queue169

Q: Songs keep repeating when I shuffle a playlist

On every iPod and iPhone I've ever owned:

I open a playlist and set it to shuffle. It does. I pause a song, put the device away, and press play a few hours or days later. The device remembers what I've already played so I don't hear the same song twice until I get through all, say, 250 songs on the playlist (unless I select a different playlist, manually select a song on the playlist, or close the iTunes app on my phone). As an illustration, using my iPhone 6 (still on iOS 8.3) last month I spent a week of commuting time, about 45 minutes a day, listening through a playlist and never heard the same song twice.

 

On my iPhone 6 since updating to iOS 8.4 (12H143):

I open a playlist and set it to shuffle. It does. I pause a song, put the device away, and press play a few hours or days later. It doesn't seem to remember what it's already played, so I end up hearing the same set of about 25-30 songs (with occasional randoms thrown in) every time I pause, put it away, and press play a few hours or days later.

 

Why doesn't Music seem to remember what it's already played? Is there any way of fixing this, or working around the issue so I don't have to keep hearing the same songs on a playlist?

 

On a possibly related note, I just connected my phone to my computer, and noticed that several of the songs that keep getting repeated show up in iTunes as having never been played. Has Music/iTunes stopped counting, or is this feature just not working any longer?

iPhone 6, iOS 8.4

Posted on Jul 23, 2015 9:12 PM

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Q: Songs keep repeating when I shuffle a playlist

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  • by AliasHandler,

    AliasHandler AliasHandler Dec 8, 2015 4:20 PM in response to McCartney 123
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 8, 2015 4:20 PM in response to McCartney 123

    I'm curious to know any alternate iOS apps that you guys have found as well with a working shuffle.

     

    Really I'm just looking for one that shuffles properly and tells you what track you are on (example: 34 of 420). This way I can verify its playing through every track before looping around. The same way iPods function. Any ideas?

  • by David Kent,

    David Kent David Kent Dec 8, 2015 7:28 PM in response to AliasHandler
    Level 1 (19 points)
    Notebooks
    Dec 8, 2015 7:28 PM in response to AliasHandler

    Am currently in the process of downloading 9.2, which claims to have some updates to the Music app. We'll see if it makes a difference.

  • by Jyrki21,

    Jyrki21 Jyrki21 Dec 9, 2015 6:07 AM in response to David Kent
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 9, 2015 6:07 AM in response to David Kent

    At first glance it looks like the latest software update may have corrected it!

  • by BillMc77,

    BillMc77 BillMc77 Dec 9, 2015 7:30 AM in response to Jyrki21
    Level 1 (8 points)
    iTunes
    Dec 9, 2015 7:30 AM in response to Jyrki21

    At first glance, i thought it did too. However after getting in the car later this morning, I'm not so sure. Back to automatically playing the first song in the "A's" then the 2nd, 3rd, etc. Too bad, Apple dropped the ball... again

  • by McCartney 123,

    McCartney 123 McCartney 123 Dec 9, 2015 3:20 PM in response to Jyrki21
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Dec 9, 2015 3:20 PM in response to Jyrki21

    Well today was my first day of having Good Luck with shuffling a playlist in what now seems like forever.

     

    I did two things.  First I upgraded to IOS 9.2 last night.   Then I made a NEW playlist of roughly 400 songs.   I successfully played 55 songs today (on and off all day) from that playlist without having a single repeat.  It may have been because of the upgrade, it may have been because of the need to make a new playlist after all this apple bs, or it may have been due to both.   Not sure, but it sure was nice not to hear a repeat.  I'll be adding more songs to this playlist, which I believe means it will be re-shuffling, but I'll report back if this issue rears its ugly head.

  • by ericole,

    ericole ericole Dec 9, 2015 7:03 PM in response to McCartney 123
    Level 1 (135 points)
    Dec 9, 2015 7:03 PM in response to McCartney 123

    Well, an update fix won't help me since my iPod Touch is stuck at 6.1.6 or something like that.  I'm not a software coder, but I do know random number generators have been out a long, long time and I would assume something like that would be at the heart of any kind of randomizing (shuffling) behavior.  I actually did what you suggested - took my Christmas playlist and made two new ones (instrumental & vocal).  I played the vocal one today and got the same sort of behavior.  It started playing from 3 separate albums (multiples from each) and every now and then some random song outside of those three.  But that playlist had about 10 albums in it.  I guess I just have to concede that the code for shuffle in iOS is crap - as well as the version of iTunes (12.2) that I have. Last night I was using those new playlists on my computer (where I am now, again listening).  The blue shuffle arrows are on, and it is literally playing the songs in sequence.  I've tried skipping songs, turning it on and off (in the window and in the playlist header) to no avail.  It's like the code for shuffling doesn't even exist. Seems this should be something very, very basic.  so sad.

  • by Steve-O23,

    Steve-O23 Steve-O23 Dec 10, 2015 3:51 AM in response to ericole
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Apple Watch
    Dec 10, 2015 3:51 AM in response to ericole

    A quick point on some earlier posts - the hardware you're using is irrelevant. The issue is with the algorithm used in the app/OS to 'randomise' tracks.

     

    I've been testing a bit since 9.2 came out. There seems to be slightly more variation of songs being picked, but it still seems to be favouring a certain number of albums/artists/tracks as it was before. A slight improvement, but still not great and a number of other bugs still present.

     

    - Removing a track from My Music doesn't continue with the shuffled tracks, but takes you back to the beginning of the list and plays everything all over again.

    - A couple of times today I've had a track playing and midway through it just starts playing the next track over the top.

    - Still issues with matched tracks i.e. wrongly matched, changed /incorrect artwork etc.

     

    6 months in and there are still fundamental issues with the app and the way in which key features are coded/written. A massive shame. Something that could have been so good is just SO bad.

  • by McCartney 123,

    McCartney 123 McCartney 123 Dec 10, 2015 2:24 PM in response to Steve-O23
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Dec 10, 2015 2:24 PM in response to Steve-O23

    Steve is dead on.  I continued playing the same playlist today, and heard some songs that I heard yesterday. I've also witnessed a song abruptly ending in the middle of it and a new song start.  It is a lot better, but still a rotten shame that apple won't completely fix the problem.   Still does not show playing song x of x while playing a playlist.

     

    Also, unrelated, but it seems I have to always sync twice lately to get the album covers to come over to the iphone.   Usually if I sync only once, I have no album covers.  The second sync will show all the album covers transferring.  This software is going backwards.

  • by EchoBaby,

    EchoBaby EchoBaby Dec 10, 2015 3:03 PM in response to McCartney 123
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Dec 10, 2015 3:03 PM in response to McCartney 123

    Hi All

    I've been aggravated with this too.  So I decided today to call Apple Care and I spoke to a nice guy named Ryan who informed me that Apple is currently working on the issue.  He said 9.3 is currently in beta mode but it should fix all of our shuffle problems. I told him I hope so and to tell his superiors to read thru this thread. This has been an on going issue since the Apple Music launch. In the future it would be nice to make sure that when updates happen it doesn't disrupt the flow of things that are working as they should. I've been checking this discussion for a fix since my last few comments and I must admit Bob Maquire holds some truth as to what's been going on.

     

    A friend of mine described Bob's theory (check Nov. 20th comments). So maybe a few of you should make a call as well.  The more calls about this issue the more we may be heard.  Someone mentioned making a call  before in a previous thread.  Hope this 9.3 brings us "shuffle peace of mind".  Hope this little news I shared helps my fellow shufflers feel a little better

  • by Steve-O23,

    Steve-O23 Steve-O23 Dec 14, 2015 6:24 AM in response to EchoBaby
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Apple Watch
    Dec 14, 2015 6:24 AM in response to EchoBaby

    I can't be bothered to ring support and have them tell me to do a clean install etc (which I've already done twice) .... so I emailed big T Cook directly - the rest of you should too if you have ongoing issues that aren't being resolved.

     

    Hi Tim,

     

    Hope you, or whoever is reading/deleting this on your behalf, are well and having a good run-up to xmas and new year.

     

    I wanted to email directly as I've have little faith in reporting bugs and issues via the normal channels - beta program, customer support, Apple community support pages etc

     

    Nigh-on 6 months after full release, Apple Music is still awful. I use it every day and every day I want to launch my 6s from a window (but I don't because I love it nearly as much as my son).

     

    I used to have a dev account and have tested the betas of iOS and OS X for a number of years now. More recently, I've also been part of the public beta program. I've spent considerable time logging bugs and issues and then following up with requested logs etc. But of pretty much all the things I've reported, the issues still exist. Your testing team have at times been great, but at other times come back with "we can't replicate this". This is majorly frustrating when, if you look at the Apple forums, you'll see loads of people suffering the same issues. I'd happily take a phone call from someone at Apple to walk through an replicate the issue(s), but with a full time job, 2 websites and a podcast to do, I don't really have the time to be running test, gathering logs, getting them and sending them off to Apple  - as much as I want to help!

     

    Here's an example of an issue I've reported numerous times, loads of other people have issues with, yet your devs/UATs "cannot replicate" the problem: https://discussions.apple.com/message/29447907

     

    Fundamental issues that still exist in Music.app include:

     

    - Shuffle still selects a sub-set of tracks each time. +5 days of music in My Music, yet I hear the same tracks every day!

     

    - SO MANY mismatched tracks in iCloud Music Library (the matching criteria you're using is AWFUL - even tracks clearly marked as 'live' or 'remix' and with completely different album name/info are matched to album versions. Terrible!

    - Overridden/wrong album art (linked to above)

    - Numerous tracks from my Mac in iCloud Music Library skip and won't play on other devices

    - Differently matched tracks when playing on different devices

    - Items won't delete from My Music and when they eventually do, the shuffled My Music list replays everything I've heard instead of carrying on through the list

    - Still no notifications for live/replayed shows in Radio/Connect. I live in Finland - most of the shows I enjoy are on too late for me to listen to live and I don't remember to then go in to the app searching for them every week or so (which is still an awful process).

    I really love Apple. My apartment is FULL of Apple products. But, at the moment, I'm really regretting leaving Spotify and paying for Apple Music every month. I really do hope you can get these issues resolved and make this the product that it could and SHOULD be!

    Cheers,

    Steve

    --

     

  • by breonk,

    breonk breonk Dec 17, 2015 9:55 AM in response to Steve-O23
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 17, 2015 9:55 AM in response to Steve-O23

    I have seen these issues:

    - Removing a track from My Music doesn't continue with the shuffled tracks, but takes you back to the beginning of the list and plays everything all over again.

    - A couple of times today I've had a track playing and midway through it just starts playing the next track over the top.

     

    Long ago when the itunes app removed the live update feature I started using smart playlists to remove recently played tracks based on rating (i still have that old ipod somewhere, i should dig it up)  needless to say over 10+ years my smart playlist nesting is quite extensive.

     

    So, I have a playlist (usually 30-40 songs) that include unplayed new, least played 1-5star, and a few other randoms.  Most of the time if I continuously listen to the playlist it will go start to finish no problem.  if I stop listening, use other apps, (1) the time counter returns to 0:00 more often than not, (2) tracks I just listened to show up in Up Next.  Swipe removing them causes another repeated track, eventually it will stop adding tracks to up next, which makes me think it is definitely some kind of association problem in the design of the app.  So once the playlist ends, there ends up being a select few that never played, probably since removing the repeats was actually removal of those unplayed tracks.  One other observation with this... in my car it shows the track number of the song in the playlist... on repeats it shows the original track number.  1..2..3..4..5..2..6..7..8..3..etc skipping repeat then continues to next.

     

    The midway issue I have seen also.  Sometimes it starts halfway into a song or skips in the song or stops too soon.  I found a phone reboot fixes that everytime.  But it is really annoying.

     

    EDIT: is misread the midway issue, i have not had 2 songs playing at once.

  • by AliasHandler,

    AliasHandler AliasHandler Dec 17, 2015 10:04 AM in response to breonk
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 17, 2015 10:04 AM in response to breonk

    This is another issue I've been dealing with. If you leave the phone overnight or go to do other things with it while the music is paused, it seems to "forget" your location in the current song and on your playlist so that it forgets where you were in the queue. This is really frustrating that it seems to store this information in RAM instead of on the HD.

  • by ignatz713,

    ignatz713 ignatz713 Dec 18, 2015 2:40 PM in response to queue169
    Level 1 (18 points)
    Applications
    Dec 18, 2015 2:40 PM in response to queue169

    Why won't Listen On Repeat play on my iPhone?

     

    What does Apple want me to use instead?

  • by McCartney 123,

    McCartney 123 McCartney 123 Dec 18, 2015 6:41 PM in response to Steve-O23
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Dec 18, 2015 6:41 PM in response to Steve-O23

    Great post/letter Steve.

     

    Although IOS 9.2 has improved the shuffle with less of the repeat nonsense, I have also found that the shuffle will play the same artist often after playing them once.  I believe others also mentioned this, but can't find the posts right now, (might be the vodka).   I have a playlist right now of about 900 songs.  Not sure how many artists in the playlist, but probably over 200, if not a lot more.  Some artists have maybe 10 songs, while other artists only have 1 or 2 songs.

    Anyway, when a certain artist's song plays, I will hear maybe 3 other songs from that artist during the next 10 songs.   This happens all the time, so I can't believe it's just a coincidence.  So frustrating....

  • by janfromwilliamson,

    janfromwilliamson janfromwilliamson Dec 19, 2015 5:04 AM in response to McCartney 123
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Dec 19, 2015 5:04 AM in response to McCartney 123

    I've been noticing this behavior (repeating the artist) for some time now with previous operating systems so it's not new to 9.2. I found it annoying, but not nearly as much as hearing three songs twice in one day on a 2500 song library.

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