How do I tell Spotify to NOT shuffle by default when playing albums?

[JohanTK]

On my android phone, Spotify automatically turns on shuffle mode when I play first song from the list in an album. How do I tell the app to always play the correct track order, unless I actively push the shuffle mode sign below?

[Yordan]

Hi there @JohanTK,

Welcome to the Community and thanks for reaching out!

Hmm, that's odd. The Shuffle toggle should be toggled off by default for albums, except for those where you've manually toggled it on. Could you confirm if the feature is always toggled on for albums or does it automatically toggle on after playing the first track?

Shuffle toggle, currently toggled off.

It's worth performing a clean reinstall by following the steps in this article to give the app a fresh start, as it may help here. In case the issue persists, please share a short screen recording which captures this behavior in action so we can investigate further.

Let us know how it goes. Cheers!

[JohanTK]

Yes, it seems to be toggled on already automatically on all albums, regardless whether I left it toggled off on that particular album last time. I've actually tested it several times to see, and when I choose a new album it's toggled on from the moment I hit the first song. Then when I go back to the other album on which I had just toggled it off before, it's now on again when I start a song in there. So it seems to be on by default. I can only listen to the regular order by switching it off literally every time I start anything on an album. 

[Joan]

Hi @JohanTK 

Thanks for the info. Can you confirm how exactly you start the playback of an album? If you press the big green button at the top, that usually shuffles the album, but if you tap any song on the album instead after having disabled shuffle, it should remain off. Let us know if that works and send us some screenshots or a screen recording if possible.

Keep us posted.

[JohanTK]

Ok, I don't know how to make a screen recording, but will give you a series of screenshots instead, that's the best I can do. In the following you see what I see in the order it happens, and on each screenshot I've marked the place I'm about to click with an x or an arrow. Next screenshot is taken just after I've clicked on the mark in the former screenshot. I'll post in the order of events. I start here:

 

[JohanTK]

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[JohanTK]

And so on. You see how it's always suddenly toggled on again every time I start a new song by clicking directly on the song. In the example given I'm clicking on new songs within the same album. The problem is the same when clicking on new songs from different albums. Shuffle is always toggled on again with each new song I start.

[Eni]

Hi there @JohanTK, 

Thanks for getting back to us. 

Just to confirm, have you already tried reinstalling the app by following these specific steps? This process is more thorough than the usual one. 

If this doesn't do the trick, could you let us know the exact make/model, operating system and Spotify version of your device?

We'll be on the lookout for your reply. 

[JohanTK]

Hi Eni

I just tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app, and it seems to have solved the problem. Now the shuffle toggler stays off until I switch it on and vice versa, regardless how I change between songs and albums in between. Thank you very much for the advice!  Many times it's just the same good old simple tricks that clean things up 🙂 I'm much happier now 🙂

Do you have any idea what was wrong before? A friend of mine, an IT professional, was guessing they might be running some A/B test to see how users respond to a change in the software - and that maybe I was one of the "lucky" small percentage of users chosen to run the experiment on. Could that be the reason? Is such a thing common practice?

Best, and happy Easter

Johan

[OscarDC]

Hey @JohanTK,

Thank you for keeping in contact.

You're right about the tests. Spotify is always testing things by adding or removing features to make Spotify better overall, but we don’t have much information about it. However, since the issue was resolved by reinstalling the app, most likely it was related to some damaged cache stored on your device that gets cleared with the process. 

We're glad to know that everything is working fine now and remember that if you have any additional questions, the Community will be here for you 🙂

Cheers!