8.0 USB shuffle is no longer random

[jerry33]

As far as I can tell, it plays the same 20 or 30 out of 400 all the time. So annoying. Even if you set it to some other song, it will go back to the original list after a few songs. My idea of random would be to create a hash with every song title and then randomly pick them until every song had been played, then reload the list and use a different seed value. Even better would be to have a star rating system and then, while going through the list, play each song number of times that it had stars (not in a row of course). This should not be a hard algorithm to implement.

 

[bob_p]

Selecting songs randomly is a task for a beginning programmer - relatively simple.

It seems unlikely the software would go through the extra work to pick out the next song from alphabetical groups of songs.

It shouldn't be too difficult for some of us to do some testing on this. Select the USB source, set shuffle mode, pick the first song - and then quickly skip forward to the next song, and see if there is a non-random pattern.

 

[supratachophobia]

As far as I can tell, it plays the same 20 or 30 out of 400 all the time. So annoying. Even if you set it to some other song, it will go back to the original list after a few songs. My idea of random would be to create a hash with every song title and then randomly pick them until every song had been played, then reload the list and use a different seed value. Even better would be to have a star rating system and then, while going through the list, play each song number of times that it had stars (not in a row of course). This should not be a hard algorithm to implement.

I'm seeing duplicates come up when I get back in the car (songs Ive already heard that day), but not duplicates within the same car ride yet or the same order when that song comes up again.

 

[Aljohn]

There are a couple of "odd things" I have noticed on 4 differing vehicles -- my X , Audi, Fisker and Toyota (that's about as diverse as one can get). They all behave the same, that is of the 700 songs, the ones that play are fairly predictable (as far as I can recall) and some songs seem to never play using USB. Secondly, if you use the "forward" >> function to skip ahead, the songs will alphabetize.... they will continue to play alphabetically by title until the USB or USB device is no longer selected. Oddly, the same is true of my "ancient" IPOD when plugged into the USB port. It appears there is something inherent in USB connected devices that cause this phenomenon. I really don't understand what alphabetizes the song list.

Any expert feel free to chime in. I don't quite understand the "why", just what happens.

 

[f-stop]

Had anyone noticed *how* it shuffles? It's kinda cool. If you play a song with a title that starts with the letter A, then the next song will be with an artist with the letter B or C, then the best song with be an album starting with D or E, and so on and so forth. So there is some sort of logic going on there that tries to keep it bouncing around. It seems to be working.

I use the USB audio player a lot and have several collections of music of varying sizes on different USB flash devices (from a few dozen songs to 7000+ songs). I've never seen such a structured pattern when shuffling, on previous firmware versions nor on the latest I received a couple days ago 2018.2 0eddd23 - just did a quick test on my 7k+ collection and could not see any such pattern.

But on the topic of non-random shuffle - I haven't had this latest version long enough to tell if that's finally fixed, but as someone else pointed out over in the other big USB bug compilation thread, on other recent firmware versions if you initially start your USB music playing from the main "Recents" menu rather than directly picking a song in the USB section, then the USB player seemed to not repeat shuffled sequences - that was at least a workaround to the non-random shuffle.

I do notice one thing that remains the same on 03ddd22 as before: If I manually pick a song and let shuffle do its thing, if a few songs later I manually select the same first song, then the same sequence repeats after that. If however I manually break the sequence somewhere (e.g. by manually selecting a totally different song after the first few) and THEN manually pick the same first song again, then shuffle plays a different sequence of songs than the first time. But again, this is same behaviour I've seen with prior firmware versions. It'll take a few more days of usage to see if shuffle repeats sequences during uninterrupted play like it did with other recent firmware versions...

 

[supratachophobia]

I use the USB audio player a lot and have several collections of music of varying sizes on different USB flash devices (from a few dozen songs to 7000+ songs). I've never seen such a structured pattern when shuffling, on previous firmware versions nor on the latest I received a couple days ago 2018.2 0eddd23 - just did a quick test on my 7k+ collection and could not see any such pattern.

But on the topic of non-random shuffle - I haven't had this latest version long enough to tell if that's finally fixed, but as someone else pointed out over in the other big USB bug compilation thread, on other recent firmware versions if you initially start your USB music playing from the main "Recents" menu rather than directly picking a song in the USB section, then the USB player seemed to not repeat shuffled sequences - that was at least a workaround to the non-random shuffle.

I do notice one thing that remains the same on 03ddd22 as before: If I manually pick a song and let shuffle do its thing, if a few songs later I manually select the same first song, then the same sequence repeats after that. If however I manually break the sequence somewhere (e.g. by manually selecting a totally different song after the first few) and THEN manually pick the same first song again, then shuffle plays a different sequence of songs than the first time. But again, this is same behaviour I've seen with prior firmware versions. It'll take a few more days of usage to see if shuffle repeats sequences during uninterrupted play like it did with other recent firmware versions...

I've seen the same behavior you mentioned about choosing a song previously played. However, if I toggle the shuffle button on and off, it remixes the shuffle sequence.