Queue ignores playlist and repeats 4-5 tracks

[gran_cabrón]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

Moto X4

Operating System

Android 9

My Question or Issue

I have a playlist with a series of albums that play through in-order because there's a story. There are roughly 100 songs in the playlist, and I do have the playlist downloaded to save on mobile data. If I start playing the playlist and look at the queue, it shows the normal 80 songs you would expect.

However, spotify can seldom play all the way through the playlist because it will randomly cut off the queue to only 4 or 5 songs. This tiny segment of the playlist will play and then the music will stop (or switch to [artist] radio). There is no indication that this is happening until the music stops.

I figured out what was happening when I turned on repeat. Once the queue gets cut off, spotify will repeat those 4-5 songs only. If I skip to the previous song, it will skip "backwards" to the last song on the queue, as if I had built a tiny playlist.

It tends to happen most often when I am connected to my car or my JBL Flip 5 via bluetooth. I can sometimes induce this error by skipping a song with the forward button, or restarting a song with the back button.

I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling a clean app according to the instructions I've seen linked on so many other questions, but the problem still occurs. Given the absolute clownshoes design of spotify's queue in general, is this somehow just the intended behavior of spotify's queue, or some feature that I'm just using wrong?

[Yordan]

Hey @gran_cabrón!

Could you share with us a short screen recording which shows this behavior in action? That way we can get a clear understanding of how things look on your end.

If you have Autoplay enabled, try disabling it in the app's settings to see if that does the trick.

Keep us posted!

[gran_cabrón]

I typically have autoplay disabled, and only turned it on to see what would happen.

With autoplay disabled, I don't know that it's chopped the queue until:

• (with repeat turned off) the music stops as if it's reached the end of the playlist.
• (with repeat turned on) it loops back to the song that was presumably playing when it chopped the queue, then continues playing the 4-5 songs in a loop as if they were the only ones in the playlist.

I'm not sure how to capture that on a video. The current version of android OS on the moto x4 doesn't have a screen video capture, and the available apps look super sketchy. Would I be recording for 4 straight hours of checking the queue after every single song? Because I don't know it's happened until four songs later when it either loops or just stops.

Also, it typically happens when my phone is locked, as I listen to music with my phone in my pocket. Even when I skip a song it's via the lock screen or the car's stereo system. So I don't think I could capture it on a video capture, even if I knew it was going to happen.

[Alex]

Hey @gran_cabrón,

Thanks for the reply and the additional info.

This seems very odd, as normally if you play a playlist it should go through all the songs before it starts Autoplay of similar songs or starts repeating the playlist when Repeat is enabled.

Here is what you can try:

• Try moving your songs over to a new playlist. This is done easily on the Desktop app where you can batch select all songs in a playlist.
• Add/ remove a couple of songs. This should re-populate the list of similar songs that can play after a playlist finishes, if this is what's causing the issue somehow.
• Make sure the Shuffle button is switched off.

Keep us posted on how you get on.

[gran_cabrón]

I made a new playlist, then added all the songs back to it from the albums. It didn't seem to help.

As for the other suggestion, I always listen to this playlist without shuffle because it's basically a weird opera, with a story. You wouldn't listen to Carmen or La traviata on shuffle.

This morning, I drove to work with Spotify playing on my car's bluetooth, and I turned off the car near the beginning of the very last song on the playlist. I went to my office, and turned on my Flip 5, then resumed playing music. A few minutes after the last song finished and the playlist started over, I noticed the very first song playing again when I was expecting song #4 to begin, so I opened up the queue and took a screenshot. In this screenshot, you can see there are only 5 songs on the queue, and they are in order 2-3-1-2-3 if you compare it to the other screenshot showing the beginning of the playlist.

Don't know if that'll help, but there are the screenshots. 

[#6]

Songs get stuck in a loop of 5 songs in a way bigger playlist. Happens with different playlists I have created, loop can happen in any place and only after the app was restarted, i.e. playlist works fine if I start playing it at any song, but after restarting the app, it usually loops. Android, version 8.7.22.1125, premium member.

[Jeremy]

Hi there @gran_cabrón,

Thank you for getting back in touch with us and for providing the screenshots.

Just to confirm - did you perform a clean reinstall? If you didn't we recommend that you do since this is different from a quick reinstall and could be helpful to get rid of any cached files that might be causing trouble.
 

On another note, can you have someone log in with their account on your device - such as a friend or a family member as this will help us understand if it's account related or not.

We'll be on the lookout for your reply 🙂

Take care!

[gran_cabrón]

Yes, I did recently do a clean reinstall that fixed a different (probably unrelated) issue.

The other issue (which was fixed with the clean reinstall) was regarding playlists from my personal collection (of local files on my desktop that aren't available on Spotify). I had these playlists downloaded on my android (which of course could only happen when both devices were awake and connected to the same wifi). Some of the songs would become unplayable, and every day more and more songs would become unplayable. Removing the unplayable songs from the playlist and then re-adding them did not work, but I read here that a clean reinstall might help, so I did that.

It fixed the unplayable/undownloadable local files issue, but not the issue I made this post for.

I'll have someone sign in to Spotify on my android and see if they experience the same problem.

[Kiril]

Hi,

Thanks for posting in the Community!

This sounds like an odd behavior indeed. Let's see if we'd be able to help here. Is it possible that you have some songs in your queue, that actually interfere with the current playlist that you're trying to play? You can try pressing "next" so a next track starts to play, then open up your queue and check if you're seeing a "Next in Queue" tab. If there are unwanted songs, then you can click "Clear queue" and then you can restart the playlist. See if this will help your playback experience to return to normal again.

If this doesn't help, then could we ask you for a short video, so we can take a closer look and be able to give you a better advice.

Keep us posted, we'll be on the lookout for your reply.

[huntc99]

While playing a playlist on Shuffle, songs often either:

1. Appear twice in a row on the queue (seemingly randomly) and/or
2. Appear twice in the queue before every song in the playlist has played (i.e. without pressing Shuffle again, a song that already played later repeats)

Issue has been happening for the last month or so, but seems to be happening more often this week? (iOS and Mac Desktop)

(EDIT) Screenshots attached below (first 2 are iOS from post date, the last is Mac Desktop app I added later on 5/26/22):

[Dian]

Hey @huntc99,

Thanks for posting in the Community.

This is indeed an interesting observation. Could you let us know if this happens on more than one playlist or it is just the particular one from the screenshot?

Can you replicate the finding also with another account on the same devices?

Keep us posted,

Cheers!

[huntc99]

Update:

TLDR:  This issue seems to have mostly stopped in the past 10 days or so. (Edit: as in, the most recent instance was literally right after I posted this update comment, in which I initially said the issue wasn't happening anymore ... screenshot attached below).  I apologize for not updating sooner. The most recent updates for iOS and Mac seem to have fixed the Shuffle "glitching," as well as greatly improved Spotify's overall seamlessness.

However, what I still find strange is that I have observed this Shuffle "glitching" issue reoccur for years, every few months in seemingly random spurts (especially on iOS since the last major app facelift). The only discernible constants in my experiences with this issue are:

• Shuffling longer playlists (ie: >>1000 songs)
• Rapidly switching between Shuffle sources (ie: abruptly starting a new Shuffle of another playlist/radio/etc during a present Shuffle) 
• "Overusing" the Queue feature during a Shuffle (ie: queuing 100s of songs at a time, rapidly skipping through songs, and/or rapidly adjusting the Queue order)

A combination of the above 3 bullet points describes how I often listen to music. "Overloading" my device/app with tons of commands at a time like that could plausibly cause error in the order of command execution (like the Shuffle "glitching"). Consequently, perhaps the Shuffle "glitching" I originally posted about has something to do with code in the Queue feature? 

Screenshot of most recent instance of issue (5/26/22):

 

[huntc99]

This issue happens on many playlists, whether ones I create or follow, long or short (though perhaps more often when Shuffling very long playlists --- see my 5/26/22 reply comment above for more details).

I will try replicating the issue with another account on the same devices soon and report back. I've heard from friends who also experience this Shuffle "glitching" issue, and will try to gather screenshots from their devices too. Yet strangely this issue does not seem to be very common or at least not discussed much in the Spotify Community or anywhere online.

Even stranger is that I've observed this issue happening for years --- without any apparent rhyme or reason, at what seem totally random times circumstances etc --- on multiple different Macs and iPhones of mine in the past. I will note that this issue has been happening more frequently ever since the most recent major facelift of the iOS app (though, again strangely, happening both on my iPhone and Mac).

Thanks for your help

[Dian]

Hey @huntc99,

Thank you for the extensive descriptions and troubleshooting steps you've tried on our behalf!

We know, that the Shuffle functionality is a pretty important one and we're getting complaints about how it is implemented. This is why we have tried tweaking it multiple times in the past, but it still hasn't lived up to our users' expectations.

This is why we encourage you to vote on this idea and post your experiences in the idea thread, so we can take the necessary steps in relaying the relevant information to the respective team. This way you can also receive updates as we post them in the idea thread.

Hope this helps,

Cheers!

[snappydoodle]

This is happening to me also. No setting changes work (eg turning repeat on or off, clearing queue) and neither does closing and reopening the app. Only started happening the last couple of months. (Premium member using iOS app)

[Alex]

Hey there @snappydoodle,

Thanks for the post.

Sorry to hear that this is happening to you.

Can you give us a bit more info about your set up, so we can look further into this:

• Device model + Os version.
• Spotify version.
• Does this happen only on your phone?
• Does this happen on every single playlist/ album?
• Do you have Shuffle turned on?

Looking forward to your reply.

[snappydoodle]

Oh thanks very much for replying. Let’s see:

IPhone 13 mini, running ios15.5
Spotify version 8.7.38.1353

I do use Spotify on my laptop, but much less often and I haven’t noticed
the issue there yet.

It’s not every playlist every time; it seems intermittent and without an
obvious trigger. I’ve noticed it maybe 5 times in the last month or so.

I have noticed it on two different playlists, the two I play the most. I
have not noticed it on other playlists but as I say I play them less. I
wasn’t playing the relevant ones on shuffle anytime this issue happened.

In one case it was three songs, part of an album but not the whole album,
looping round and round no matter what. On the other it was 5 or 6 songs,
from different artists and albums, that were mostly in order but it also
would skip one that was in the middle of them, and I couldn’t get it to
play the skipped song naturally; I had to press it. (So it wasn’t a case of
the song no longer being available.) Not sure if that is relevant to the
main issue, but I mention it just in case.

Thanks again for any help you can suggest!

[Alex]

Hey there @snappydoodle,

Thanks for the detailed reply and the info.

It seems like there isn't something in particular that's triggering this behavior. I'd recommend Logging out everywhere, after that run through the steps in this Guide to do a clean reinstall of the Spotify app on your phone. This will wipe all Spotify app data and downloaded songs, and will assure that you're running the latest app version. It's the best thing to do in situations like this, cine there could be corrupted app data causing the issue. After that log back in on your phone.

Let us know if the looping occurs after that's done.

[Cybermegatroll]

Hi all

I'm replying to this has I’m starting to have the same problem and i have seen that it’s happening in all of my playlists doesn’t matter if the playlist has 10 or 100 songs in it it just loops 4,5 songs in the playlist I’m waiting for it to happen again for me to do a screen recording of it has it not good when you need to use your phone when you are driving to get it pass that stage 

[snappydoodle]

Oh awesome, thanks Alex. I've done the clean reinstall now and will let you
know if it keeps happening. If I don't follow up, assume it has stopped
doing it!