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Random mode or shuffle doesn't work properly


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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42 replies

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.

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?

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.

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 

Hoppity hop, it’s that time of the year : I don’t think the “shuffle” is working either, so yeah, a small shoutout on this topic, any improvement would be appreciated.

 

Could we at least know what is the algorithm behind the “shuffle” option?

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.

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

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.

Shuffel mode find and play music  i dont like and have never downloaded and never listen to. Why??? 

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).

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.

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.

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.

@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.

On iOS I can assure you that random works like a charm. I get a new list every time I shuffle my favourites. So I can appreciate the fact you can't get this right and that we need to fix it for you. I've now forwarded your comments, with your details, to our developers to see if there's anything they can suggest in the meantime. Thank you for your support and patience in the meantime!

 

Hey, it’s that time of the year! Although I tend to agree that this problem is known and nowhere to be fixed, I’d like to rererereport this (and no it does not work on iPhone, since I’m using the app on the iPhone 8)

I have exactly the same problem, so much so that I am blocking favourites that I hear every day from my 3000 favourites. Perhaps this is the best solution?

it’s always funny watching customer service getting torn apart 

 

btw, I also have this problem, both on the webpage, and the mobile app (Honor 6a maybe first, then redmi 10 I think, don’t know which version, but android) 

 

there’s 1400 songs on that playlist, it should take 80 hours to hear the same track twice, not 20 minutes

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