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Answered

Random mode or shuffle doesn't work properly

W
Rank
Userlevel 1

Hello Deezer team

I have paid subscription for Hi-Res, so I’m your customer.

In general, your product is not bad, but for a long time I have one request for you:

please rewrite or change functionality of random mode or shuffle mode in your player for mobile and in web version for desktop.

I have 1688 compositions in my favourite list, and it's not all that I have and want to add to this lisr.

I’m not millenial and I know and love many artists and I have wide  musical preferences.
But I must listen only 20-30 the same compositions every time when I want to listen something different in my list of favourites or into “Flow” mode.
What is a shame?
You have the issue more than 2 years and still nothing for changing the situation?

And I’m not alone with it, look at complains on this forum.
Can you change the algorithm for example in this manner: add internal counter into user metadata for each composition and count each play. And play next time another compositions from list of favourites which have lower counter value. It's simple. Or please use more strong randomize function!

Hire normal programmers!
I understand you may use many variables before make desicion what will be played, like is song in cache or not and another evaluations ...
But what is I customer who doesn't have traffic limitation and I don't against to download as much as possible just do normal RANDOMIZE mode for me and my playlists.
I wrote my requests several times and nothing from your side ... It's shame, it's my opinion.
Do you need to save your customer, let him to stay with Deezer?

Or you already have millions subscribers and opinion of one of their nothing matter?
Or your customer should change music provider, on our market we already have Youtube Music and Spotify ...

Thanks

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Best answer by hpguru 2 August 2020, 17:38

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43 replies

A
Rank
Userlevel 1

Hello,

 

I’d like to add my voice to this. The random function is not working properly for me either, it's been annoying me increasingly to the point that I’ve been looking into other streaming services. Only thing holding me back right now is Deezer’s catalog, even though it ain't quite as complete as I'd like.

 

I'm mostly using random play of my favorite tracks, which have been downloaded, while I’m driving. Mostly 30mn to 1 hour sessions, sometimes more.

I currently have 1368 favorites, but Deezer seems to play only a fraction of these, and it feels to me like the order of play doesn't change much, as if the random function had just reordered my list once and is now playing the list in this order, and not randomizing every single play within my 1368 list.

I'll give you one example : I have every single Arctic Monkeys song favorited, but Deezer really really seems to want to make me listen to Piledriver Waltz. My last.fm stats tell me this song has been scrobbled 13 times in the last 365 days. I have also skipped the track at least this many times, maybe more, within the same period of time. So that makes roughly 30 plays of this song from Deezer, from a supposedly random choice in 1368 possibilities. And this is only one example on top of my mind. There are many others. Many favorites have never been played, some are overrepresented. For instance, Deezer seems to like Placebo a lot. I have quite a few of their songs favorited, but sometimes I'll get to listen to 4 or 5 during a 3 hour trip, which again doesn't seem quite right considering the vastness of my list.

 

I'm running an always up to date version of Deezer for Android on an always up to date Huawei P30. I subscribed to the beta program today and am in the process of redownloading my favorites to see if it changes anything to anything.

S
Rank

The problem with shuffle not being random is something Deezer already knows 3 years now. See this post: 

When are we getting a solution for this? I have songs that come up every time I listen to my favorites in shuffle, and then there are songs that I never ever hear. I looked back in my favorites and there are some songs that I haven't heard in over a year. 

GropplerZorn
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

That’s quite the allegation, Steve, and with zero evidence to support it other than your wild speculation and a wiki link that might as well have been a link to organized crime for it’s lack of probative value.

It’s just a music service, not a serious life choice. Why not just move on? You don’t need to answer that, by the way. No one needs another wall of text from you. Just straighten your tin foil hat and choose a service that better meets your needs.

G
A

@Steve C 

Deezer is one of the few services that really listens to its users. Many user ideas and requests have been implemented in the past.
Of course, this doesn't work with all requests, but deezer doesn't need to shy away from comparisons with other providers.
And quite honestly: You are not forced to use this service. Otherwise I agree completely with @GropplerZorn.

J
Rank
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

Sadly, I agree with this post. Whatever programming language is being used to develop Deezer, please just call the random() function and everything will be fixed!

J
Rank

Hi!

I have created playlists. Most recent playe is Janez_krneki včih has more than 600 tracks. I always choose random play but I’ve noticed that some tracks are like they are marked as fovourite because they are played very often bit some tracks are never played. Maybe you have some statistic tool so you can check numbers which tracks from my playlist were played and how often. If you want to reproduce probably you should start playing my playlist, leave it in play mode and after some time maybe day or two check the statistic.

 

Best regards,

Janez

 

H
Userlevel 7
Badge +6

If you want truly Random Shuffle, the YouTube Music is far from it. Do not try it at home.

It plays playlists almost in same order shuffled, ridiculous. I canceled for them and bought Deezer.

You shuffle playlist daily and literally it plays in same order (also their radio function). YTM thing.

P
Rank

Hi, 

I’ve been using Deezer for years and on a whole I think it’s good as it’s super easy to use, all the tracks I want is always in their search, good sound quality, access to podcasts, change day/ night mode and lyrics come with most tracks etc etc

 but the negatives that I experience with Deezer is enough for me to cancel my subscription and use another service especially as most others are cheaper for the package I need.

the negatives I experience are the random shuffle on my favourites doesn’t work very well. It seems to play the same songs and some songs on my favourites hardly ever get selected on shuffle. This issue seems to be a problem with a lot of users for a while evident from this forum and unfortunately hasn’t been resolved. I have an up to date iPhone11 and have the latest Deezer version. I have deleted and restarted the app etc and still doesn’t work very well.


another negative is using it with Amazon echo dot. It’ll be nice if I can ask it to play a particular playlist I’ve made but instead I can only get it to play ‘my flow’ or individual artists or tracks at a time. It doesn’t seem to allow me to ask it to play my favourites. 

It’s a shame the problem has not been resolved over the years since others seem to have been saying similar to me now for a while as I do enjoy most of this service. But now it’s probably time to cancel.

J
Rank

This issue is so much getting on my nerves. What’s so hard in implementing a random shuffle function? I don’t want to hear the same songs over and over again on long playlists. I’m so close to cancelling my hifi subscription (not that they will care).

A
Rank

Samsung s10 light

D
Rank

Came here to say exactly the same thing as the original post, after seeing the year review I noticed that my top played song is a song that I only purposely played once, all the other times it came in the random shuffle, not that it's a bad song, but definitely not my favorite, seeing it as the #1 came as a surprise and made me realize that the "flow" and "discovery" may not be working as effectively as it could or should.

M
Rank

Hi there @MarkOlofsen 

We're more than happy to help, but we need some details about your experiencing and what system/app you have - so that we can try to reproduce the issue on our side :pray_tone2:

Hi Rudi,

mobile ut Works perfect but on the tv app the shuffle button die not work : it dusapoears after one song.

I use the app on Ziggo mediabox next

 

S
Rank
Userlevel 2
Badge

This is an “issue” that Deezer knows full-well about, and has done for a long time.

The main reason it’s not being “fixed” is because Deezer takes payola (refer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola). This is the practice of being paid to play certain artists and/or songs/albums, unbeknownst to the listener (us).

They’ll never admit it, and Deezer is not alone in this practice, but it’s the only explanation for the behaviour we see and the lack of “fix”. All we get is lip-service from the poor moderator about “sending this on to our developers”).

So, if I select Shuffle my music I get the same Van Morrison song (Dark End of The Street), the same Emmylou Harris song, twelve million R.E.M. songs, etc, over and over, and virtually never anything from 90% of my other artists. (I even unfavourited R.E.M. to try to stop this and it helped, a bit.)

In short, we’re being duped by a company that is chasing profits. This kind of deception eventually backfires when a better company comes along and provides what customers want (and pay for!). Witness the disappearance of Yahoo! as one example, and the current decline of Facebook as another. People have a gutful and move, as other posters here have mentioned (me included).

Deezer could be the best music streaming service available IF its greedy overlords actually listened to its customers. Instead, they appear to be too short-sighted to do so, looking for the quick, easy buck instead.

I fully expect this post to get deleted, btw.

Yula
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +10

Hello there, I have been trying the shuffle option more recently and I can see a big improvement. Both in the “Shuffle my music” option and in the “Favourites” shuffle play. 

Please make sure your app is updated and let me know if you see any difference.

(She/her) add your pronouns to your signature!
M
Rank

Hi,

OS is Ziggo cabled to mediabox. Ask Ziggo ?

I can cast to tv with  chromecast, but i want it connected to app in Ziggo mediabox , so i can play it via myHifi system 

D
Rank

1 year after the shuffle option still doesn't work properly or nothing at all. It won't matter how many tracks get added, it will play the same 50ish over and over. I thought it was just me but it looks like it's a well known issue. I believe asking people for the phone they listed to on won't do anything, it requires a complete rework of the shuffle algorithm to fix the problem 

A
Rank
Userlevel 1

Thanks for the detailed feedback @amato 

All comments have been forwarded to our devs for their consideration. Have you tried removing the app, restarting the device, and performing a fresh install?


Yes @Rudi, I have. Thanks for forwarding to the devs.

A
Rank

Hi so before on the playlist I was able to start with one song put it onto random and a different song would come on and if I did not want that 2nd song to play next I would go back to the 1st song and it would pick a new 2nd song now it just pick the same 2nd song no matter what

Rudi
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +7

Thanks for coming back @ashowl77 

So that I can forward my bug report to our devs, could you please confirm your device model, OS and our app version?

Rudi
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +7

Hey @SilkeW28 

Apologies for the experience. In order to better help you with this, I need to know which device you have and the Deezer app version.

Thank you!

L
Rank

Everything is indeed up to date (same issue than on the web).

B
Rank

I’m certain that this isn’t your fault Rudi but still, I would be glad if something changed as soon as possible. As far as I’m concerned, this “what is your device, etc. ” is just a lazy excuse and a measure to buy yourself some time, as everybody has the following issues, most of which have been mentioned in this community for several years: My device is a Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 pro on android 10, I run Deezer on version 6.2.26.1. I am in the beta program. My issue with shuffling one certain playlist is that some songs appear always and some appear never. The thing is, my playlists contain like 50 songs. But the even bigger issue is that when I want to shuffle all downloaded songs, only two songs are in the queue. When they are over, the first song is played again, followed by a new song, after which the first song is played again. This repeats infinitely. Some songs appear in the queue, which I haven’t even downloaded.

It is sad, that such a big streaming service isn’t able to use a proper randomising algorithm, which is the least, a customer could expect. So pass on this feedback directly to the guys, who created the old algorithm and tell them to get to work.

Rudi
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +7

Is that running on what Android version @ashowl77? Can you also go into your app's settings and check in 'About', which version is it at?

Rudi
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +7

I know @MarkOlofsen we haven't had updates in a while - but they're coming. What OS is that box with? Android TV?

Alternatively, what brand of TV do you have? We've got different TV apps planned to be updated this year. But they're different developments with different release dates :thumbsup_tone2:

Rudi
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +7

Thanks for the detailed feedback @amato 

All comments have been forwarded to our devs for their consideration. Have you tried removing the app, restarting the device, and performing a fresh install?

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