Shuffle play repeating songs too often

[ws1482]

I have a 290 song playlist that I just recently totally randomized because I was having the same problem of songs repeating too often. Then today in a span of about 25 songs, I heard the same song play twice. A song should not repeat until every song in the playlist has played at least once. Shuffle play is still repeating songs too often. Can we get this fixed?

P.S.. I'm using the latest version of the mobile app on an iPhone 4

[JonHynes]

Nope! The point of Shuffle Play is to annoy you into buying Premium.

[ws1482]

never thought of that before. good point

[Peter__]

Spotify are making changes to how shuffle works across platforms and hopefully fixing some bugs too!:
http://labs.spotify.com/2014/02/28/how-to-shuffle-songs/

[buddy110]

not true. I bought premium and I have the same issue. Over 900 songs in my playlist (stared) and it plays maybe 200 of them over and over with a sprinkling of the remaining 700 now and then. What gives?

[elmerb]

I have Premium siince years, but have always had this same problem.
I get the feeling that certain music publishers get premium treatment from Spotify. Could this be caused by special financial agreements between these publishers and Spotify??

[elmerb]

I find it hard to believe how silent Spotify itself stays over this issue. This forum is filled with complaints about this issue, still nothing happens and Spotify remains silent..... This really annoys me as a paying customer...

[thew_ham]

Spotify aren't exactly remaining silent on this issue: Spotify Labs Blog - How to shuffle songs.

It's a complex programming problem which they are trying hard to solve. Even iPods and other media players were plagued by it initially. Part of the problem is that we human's don't like 'true' randomness when it comes to listening to our music. 

[kbrooksc]

It's funny you say that @thew_ham because random is a pattern of it's own is it not? ...I get confused often!

[thew_ham]

I think you're right @kbrooksc. True randomness cannot exist in the world of computers (how philosophical). That's why most music players now refer to it as 'Shuffle' instead. They 'randomise' songs in a list then further iterations or functions make it more pleasing to our ears by ensuring genres, artists and songs aren't repeated too often!

[cws1970]

Obviously there is an issue here and I hope that it does get fixed soon. I do not use any personal playlists but I do like to pick an artist or group and play their songs at random. What I get when using the shuffle option are songs from the first few albums that pull up for that artist. Close the mobile app down, reopen it and I hear the same songs from the last "random" song list five minutes earlier. With over fifteen albums listed, you figure that the song list would go deeper more often and not always start with the same two or three albums and then continue to repeat those albums and songs. I do like the premium service because of the large quantity of selections but the shuffle feature to this point is a major disappointment.

[japple6660]

Yes, I read this pretentious and arrogant blog. It was just frustrating to read. Just get the problem fixed. I hear the same 40 songs on a 656 song playlist everyday. Dont give me this "gamblers falicy" **bleep**. Randomize the songs or im done paying for spotify.

[jopincar]

There's a bug here, plain and simple.  There's nothing truly random or otherwise about the way songs repeat on spotify.  If they don't fix this soon, I will stop using Spotify, much as I like except for this problem.  I have an 800+ song playlist and I hear the same song multiple times a day.  Other songs I don't hear for a month.  I suspect they are trying to optimize bandwidth or minimize their content costs or both.  When I'm paying $10/month, I want all my content treated equally or I'm done with Spotify.

[elmerb]

HELLOO, is anybody at Spotify in Sweden listening?????? Start communicating, without the usual excuses and lectures on statistics.
Instead It remains too silent and Spotify is losing paying customers over this issue.
Get it solved quickly, otherwise many music lovers will be done with Spotify and choose a better alternative......

[jeremygoh]

It's not cutting bandwidth or anything, Spotify has agreements with bandwidth providers.

I think this topic closely relates to this:

Awful Shuffle:
http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Implement-an-actual-shuffle-function/idi-p/27607

[Nyet]

Spotify: on it's way to becoming the myspace of music unless it can fix shuffle problem

[rlsundberg]

Some of the earliest mp3 players could shuffle without repeating the same track. You'd think it would be a quick fix. Had anyone tried shuffling off line? Same result?
My 220 song playlist will repeat songs constantly. They appear to be newly added.
I hope this is fixed soon. I'll have to go back to just Pandora and cancel my spotify.

[rlsundberg]

SHUFFLE! DON'T RANDOMIZE!

[jopincar]

I see the same thing -- newly added songs get disproportionate play.  This is clearly a bug.  It would be nice if Spotify actually had some one do some real analysis.  The odds of the replay behavior I'm getting being the result of any truly random selection process are astronomical.

[rlsundberg]

The radio stations have the same issue. I hope they at least START working on it. I bet they can implement a different algorithm for offline play.