Shuffle seems to have favorite tracks

General Discussions
1

Hi all,

I am running version 1.18.45.2309 Plex Media Server on my Synology NAS for about a year now. Love it. I use it exclusively for music. I have a bunch of different players (SONOS, WEB, Alexa, Roku & Android). I have just under 5000 tracks, and I primarily run the entire library in shuffle mode.

I have noticed that Shuffle tends to play the same tracks quite frequently, while others have played only once since I set this all up.

I have read that Radio will use last.fm to determine popular tracks, so I would expect favoritism in Radio mode. But I wouldnā€™t expect that in Shuffle mode.

Am I missing something? Do some of the players (Iā€™m thinking Alexa and Sonos) default to a Radio mode while others do not?

Thanks in advance for any explanation or tips.

2

There are many common misconceptions about the true meaning of ā€œrandom.ā€ Most people think that random means evenly spaced but really random includes tight clusters and even duplicates.

For things like random shuffle and such things to prevent duplicates and too tight cluster have to be written in.

But I would guess in your case the ā€œpopular tracksā€ selection is somehow skewing the results and the prevent duplicates and too tight clusters is not really having the desired effect.

If it becomes possible to turn off the suggestion engine and see if your shuffle improves. I almost bet it will. Machines are no good at choosing in a truly helpful manner unless they are given a real small sample or a really huge one.

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3

This tip shows how to create a playlist that forces a little more ā€œdemocraticā€ shuffle that may help.

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4

along with the auto shuffled playlist, you can actually disable the ā€˜smartā€™ shuffle

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5

I didnā€™t expect evenly spaced. But when I have two tracks from the same album and one has been played twice while the other has been played over 30 times, and I never specifically requested the track, it makes me wonder what is going on.

Thanks for your response. Is this ā€œsuggestion engineā€ a real thing that I can disable. If so, where do I find it?

Thanks

6

Thanks for the link. I just set up a smart playlist. Looking forward to hearing stuff I havenā€™t heard in a while.

Thanks again.

(and thanks to Techno Junkie for the tip)

7

Hi TeknoJunky.

I donā€™t see that option. Is it new? I think I have the latest server. I am running on SynologyNAS.

Thanks

8

did you try from @ Plex Web or using local ip addr?

also, see @ RadioDaysSinceLastPlayed option

9

It was both. Turns out I was on version 1.18.xxxx. I just upgraded to 1.19.4.2935.

Now I see it.

Thanks, Iā€™ll give it a shot.

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10

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