iTunes "up next" feature messing up playback

Question

Level 1

5 points

iTunes "up next" feature messing up playback

Since I updated to iTunes 12.5.1.21, I've noticed that if I want to play the songs on an album in order, it often won't do it, playing similar songs to the current song instead or even different songs with similar titles (for example, I have multiple versions of The Nutcracker, and it'll play the same piece from each version all in a row). It seems to be choosing songs for me. I verified that shuffle is off, and I've determined that it is due to the "up next" feature, which I never noticed before--if it was there, it definitely wasn't doing this. I can stop it from playing the other songs by clearing the queue, but then playback just stops after the current song. Is there a way to turn the "up next" feature off completely? I looked in preferences, but there seems to be no way to change it. If not, is there a way I can stop it from choosing the songs for me? Maybe this is just a glitch, but I don't really know what to do. Thanks!

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch,Early 2015), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Sep 22, 2016 6:22 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 23, 2016 12:58 AM in response to lilcottie

Pretty sure you cannot switch off 'up next'.

Let's say you want to play an album in order....Just make sure you are in ' Album view' (in the sidebar)

Then choose a song and it'll play the album from that point onwards.

That really should work, but if it doesn't then perhaps put the order of songs you want in a playlist.

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Answer 2

lilcottie Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 23, 2016 9:24 AM in response to Miles Hodge

I'm definitely in album view, but it still isn't playing songs in order. If Up Next isn't choosing the songs, then something else is. I can't get it to play most of my albums in order because it's choosing other songs for me. It's gotten so annoying that I have to listen to everything on Spotify right now. The playlist is a good suggestion, but it's not a permanent solution.

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Answer 3

Sep 23, 2016 3:10 PM in response to lilcottie

I've been having the same exact issue since updating to the new version of iTunes! I will be trying to listen to an album and suddenly it will switch to another song by the same artist, usually from a different album. I never had this problem before updating.

It seems like this is either a bug or it is some attempt by iTunes to get their player to act like a Jukebox. No! I just want to play my albums from beginning to end, like I always have been able to do.

Miles Hodge suggested that we should be in 'album view' or to make playlists of these albums. But I should be able to listen to an album all the way through whether I am in album view or artist view and making playlists is just tedious and should not be needed.

Let's try and collect as many people as we can into this thread so we can link it into a bug report and have Apple fix this?

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Answer 4

lilcottie Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 27, 2016 3:48 PM in response to lilcottie

Ok, so I've realized exactly what it's doing, at least on my computer. The title of my question is no longer relevant--it's obviously not 'up next' doing this. What it's doing is playing all the songs in alphabetical order, even when I'm on album view. So, when I have two songs with the same name on different albums, it'll play them back to back because they're next to each other on the alphabetical list. However, knowing what's happening doesn't mean I know how to stop it from doing this. Does anyone have any ideas?

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Answer 5

lilcottie Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 27, 2016 3:50 PM in response to lilcottie

And a temporary solution for anyone who has this same problem: go to song view and sort by album. Then it should play them in order. However, this doesn't solve the album view problem, so I'm still hoping someone will figure it out.

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Answer 6

Sep 27, 2016 5:21 PM in response to lilcottie

Hey, thanks for taking the time to look into this further and figuring it out! It turns out that my list was being sorted by number of plays. My album view and artist view actually works fine now.... are you saying your album view is still playing randomly?

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Answer 7

lilcottie Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 27, 2016 5:13 PM in response to iTunesForcedShuffling

It does seem to be working now, as long as the song view is still sorted that way. I guess this solves it, but it is weird that this has never happened before.

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Answer 8

vertigen

Level 1

14 points

Oct 9, 2016 8:35 AM in response to lilcottie

It depends on where you click to start the first track. If you click directly and with single-click the little arrow that appears when moving the mouse over the title you want to play first, it will play random songs afterwards.

If you double click on the title itself (not the little arrow) then it will play non-random.

It is a non-intuitive User Experience.

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