My shuffle list keeps playing songs I've played before

[Eugene Teo]

help my shuffle list keeps playing songs I've played before

 

I have no reshuffle on, shuffle set to full random

[andrewilley]

27 minutes ago, Eugene Teo said:

help my shuffle list keeps playing songs I've played before

I have no reshuffle on, shuffle set to full random

What Shuffle mode are you using, and in what Library Category?

A shuffle session cannot play song files that you've heard before. Poweramp builds a complete randomly ordered list of every file in your song collection, and then it plays that list from start to finish. Each song can only exist in the shuffled list once. The 'Less Random'/'Full Random' adjustment slider merely prioritises lesser-played songs to locations sooner in the list, but each song will still exist only once.

Check that you don't have any duplicates of your song files - for example in Settings=>Library=>Music Folders make sure you don't have the same folder choices selected more than once.

Make sure you aren't doing anything to trigger a new reshuffle (such as manually starting a new song playing, or switching shuffle modes, or using the Shuffle icon at the top of a new song list). Keep an eye on the track counter shown in the middle of the player screen. For example if you are listening to a collection of 2,500 songs in 'Shuffle All Songs' mode, it should start at 1/2500 and gradually count up 2/2500, 3/2500, 4/2500, etc. If it ever drops back to 1/2500 again, a reshuffle has occurred and you are listening to a newly reshuffled order, which may of course contain songs that you have recently heard in a previous shuffle session (as it is random).

If you still feel you are hearing a song that you've heard before within the same session, use the '<<' and '>>' buttons to skip backward and forward through the history of played songs until you find the duplicate. Check its file details by long-pressing on the album artwork area and choosing 'Info/Tags'. Compare that file location with the same info as displayed for the more recently-heard version of the same song - are they actually the same file, or (for example) the same song but from a different album?

Andre

[Eugene Teo]

On 5/24/2022 at 1:06 AM, andrewilley said:

What Shuffle mode are you using, and in what Library Category?

A shuffle session cannot play song files that you've heard before. Poweramp builds a complete randomly ordered list of every file in your song collection, and then it plays that list from start to finish. Each song can only exist in the shuffled list once. The 'Less Random'/'Full Random' adjustment slider merely prioritises lesser-played songs to locations sooner in the list, but each song will still exist only once.

Check that you don't have any duplicates of your song files - for example in Settings=>Library=>Music Folders make sure you don't have the same folder choices selected more than once.

Make sure you aren't doing anything to trigger a new reshuffle (such as manually starting a new song playing, or switching shuffle modes, or using the Shuffle icon at the top of a new song list). Keep an eye on the track counter shown in the middle of the player screen. For example if you are listening to a collection of 2,500 songs in 'Shuffle All Songs' mode, it should start at 1/2500 and gradually count up 2/2500, 3/2500, 4/2500, etc. If it ever drops back to 1/2500 again, a reshuffle has occurred and you are listening to a newly reshuffled order, which may of course contain songs that you have recently heard in a previous shuffle session (as it is random).

If you still feel you are hearing a song that you've heard before within the same session, use the '<<' and '>>' buttons to skip backward and forward through the history of played songs until you find the duplicate. Check its file details by long-pressing on the album artwork area and choosing 'Info/Tags'. Compare that file location with the same info as displayed for the more recently-heard version of the same song - are they actually the same file, or (for example) the same song but from a different album?

Andre

Hi, I'm still experiencing this problem even after checking all of the above. I don't seem to have the track counter either, how may I access/view it?

[Eugene Teo]

Nevermind I found the track counter, but us there any way I can access the playlist of the random shuffle? Just to check for errors there as there aren't any duplicates/even rerecordings and I've been hearing repeat songs almost every day even as the counter has been steadily rising 

[andrewilley]

On 6/11/2022 at 3:23 PM, Eugene Teo said:

Hi, I'm still experiencing this problem even after checking all of the above. I don't seem to have the track counter either, how may I access/view it?

I see you've found it now, but in case anyone else needs to know, it can be enabled via Settings=>Look and Feel=>Player UI=>Track Counter. I'd actually forgotten it was optional; I can't really think of any reason why I wouldn't want it, apart from maybe the declutter factor?

There isn't a way to display an all-purpose 'now playing' view, with history and upcoming items shown in a long list flat - although it is a fairly regularly requested feature ( LINK   LINK ).

There is a sort of half-way house option, in that you can use a category's song-level 'List Options' menu to set the current view to be organised 'By Shuffle Order'. While you wouldn't want this permanently set for albums/etc, if you are listening using 'Shuffle All Songs mode', you can go to the 'All Songs' library category and view the whole library in the current shuffle sequence.

Remember that every time you press the Shuffle button again, or if you manually select a new song from the list by tapping on it (other than if Settings=>Library=>Shuffle>No Reshuffle is enabled) a complete re-shuffle will be triggered and all bets are off about whether you may hear again something that you've heard recently.

 

I posted this in another topic, but I guess it more logically belongs here too. I expanded on a user's idea of checking the psychological effect of complete randomness objectively and scientifically. I sorted a large spreadsheet of numbers (for songs 1 to 3000) randomly 10 times, to represent PA re-shuffling a collection of 3,000 songs in ten new shuffle sessions. I then assumed that for each listening session you may get through perhaps the first 20 songs or so, and then when you come back you generate a new shuffled sequence and listen to another 20 random songs, etc.

So listening to just 20 songs, shuffled from a collection of 3,000, over 10 sessions, a completely random process resulted in the following songs (red) occurring more than once across those different sessions:


And the longer you listen, and the more sessions, the more repeats will occur naturally - and of course even more so with smaller music collections:

This is the nature of randomness - if you roll a dice six times, it's very likely that a same number could get rolled more than once.

Andre