Songs keep repeating when I shuffle a playlist

NO Kyle this doesn't help anyone here, nobody is reshuffling their playlist the music app doesn't know how to shuffle properly anymore at all. This problem has been going on since June and apple won't acknowledge it as a problem, anyone who calls or makes a report gets told that it's their phone that's the problem and not the software. I have been having this problem on my iPad and I have since wiped and started from scratch and it is still doing it.... Most of us hit shuffle and let the music go and don't touch it again yet in a playlist that's supposed to last 26 hours with no repeats it's repeating after 30 Minutes if not less.

wetsprocket wrote:

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.

This seems to be the best example of what the problem is in my opinion

I have this exact same problem, too. After playing around with it for quite a bit, I think I found a way to properly shuffle a playlist.

Let's assume for starters that I'm not currently playing anything, and the Up Next queue is empty.

- Go to the Playlists view in the Music app

- Start the playlist

+ Tap the playlist thumbnail, or

+ Tap the 3-bullet icon on the right, and tap Play Next, or

+ Tap the 3-bullet icon on the right, and tap Add to Up Next

[Near as I can tell, if the queue is currently empty, all three of those options behave identically.]

- Bring up the player screen

- Tap the little Up Next icon to bring up the Up Next screen

- It'll read: "UP NEXT: FROM {playlist-name}"

- Tap clear, and confirm by tapping "Clear Up Next"

- Tap "Done" to get out of the Up Next screen

- You should be back in the player screen with whatever song currently playing

- Go back to where you started the play list from and this time use only either of:

+ The 3-bullet icon on the right, and tap Play Next, or

+ The 3-bullet icon on the right, and tap Add to Up Next

- Bring up the player screen again

- Tap the little Up Next icon to bring up the Up Next screen

- It now reads: "UP NEXT: {# of songs} SONGS"

It seems to me, once Up Next gets into this "mode" where it shows the upcoming song count instead, that the playlist is properly shuffled and it shows all songs in the Up Next list.

When it's only showing "FROM {playlist-name}", Up Next only shows the first 20 matches it found from that playlist. Maybe I'm imagining it, but I think when it's in this "mode" it's not properly shuffling the songs, but only picking them randomly without accounting for past songs. It also seems to favour my higher rated and "hearted" tracks, because it's those ones that seem to be repeated more frequently.

It gets even weirder if you don't clear Up Next the first time. Let's say you didn't clear the queue when it was in "FROM {playlist-name}" mode, and then added the playlist to Up Next using the 3-bullet "Play Next" option. You still put it in the "{# of songs} SONGS" mode, and I assume it's shuffled, but if you now clear the queue, it doesn't actually clear the queue, it only clears out the 2nd sets of songs you added, and puts it back in the "FROM {playlist-name}" mode.

So it seems Up Next isn't just one queue, but two. A default one that's context aware (i.e. it initiates differently depending on how you start playing a song; via Songs, Artists, Albums, Playlists, etc...), and a second one that you can manually add to that takes precedence.

I think it's that first (or "outer") queue that isn't shuffling properly. So when you re-add the playlist the second time, you're adding it to the second (or "inner") queue in an explicitly shuffled order.

P.S. Don't get me started on how broken the Back button is! Maybe a better person than me can figure it out, because I can't make heads or tails of it.

This actually makes sense. I feel like Shuffle isn't truly random but circles around given genres, artists, or albums when I Shuffle All. And both implementations you outlined align with my experience since Apple Music went live.

It's like Apple wants a Smart Shuffle that's more like the radio, when NO ONE WANTS THAT.

But I will share your tips with my wife, Bob. She has a work playlist and it drives her nuts to see it repeat so soon. It took me a minute to figure it out, but I did, and I see what you mean. This could be GREAT for making playlists work and allow me to use playlists the way I did for years before this.

Bob Although your hints and tricks may be helpful, that's too much effort and work for something that we shouldn't have to put this effort into. Let's not forget That the program is broken and needs to be fixed and apple isn't doing ANYTHING to fix it, **** they aren't even acknowledging it.

Now another thing that has been a problem in conjunction with songs being repeated or skipped is songs not continuing from the point they were last played. Literally just this afternoon I was editing some metadata on some new music and found some options in iTunes that I found bothersome. Each individual song file now has 2 clickable options. Those options are "continue playing where left off and" "skip song in shuffle" so now, it seems, we have to manually go into each song file and allow or un allow this... I wonder if this may be part of the problem....

It's part of Apple's larger movement away from dedicated music fans towards casual fans and "smart shuffling" seems like an extension of it.

Wired just did a whole piece about how they're moving away from the type of library curation many of us used to enjoy.

http://www.wired.com/2015/11/itunes-alternatives/

Jarathen, i didnt read the article yet however you would think that this newer cra ppier smart shuffle system would be a clickable option instead of forcing it down our throats! I like managing my own library and having a proper shuffle system.

Yes. It's atrocious. I hate it. I used to manage my music manually in iTunes and I loved it. Then my devices stopped syncing properly and I went with Apple Match. Now I'm on Apple Music and I like the selection, but the implementation is still rough, and Shuffle ***** hard.

Based on my previous observation about there appearing to be two Up Next queues (an "outer" one and an "inner" one), I think I have a slightly firmer grasp on what's going on with the Back button.

Like before, I'll start with nothing playing and an empty queue. I'll use playlists for my example because, like me, I think that's all that anyone in this thread cares about.

Pretend I have two playlists called Alphabet1 and Alphabet2 with the following songs:

Alphabet1:

A

B

C

D

E

F

Alphabet2:

G

H

I

J

K

L

[I won't bother shuffling because it's immaterial for this demonstration.]

- I start playlist Alphabet1

- A starts playing and Up Next shows B, C, D, E, F

[Alphabet1 is now playing in the "outer" queue.]

- I skip ahead through A and B

- C is now playing

- I go back and 3-bullet "Play Next" on Alphabet2

- C is still playing but Up Next now shows 6 songs (G, H, I, J, K, L)

[I'm still in the "outer" queue.]

- I skip C

- G is now playing

[I'm now in the "inner" queue.]

- I skip G

- H is now playing

[Here's where things get weird.]

- I hit Back, and it takes me back to C!

[I'm now back in the "outer" queue. When G finished playing (or was skipped), it was removed from the "inner" queue. H then became the front of the "inner" queue. Hitting back past the front of a playlist normally stops, but because we're only in the "inner" queue, playback defaults back to where we were in the "outer" queue. Thus C.]

- I skip C

- I is now playing

[It would seem skipping back through the "inner" queue also removes that song from the "inner" queue, so H was removed when I skipped back, making I the new front of the "inner" queue.]

- I hit Back and I'm back at C again

- I hit Back and now B is playing

- Back again and now A is playing

- Back once more and everything stops.

So what does this tell us? It tells us that we can properly shuffle a playlist by adding it to the "inner" queue, but we completely lose the ability to use the Back and Forward buttons in a non-destructive way.

And to add insult to injury, when a song finishes playing from the "inner" queue, it gets listed in History, but you can't get back to it using the Back button because it's been removed completely from the queue.

This has got to be a bug. There's no way this is supposed to be the intended behaviour. I'll file a bug report. Hopefully with more detail of what's going on, they'll be able to fix it.

I think I just stumbled upon another bug. When I skip forward through a song in the "inner" queue, and then skip back to go back to the "outer" queue, and then just let it play naturally without skipping forward, the next song it selects is the original first song in the "inner" queue (the one I skipped forward past). Up Next shows the next will be the next song in the "inner" queue, but once this original first song finishes playing, it just stops playing. Probably because it fell into whatever weird timeline the original first song I skipped was put into (a playlist of one?) and playback stops because it reached the end.

I have this same issue with not cycling through the entire playlist (555 songs) before repeating. It started happening the update before last. it is driving me crazy considering I purchased all of these songs and have always been able to trust that it cycles though all 500+ songs. It is totally driving me crazy!!! I don't know why Apple had to screw around with something that was working fine. Totally disgusted!!!

It is my hope that Bob Maguire, who has surely given this issue more attention than Apple has, will find his bug report successful. He's also figured out a workaround that, while not ideal, requires four button presses and then allows you to enjoy Shuffle the way you once did before. And it's a far sight better than our other option before (you know, NO OPTION).

Ooh whow I am not the only one with this problem. It's annoying me from the start of Apple Music (Before that i used Spotify).

I have a playlist with 200 or so songs in it (Feel free to listen to it btw) but the music app keeps giving me the same numbers and it are always the same song witch come back 😟 . Hate it. lets hope apple is going to fix this.

(I am on 9.2 Closed beta now, but it's there from the Start of Apple Music)

Adding one more voice to this chorus, not that it will make a difference. I had been using a refurbished iPod Nano till it finally died on me last month, so I caved and switched to the Music app on my iPhone 5s. This lack of control is ridiculous, and Apple is so convinced its UX designers and developers know what we want that it's now their way or the highway. All I want is to be able to reorder my songs one time, and then treat that as a static playlist. It can't be THAT complicated to keep something working the way it already was. For years. *sigh*

I don't know how people are saying it used to be great. I've got an older iPod Touch still on iOS 6. It has NEVER shuffled correctly. I'm dealing with it still. I have a Christmas playlist that contains all single songs and albums of Christmas music. There are 39 albums and over 200 songs represented. Not only do I hear the same songs over and over, but I'm only hearing songs from about 4 albums in the playlist. It is infuriating - and it has ALWAYS been like that when I try to use shuffle. 😠

Mine is a fourth generation iPod Touch, and every year I try to shuffle my Christmas playlist (it's the only "repeating" one I have) I get the same thing. It's even more distinct - it basically shuffles songs out of four of the 39 albums, and EVERY NOW AND THEN a random one from another album. But 90% of the time it is out of those four, and many times it will be 2 or 3 songs out of the same album back to back. I do not have that issue on iTunes on my computer - I'm just running 10.7.5 on that. I've checked everything I can think of - all songs are checked to be played. I'll even manually skip songs and it is still stuck on those same albums!! It's very frustrating - to the point where I end up stopping the shuffle play and just pick and album and cycle through them. 😟