Android & iOS, Tracks will only skip around and not play in proper order

[kianho]

I have Spotify Premium on my iMac (Mavericks), my iPad (most recent update) and on my Android Vers. 4.1.1. (Huawei G510). 

On my iMac I can play my playlist as it appears (numerical/chronological order - from top to bottom). On my mobile devices I cannot. I can only play them randomly (shuffle), which is ok for music, but I also like listening to the audio books. And I don't like skipping between chapter 2 to the end of the novel before knowing the content of the book. The only choice I have to play them on the mobile devices is "zufällige" or randomly. Also the skip forward/backward button is missing on my Android device.

Why?

How can I correct this? I really want to listen to the audio books from "front to back" and not jump around. I cannot find a feature to turn of the shuffle mode and all of my devices are listed (https://www.spotify.com/de/accounts/offline-devices/).

Thanks.

[Carina]

Hey @kianho and welcome to the community!

It seems you are a free user. If you want to turn shuffle off on your mobile, you need to subscribe to premium.

Please let me know if you are already a paid user and I will tell you the steps to turn shuffle off.

[kianho]

No. I am a premium user and my premium is paid up until the 23rd of December. And all my devices are linked together on this account. i.e. I can use my cell phone as a remote control for my iOS and iMac.

[Carina · Accepted solution]

Okay please don't kill me if you already know this, but this might be helpful:

First of all, to start the playback of a playlist without shuffling, you need to click on the first track of the album/playlist and do not click on the shuffle button on top of an album/playlist.
If the shuffle function is already activated in your settings, you need to uncheck it. To do that, click on the album cover art of the current song at the bottom of the screen and the music player will pop up. You can find 2 arrow icons next to the other player buttons. Click on the green shuffle icon until it turns grey, see here (it's the green one):

[kianho]

Thanks. That was not an easy feature to find (and I had been looking for 2 weeks for it). I think Spotify should rethink that user experience. (I had looked in "Einstellungen" or settings. I would never have thought to check on the album cover to stop the shuffle feature.)

Thank you for your help.

[TorbenGermany]

Hallo Carina, I have a similar question.

I have bought a Jbl link portable loudspeaker, which is connected via google home to spotify.

Without any trouble, I can play spotify songs on that loudspeaker via voice control. When orally asking spotify to play audio books, they are neither played from the beginning, nor played in the correct order.

The shuffle function, I have deactived for that account. As I have read more often that spotify mixed audio books, and just talked to a friend, who has the same problem, I am asking whether spotify has already developed a function to treat audio books properly when being played (in the correct order).

Me and the friend have a pay account (premium).

Thanks

[MihailY]

Hey @TorbenGermany,

Thanks for reaching out.

Spotify has already developed a separate audiobook feature (more info here) which is available in select markets. 

Any other type of audiobook content on the platform is still treated like regular music tracks so it's currently expected to have them shuffled when using voice commands to play them on your smart speaker.

We hope this helps. Let us know if you have other questions.