Why is shuffle play ALWAYS default, FORCED?

[fredphoesh]

It is very annoying that one has to first Shuffle play a playlist and then go to the Now Playing and then tap on the shuffle icon to be able to TURN OFF Shuffle and to play the next tracks in order. This is ridiculous because we might be playing the second last track in the playlist because shuffle chose that! So come on, have it an option to shuffle play or not in the settings by default! 

Surely it would make more sense to just start a playlist in order and then choose Shuffle play if you want rather than mess it up by doing it this way. 

Mark. 

[Guido]

Hello @fredphoesh,

When you upgrade from Free to Premium you should be able to choose if you'd like to Shuffle, or not.

If you feel like the Shuffle feature is stuck, try to reinstall the app using these instructions.

Be sure to log in with the correct account of course! Open up the email you received after subscribing to Premium as this email contains the username of the account that has been upgraded to Premium. It's very easy to create an account with us so it could be the case that you have a second (Free) account you do not know about.

Hope it works! Let us know if it doesn't or if you have further questions.

Have a nice day.

[fredphoesh]

see new reply. Play button ONLY exists on desktop Spotify, not the mobile version for Android.

[fredphoesh]

Nope, this does not help.

I have one exactly as instructed in the link you gave, cleared cache, data, uninstall, turn off, turn on, reinstall, log in with same username as in the payment confirmation email from spotify... and still SHUFFLE is all that is always offered...

Can someone help me please?

BTW at the top of this web page, it says Get Premium and my username is displayed next to it... which is giving me the idea that though I have paid, and though I do not get adverts, my account has a glitch in it, and only partially "premium"

[wiednine · Accepted solution]

Don't be confused by the big green shuffle play button, it is TERRIBLE user interface design. That button ONLY means "Shuffle Play", it never means just "Play".  So to listen to an album in normal order, just tap the first track.  Hope this helps...

[fredphoesh]

Guido, the problem is the very bad interface. When you go to an album and you want to play it, you get faced with a huge SHUFFLE button, but no play button. There is no such button at all, not on any Android version of Spotify. You have to know that you must tap the first song, and then it will play the playlist/album in order. VERY poor interface. It should allow you to choose Play OR Shuffle, or to just PLAY and then allow you to change the shuffle mode, as with the desktop app.

[lubos]

It would probably be good to set the album playback preference and especially the playlist playback preference in the settings. There are a lot of people who would set playlists to play randomly and play albums in order

[drhbigdave]

To clear up confusion about versions, I have the paid premium version and the giant green play button is really a giant shuffle button. Who is thinking of and approving these features? It boggles the mind that someone would think this is a good idea. 

[ulysses_underwood]

Spotify UI is appalling from top to bottom, like it was designed by self-taught coders with absolutely no knowledge of (much less attempts at testing) user experience. (A black-on-black "colour" scheme??!?) The fact that it hasn't changed in years, despite what I assume to be substantial feedback from subscribers, tells you everything you need to know about Spotify: "We're the only game in town, so stuff your opinions."

[giannideci]

Yes, as a poster pointed out, one can avoid the prominent button and just hit the first track as long as Spotify wasn't already in suffle mode. If it was, you first need to turn off shuffle and then press the first track to play an album in order (speaking here of the Android app here).

So, this suggestion is not a *solution* -- it's a work-around, annoying and requiring extra steps. Spotify should really make *play-in-order* the default unless it wants to add a setting to let users choose their own default mode.  See also https://t.co/dtLC2Aoch4  on this topic. 

[jodiet22]

Thank you for this thread. I have been perplexed by Spotify's default to shuffle mode since day one of being a premium member (Dec 2017). I never use the big green shuffle play button (I always click on the first song on the playlist/album list), and it defaults to shuffle about 90% of the time. This causes me so much frustration, as I usually start playlists/albums from the beginning and need to go back into the desktop/mobile app when I realize from the second song playing that it has once again defaulted to shuffle.

To clarify - I do understand how to toggle off the shuffle setting when a song is playing. The issue here is that the toggle off setting doesn't persist long-term, and ultimately shuffle becomes the default again. Please consider that our albums and playlists tell stories greater than the sum of their parts when played in order, and we would love to be able to reduce the UI friction in order to have this experience. Thank you!

[lubos]

I do it this way, the playlist plays for me in random order. When I want to listen to an album playing a playlist, I go to the album, I queue it, the album plays in order after the song from the playlist ends. After the album ends, the playlist plays again in random order

[politicalpuffin]

Hi all. 

If I am being thick, and it is very likely, then sorry. I followed the 'Solved' link expecting, you know, a solution to the issue, that issue being my inability to set my playlists and, well, anything, to play as I expect them to..... In fu(£ing order! The order that I curated them in! or for that matter, the order the artist, band, production team or even publisher, expected them to play.

This is not the first site I have looked at to try to find a solution. There are plenty of 'work arounds' but not a 'here's how you set spotify to play all your content in the running order you or the artist deemed important to you by default'.

It's not like spotify is a cash poor start up, is it?

FFS, if it is this hard to find a setting for an application and you have to resort to the internet in the first place it is clear that beta testing (alpha?) is being shuffled (do you see what I did there) on to the consumer. In fact, it is worse than that because it seems to either be 'not a thing' or so esoteric that it is hard to find a solution on the internet.

I may well be in my 50s but even if an accusation of 'git gud, grandad' was appropriate, I have tech savvy children who are as disappointed as I. Except I'm furious. I'm the one paying the bill and it seems I'm not paying for any development of a product, that I was an early adopter of, that is still deficient. 

Sorry for the venting but it really pisses me off.

I hope anyone reading this is well and that your families and loved ones are doing well.

Cheers

[Pablo_Esquivel]

Annoying and ridiculous.

[Pablo_Esquivel]

Terrible UI.

Thanks for your help.

[Rosco_o_Gymru]

So the interface is below premium par, they do nothing about it. That's me starting only for the 2 months. There's better players on the market.

So spotify, hello and i'll be gone in 6 weeks.

Amateurs. I'll buy albums and support the artist with dollars over pennies. 

[KaushikSarkar]

My only point is : Why should Spotify determine in what order should I play a Playlist ?

That is MY CHOICE.

It is a question of freedom of choice.

Imagine if the shuffle button is on, on a 'concept album' like Dark Side of the Moon' or 'Wish You Were Here' !

[riddlz]

This thread has been going on for quite some time.  I've just recently discovered (probably last couple of updates) that now I'm not able to turn off shuffle unless I become a premium member.  I also noticed that one of the most valuable options to me is "add to queue" option.  I'll start playing an album, radio, or some music list I find/create and I like to queue up a podcast to play through and then auto return back to my music list while I work.  Now... I have shuffle... I don't get to queue my podcasts...I have to create a separate queue list which is annoying and not something I'd like to have to setup every day for work.  No more set it and forget it... now I'm forced to build a list up and then it's shuffled.  Time to start looking for another music source... sad... been using Spotify for years and I for sure won't be paying now with all these recent changes.

[Dinkidonk]

No it doesn't. 

[Pablo_Esquivel]

Terrible User Interface.
That´s it.