailed them back, saying that if they know it upsets a lot of users, why not get it changed.

I then got another interesting e-mail, from a different person, saying 'this is why we offer you a trial period, if you dont like it, you can go elsewhere.' Says it all really, if thats what they think of their users, hardly surprising they dont change things that people are sceaming for.

[1142579006]

Ye I 100% agree, im going to move over to a different music streaming network due to this problem. I have looked into the others and they seem to not have these problems at all

[denniswebb]

Yep, me too.  Youtube music looks really promising

[stefan137]

I'm a returning Spotify customer but I have just cancelled my subscription after only a few days.

I forgot this issue existed and I was really disappointed when I returned. 

It's crazy how one of the biggest music streaming services can't get shuffling working properly, or at least aren't addressing it. There's people from all over the world complaining about this issue and nothing is being done.

I've had to cancel my subscription because I am sick of hearing the same bunch of songs whether I play it on my phone, computer or using my Google Home.

I'm moving over to Google Play Music, which is far from perfect and being absorbed into the dreadful YouTube music, but it seems to get shuffling right. 

Have Spotify ever commented on this issue? 

[stenetts]

They did send me a personal reply, which basically said 'that is why we
offer a free trial, if you are not happy you can always cancel and go
elsewhere'. With this attitude I doubt they even care about all these
complaints, let alone try to get the problem resolved.

[Jake-Grabowski]

https://www.spotify-shuffle.com/

Spotify ... poor spotify

[januszinvest]

Playlist shuffle problem - Android 8.0.0.

Hello,

I am using the Spotify mobile app for Android. I have a Premium subscription. After a recent update, several weeks ago, there are problems with the shuffle function.  I have seen older articles on this issue that say to clear the play cue and I have tried that and it didn't work. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the Spotify app and data. When playing a playlist in shuffle mode, it keeps returning to the first song on the playlist. I am using the connect function - (Wi-Fi - to my Bose sound system).

REPLYDELETE

[stenetts]

This problem has been ongoing for a long time now and Spotify seem intent
on doing nothing about it, despite all the complaints. According to them
some people like it as it is and if subscribers are not happy with this
feature, they are free to go elsewhere.

[PhilFree]

Hiya, make sure that your playlist is sorted by title.  The issue is that I am sure you are connecting to a amp or device, which has Spotify installed.  Select the playlist from device i.e. smartphone or pc so to select desired song to play first, once connected to amp log off of the origional device and then use skip etc on amp remote. The problem is that when you stay logged in on your phone etc Spotity gets confused by two sessions being connected. As Spotify is only now looking at one session it will shuffle perfectly. I have some 2,000 tracks in one playlist took a while to figure out but now it plays tracks it has never played in shuffle mode and will be totally ramdom for the total duration, until another playlist is selected.  Happy listening.....  

[stenetts]

I have 500 songs in a playlist and it does play all 500 songs, even over 2,
3 or more sessions, without any logging out. My problem is that, even if
sorted by title it still plays the songs in clumps, so it wont play the 1st
song then the 500th song, it still plays the songs in clumps. If the 500
songs has a few full albums in there, it still plays most of the songs from
one album all within a short time, if the album has 14 songs, it seems to
play those 14 songs within 16/17 songs, even if it has been sorted by title.

[Dvabau]

Happy it seems to be working for you but I have tried every permutation you can think of on multiple devices and the result is the same, it loops back and starts playing the same songs.

[RickRocknRoll]

There is no solution outside of a 3rd party app to shuffle for you. 

The solution the other guy posted is to change your sorting and then start from the top. That still isn't a 'shuffle', it's just playing the songs in the order you put them in. 

While this was a nice idea, shuffle itself still doesn't work. 

And, one shouldn't have to jump through hoops to figure out which device you're playing from and shuffling from and streaming too and whatnot. Shuffle should just literally play everything in your playlist at random. 

How many years later are we talking about this? I haven't switched to another service only because the Spotify platform is the easiest of all to use. I even get free Tidal with my phone subscription on Sprint and still use Spotify due to the platform. 

still annoying though...

[CISASDFR]

I will just start looking for other options, its very annoying to hear the same songs over an over again.

[egu-z7b7_dquh]

on a playlist of about 7h only 30-40 minutes of music are played. it's terrible to have to listen to music loop while I made a great playlist. I disabled, continuous playback, but the problem seems to persist... would there be another solution? do others apply (Deezer...) have the same problem?

[aaronclawrence]

Google Play Music has a perfectly working shuffle function. Just sayin'.

[idobr]

This is unbelievable. This bug and fact that Spotify have no plans to fix
it must be noted in every competitive review out there. It is our duty to
add this important information to every comparison post we see on music
streaming vendors.
Perhaps, if we all do it, this will drive Spotify to fix it.
I still love very much Spotify and still think it is the best music app,
but this bug is indeed impacting customer satisfaction. So, Spotify product
managment team... Please prioritize this bug, if you are indeed obsessed
with your customers, this is the right thing to do.

[christoforov]

I m really disappointed that this problem obviously couldn t be solved since 2014 from spotify. I had the same problems in themobile  app version and none of these tricks work. The other fact is that it is a shame that you couldn t contact " professionalists" from spotify with your problem, if you will call these guys with the term professional - that is the question here. The simplest thing doesn t work, the PC App is also embarrassing for spotify.

[gtpeck2000]

Isn't there anyway to add a random button to rearrange playlists? I may shuffle but when using an amazon device to play my spotify it only shuffles the first 100 songs and that gets old after a while.