Songs keep repeating when I shuffle a playlist

Add me to the list of the frustrated. However, I think this may have actually started happening in iOS8. I am slow to update my iOS usually, and I was on an older version of iOS8 on my iPhone 6. I do not think that the music app at the time allowed you to see what was "upcoming" in the list or indeed what had previously been played.

I have about 1000 songs stored locally on my phone, and I do medical procedures 5 hours every morning while playing music over a bluetooth speaker. I like to randomize the entire list of songs so that I don't hear the same thing for 4-6 weeks on average. I thought I was going crazy hearing the same song every few days, but I also listen to music a lot at home and thought that maybe I had heard the song at home. Then, one of the nurses I work with often asked me "do you listen to this song every single day?". Now that I've updated to iOS 9 a few weeks ago, it's been clear that previously played songs were being repeated, and eventually the app devolves into starting the playlist from the beginning (now I can see the evidence of this since I can see the history). Very frustrating. Haven't seen anything to suggest 9.1 will fix anything. But I think that this has been going on since the change to ios8.

@rs691919

Funny you say that. For me I noticed the screw up after the first patch 9.0.1. This is nuts. It is frustrating. I love the random shuffle too. I don't want to hear a song today that I heard yesterday especially if I have over 1500 songs. Maybe we need to send numerous emails to apple care in order to be heard. It's annoying to have to keep looking to see what's up next and what was just played in the history to see what repeats. Plus the __of __ is still an absent feature so for someone who likes continuous unrepeated play you won't know when the heck the shuffle has ended or started over smh. This ***** donkey balls. Sorry I digress lol.

I know for a fact mine began after Apple music was added at the end of ios 8. Before I would play a playlist for weeks and then all of a sudden it would just not go to the next song and I realized the playlist was done so I would start over. Now this never happens. I notice the problem isn't if I play the list for a long time continuously, but it just happens if I stop the playback leave the car and go back later that day or the next. It seems after the pause it doesn't know how to pick up with where it left off or remember the original shuffle order so it doesn't repeat. Apple Music is to blame in my opinion directly or indirectly, as I never had this problem for years until Apple Music.

@OOLIE19

Yes yes yes yes I agree with you. I noticed the same thing. A lot of Tom Foolery happened after the crappy Apple Music update. Messed up shuffle, album art, album tagging, etc etc. It's annoying.

SO here's my input. I use my iPhone to play 12-14 new albums (150+ tracks) on shuffle each week in my car. I Bluetooth to the factory stereo. The display on the stereo gives me a track number, so even though the playlist is randomized, I get a running count on how many of the songs I've heard, and the assigned track number stays consistent until I reshuffle. So if I note that piano man is track 17 and if I want to hear it again without screwing up the shuffle, I can go back to hear #17 and then skip forward to wherever I was without causing a reshuffle.

SO this is what I've noticed (this is an example. The actual numbers are different every time): the app plays track 1,2,3,4,5 and then plays 2, then goes back to 6-14 like nothing happened. Then it'll go back to 6,7,8 and then pick up again at 15-25. It isn't reshuffling, because the track numbers all stay the same. It just decides to go play those tracks again. If I skip forward through the replays, I eventually get to the end of the playlist.

One anomaly is that a few times it was displaying all of the replayed tracks as track #62553.

How has this not been fixed? It's ridiculous. I have days worth of music and am hearing the same song within 30 songs. Before this terribly broken update there was a playlist counter ie 1 of 1000 and you could expect that the remaining 999 songs were unique. For whatever reason this was abandoned and the music app is broken. Music is the only thing keeping me in apple ecosystem, looking rough these days.

I hope it works!! I have spent hours making a Spotify playlist that won't repeat. It will use data but I am so sick of this nonsense. I will never put a penny into apple music as it has caused this. "DO NOT REPEAT" I think the first mp3 player could manage that. Apple is trying to jump into bigger ponds but has lost track of the vision of being the best at what you do and has fallen to mediocrity. world branding will only sustain for so long and then the stock holders will see what I see. USED TO LOVE APPLE BUT NOT SO MUCH NOW! This is the worst MP3 player I have ever owned and I spent $800 on it never again!

Just adding my voice to the list of complaints.

I tend to have a couple of hour-long car journeys each day and like to shuffle a 300+ song playlist to help me through them. This problem started for me when I updated to iOS 8.4 earlier in the year, which I believe was when the Music app incorporated Apple Music.

Since then, it seems to just cycle through a limited number of songs before looping back around, playing those same songs in the same order and never playing the majority of songs in the playlist. It's not just playlists that are affected by a broken shuffle either - I've tried to shuffle all songs by a particular artist and it will just frequently play the same songs and omit other songs entirely.

Another issue that I've also had since 8.4 is that music playback will just stop when bluetooth streaming to my car stereo. It was 100% reliable until then, but post 8.4 it's been consistently broken. Bizarrely, it seems to happen in the same places on my journey - I suspect it's related to phone signal or signal interference, but my music is all set for offline playback so no idea what the problem is.

All in all, though, the Music app (which, when it comes down it, is a HUGE reason as to why I've remained locked into Apple's ecosystem) has been absolutely rotten for my needs over the past half year; it's been a cause of frustration of one kind or other on pretty much every single hourlong drive to/from work, and doesn't seem to have even been acknowledged by Apple, let alone looking like being addressed any time soon. The thing is, if a primary reason for me to own an iPhone is fundamentally broken, then I no longer have a reason to own an iPhone...

It's nice to see there are finally more people who are posting about this. And for all of those just noticing it now, it is a problem that started with 8.4 when the first changed their Apple Music app. This wasn't the first thread that I had seen but the other thread kind of died off. what would be nice is if Apple stopped sweeping this under the rug and acknowledge the **** problem and fix it! If I recall this has been happening since June! All that ever happens when you call support is they give you the same old replies, "have you tried restoring your device? Starting from fresh?" Blah blah blah. None of this will fix it, the problem is in the **** app programming! FIX YOUR S H I T!

One more voice of someone who is frustrated by the broken shuffle functionality. I listen to my playlists daily and am as frustrated as the rest of those posting when the Apple music app keeps repeating just a few songs over and over. I am constantly skipping to the next song to try to find one I have not heard in the current shuffle session. Sometimes I have to skip several songs because the app keeps throwing up songs that i have already heard. Extremely annoying!

Today I wondered if there are other music player apps for iOS that will shuffle the songs in my 218 song playlist, without repeating before the entire list is played. I am using one now called audio-3D which has shuffle (plus several very nice sound settings), and so far it is working fine and not repeating songs. I am finally getting a nice mix listening to my playlist and hearing songs in playlist which the Apple music app has not played in a long time.

Apple definitely needs to fix that problem but until they do, I will be using other music players on my iPhone that know how to shuffle properly!

I just wanted to join the club here and report the same annoying problem with my iPhone six. I was on Android for a few years but switched to Apple specifically because the fifteen or so music apps I tried repeated songs. Now Apple has caught up with their incompetence.

Where do I go to find what's checked or not? And I, too, am having this same problem. I just went through shuffle several times and each time, it shuffled about the same 6 songs. Annoying. I have 1800 songs. I'm using the iPhone 6 Plus.

I believe you are referring to the box to left of the song listing in iTunes. All the boxes should be checked, most likely this is not your problem because I don't think that has solved anyones problem as it is a problem built into the software.

I think justric has the right idea about using another app. By the time I posted here I was already at the end of my rope with this problem and after reading the other posts I have lost hope in Apple fixing this problem anytime soon especially since they don't even want to acknowledge the problem it seems. Ironically Apple Music has made me a Spotify Premium customer and I will never be an Apple Music customer. At least now I can listen to my entire playlist and then some added tracks too. Doubt I will have an Apple phone when my contract is up. I hope everyone else finds a way around this completely stupid annoying problem.

I've been filling out apple feedback reports about this for months. Today I just called them. The woman I spoke with hadn't heard of this issue, nor had her supervisor. They told me to restore the phone. I don't think that will fix it, but maybe I'll do it in a few days. I'm not really that interested in doing so now... but this is indeed extremely annoying especially since it hasn't been fixed.

I wish Apple would address this 😟

If you've raised this as an issue here, please make sure you also report it via the Feedback app (if you're running the dev or public betas) or by going to www.apple.com/feedback - there's now an Apple Music section there.

I have 4.9 days worth of music in My Music, yet hear the same sodding tracks every single day. Infuriating.