Shuffle only plays the first few songs

[tvarano54]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

Windows, iOS

Operating System

newest on both

My Question or Issue

I've noticed (especially for Spotify-made playlists) when I shuffle, the same few songs play constantly. I've especially noticed this when listening to Deep Dive: 00s Rock that, without fail, when I shuffle, the first 25 songs play. I've closed the app, reopened, unfollowed and refollowed the playlist, tried on different devices, and still no luck. It's been happening to me for weeks. There have been times where the exact same progression of songs pops up in my queue after I reshuffle (in a 500 song playlist, I don't even want to know the odds of that). 

I understand Spotify's shuffle isn't pure random selection. I also understand some playlists are curated in such a way that they want you to listen in a certain order. However, this playlist is 32 hours long. I don't want to have to listen for an entire day just to hear a new song. 

I've noticed a few other posts that mention something similar to this but they're like 5 years old with no attention. I can't give many steps to reproduce other than to just shuffle the playlist. I don't have it downloaded, just followed and stored in a folder.  Please fix this! I really want to listen to this playlist lol

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX6HzfoNVFOPu?si=4KgYBmvITkCEJzo2FZrlsA

[Novy]

Hey there @tvarano54, 

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community, and welcome 🙂 

Would you mind letting us know if you notice anything new after performing a clean reinstall of the app? This is often an overlooked step, but it can be helpful to get rid of any corrupted files that might be causing trouble. 

Keep us posted on how it goes so we can continue with the help if needed. 

Cheers.

[tvarano54]

That worked! Thanks. Weird, I assumed that wouldn't do anything considering it was happening on multiple devices.

[Novy]

Hey @tvarano54, 

Thanks for keeping us in the loop. 

We're glad to hear that things are now working as they should. 

If anything else comes up, we're always a message away.

Have a lovely day 🙂

[tvarano54]

Hey, after a bit of time (maybe I just didn't test enough) it's back to the way it was. This is after a clean reinstall on both devices.

[Novy]

Hi @tvarano54, 

Thanks for your reply. 

If possible, could you ask a friend or a family member to log in to their account using your device and let us know if they can replicate this issue?

You could also give it a try using another internet connection to see if you notice anything new. 

We'll keep an eye out for your reply. 

[tvarano54]

Hi, 

I had two friends replicate the issue. Their queue was different than mine, but they had a similar issue. The same songs continually showed up in the queue after shuffling multiple times. 

[Jeremy]

Hi there @tvarano54,

Thank you for your reply and confirmation.

Can you remove any hosts files? You can do that by following these steps:

1. Open Notepad as an administrator (right-click - Open as Administrator)
2. go to File - Open and navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
3. Choose "All Files" instead of "Text Documents" next to the File Name box. You'll see a handful of files. Pick hosts and click on Open
4. When the file is open, you will see a block of text with # in front of each line and might see entries like 0.0.0.0 website.com127.0.0.1 website2.com
5. Check for any entries with Spotify in the address. Examples may look like: 0.0.0.0 weblb-wg.gslb.spotify.com0.0.0.0
6. If you do find any lines with Spotify, please remove them
7. Save your changes and restart Spotify

It would also be great if you could let us know if this occurs on one specific device or multiple devices?

Keep us posted 🙂

Take care!

[tvarano54]

Hey Jeremy, 

There were no hosts for Spotify in the file. There were a couple for Docker, but I have a feeling that wouldn't be the issue. This occurs on any device I use and has been shown by my friends as well. I use an iPhone and Windows laptop, but my friend uses OSX as well and still hit the issue.

[Mihail]

Hey @tvarano54,

Thanks for getting back to us.

Could send us screenshots of how a couple iterations of the queue look at your end when you shuffle the playlist? Also, does it make a difference if you start your session by first selecting a song in the middle or towards the end of the playlist and then turning shuffle on? We'd appreciate it if you also test this out with a few other playlists as well and see if they behave the same way.

Keep us posted.

[tvarano54]

Here are some pure shuffle screenshots.

Here are some where I choose a song like halfway through the playlist.

any time I toggle on and off shuffle, I get the same effect.

I've never organically noticed it, but it seems to happen on any Deep Dive playlist. I have a feeling it is based on the number of songs in the playlist?

Also let me note shuffle works fine on some 700-900 song playlists I've made myself. It's just the Spotify playlists (I've only tested Deep Dive).

[Jeremy]

Hi again @tvarano54,

Thank you for your reply and for the screenshots.

We can confirm that this is how shuffle works for now in some Spotify created playlists, but won't affect your own playlists.

We're always testing things by adding or removing features to make Spotify better overall and we’re constantly aiming to improve our features. We’re sorry that this means you’re not able to use Spotify like you wish to do at the moment.

You can read more about how your feedback reaches Spotify here.

Once again - thanks for the feedback, we appreciate it. Let us know if we can help you with anything else. 

Take care!

[tvarano54]

Hi, 

So just to make sure, this is intentional? It seems horribly broken. There's no attempt going on to fix this?

I just find it surprising that shuffle would ever be designed to play the same songs over and over no matter what.

[Eni]

Hey @tvarano54, 

We understand where you're coming from. 

As @Jeremy mentioned, this is expected behavior for Spotify-created playlists, but no worries it doesn't affect your own playlists.

We really value your feedback as it helps us to improve the app, and we'll make sure to pass this on to the right folks here at Spotify.

We hope this clear things up. If you need help with anything else, just let us know.

[BobAnne2012]

This solution is not accurate.  I get this same behavior in my own playlists, liked songs list.