Server Version#: 1.21.4.4079
Player Version#: 1.28.0.1681-cc6e807c
Hi. I’m finding that when I’m shuffling tracks 4+ star (auto playlist I have), it’s regularly repeating very similar tracks, including Tidal (I say that because Tidal is a very small part of my library, and yet it keeps appearing easily every time I re-shuffle the playlist…) It’s not just Tidal though, some tracks seem to keep popping up almost every time I shuffle the same playlist. The playlist has 5149 tracks in it and it seems unlikely it would be this regular (as much as I like some of the tracks that come up).
This is occurring with Plex Windows, Plexamp desktop, Plex for Android, Plexamp for Android, and Plex for LG TV (my model is older so the version may also be older).
Given how regular it is, I assume it’s a server-based issue. It didn’t do this last year, only started occurring this year, possibly from February. It was alright initially, but after a bit, I realised it’s always playing the same tracks at first.
Is no one else having this issue? I’m still experiencing it. Slightly better results if I instead play from a playlist, then enable shuffle for playback (rather than shuffle-play the list, where shuffle playback is not enabled), but still favouring certain tracks over and over a lot more than it used to. Which I wouldn’t mind, if it was an option and I’d selected it!
The latest server release includes a shuffle fix where single track artists don’t get preference. I’ve shuffled a few times and it looks like it might’ve either got better or been fixed.
I’m simply selecting library>tracks and shuffling the queue. Not making a playlist
There’s is a setting available on your Plex server via web that sets shuffle to prioritize popular and highly rated tracks and play less, recently played tracks.
However I find with this selected it only plays popular tracks and it repeats them often. Unselecting this is not recommended by @elan but I don’t know why, @elan why is it not recommended? Because with it unselected I get a much more randomly shuffled library with less track replays.
My library is +20k tracks and some fave artists have 20-40 albums so I expect more of those artists…which I get now. I think shuffle is trying to be smart and ends up being less so.
Yes I’d prefere shuffle to have separate controls for prioritizing popular tracks and not playing recently played tracks. I think they work against each other.
My library is ripped from CD with metadata checked manually and updated if necessary from many database’s as some of the main ones still don’t have data for every artist. In Plex though I have selected use Plex metadata (which probably come from the same source(s)?)
Because it should provide a better experience. Unfortunately there were some bugs in the server which made playing certain tracks (generally ones from albums with few tracks) earlier in a shuffle more likely than it should have been.
If you’re having pathological issues with it, please make sure you’re on the latest server, and haven’t disabled Popular track data. Please let us know details if you run into problems.
But what if I dont want to prioriritize popular or highly rated tracks?..
…but i would like to play less recently played tracks?
I have a daily notification on my unraid server for plex server updates and it usually updated on the day,… maybe a few days behind sometimes.
Also another issue
Since the last big plexamp update a few weeks ago when my wife logs in on iphone to the same account/playlist it often stops and restarts the playlist when she connects to the pi endpoint.
Thanks for the reply. its not the end of the world and generally still working ok. If that was an issue it would be with the device controlling right? not the enpoint or the server?
…Now back to the shuffle So if i would rather not have more popular and high rated tracks, are you still saying smart shuffle is better? Is there more to smart shuffle than this weighting? Is there somewhere there is information in detail about what smart shuffling is doing?
I’m pretty protective of the metadata of my collection. In particular, I don’t much care for album name for 90% of my songs, since the songs that have no album data are problably single songs from albums. I do not want to have 5000 single-song albums, so I’d prefer that Plex honor the album flag and not try to find it out on its own, instead lumping all non-album songs into one [Unknown] folder.
So when I have it point to my music, I have tried to disable a lot of the self-discovery options when making my music library. There are so many options in there that I’m not sure what they do. But one, labelled “Popular Tracks”, I wonder… If you disable this option for the library, does it disable the “popular tracks” part of smart shuffle? Would turning on smart shuffle then ONLY do the other thing it knows to do, and keep track of songs you haven’t heard before (plays < average plays = prioritize)?
It would be an issue with the device being controlled; Plexamp is just pinging it to see if it’s alive.
If you don’t want those biases, don’t use Smart Shuffle. There’s a fair bit of secret sauce in there, but it definitely looks at track popularity and rating.
I think so? But it’s not really a supported combination, so I can’t vouch for it.
And that being my Pi streamer, I’m guessing if the odd weird thing happens i will have to just sit tight and hope one day there will be an update. BTW super apreciate a CTO coming on here and anwering questions.
So, then, at what point is “Popular Tracks” data used? If the only time you can have Plexamp or any other player choose what tracks of mine to play, it sounds to me like “Smart Shuffle” would be the place. And if the data is gone then either “Smart Shuffle” needs to make do with the only other data it has left (number of plays), or it needs to fall back on “regular shuffle”.
A handful of things, include smart shuffle, radio stations (e.g. library radio) will almost completely break without it, showing artist popular tracks…
Just out of interest, is it documented anywhere how shuffle works, both normal and smart.?
I’m using non smart shuffle now for a few weeks and definitely find a better mix of tracks, artists. Much more variety.
Sometimes it seems a group of songs are linked by style or country of artist and I was wondering if theres any algorhythm there or is it just randomness seeming like something else?
I’d like to know more about what to expect from normal vs smart too. Last month I migrated my music library from a Drobo5N2 (slow but reliable for me) to a QNAP TS453-D (more power, steep learning curve). I’m running PLEX server 1.24.1.4931 as of 09.04.21. I have a large library (> 50K tracks) but Plex seems to latch onto specific cuts from obscure artists regardless of how I start a shuffle or PlexAmp radio. Since I migrated just the music collection and not the Plex server data, it lacks any play history. Some artists make it into a PlexAmp radio that defy explanation. Anyway, a comprehensive explanation of Smart shuffle would be greatly appreciated.
That level of granularity doesn’t exist at the moment.
So if i would rather not have more popular and high rated tracks, are you still saying smart shuffle is better? Is there more to smart shuffle than this weighting? Is there somewhere there is information in detail about what smart shuffling is doing?
