The VideoLAN Forums

As the heading really

Updated VLC (in May 2021)
Random play button is highlighted, and everyday it still plays the same songs, different order but the same songs
(I have like 200 songs on the playlist but VLC plays the same selection of songs, never any new ones)

any help on this please folks?

I just tried it myself over the space of an hour and vlc never played the same song twice.

You might want to go to the Advanced menu and then type Playlist in Search and then on the right hand pane checkmark "Play files randomly forever" which is what I did. Here's a pix of that menu.


(click to enlarge)

Do remember to Save, exit and restart vlc otherwise it'll revert to default settings again afterwards.

Thanks ...i will try that now

This should resolve your issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_R1NQbnZeQ

You might want to go to the Advanced menu and then type Playlist in Search and then on the right hand pane checkmark "Play files randomly forever"

That option was already selected for me.

I'm having the same problem as OP. It plays the same songs as yesterday (appears to be even the same order)! I have like 250+ in the list.

That option was already selected for me.

I'm having the same problem as OP. It plays the same songs as yesterday (appears to be even the same order)! I have like 250+ in the list.

That would seem a bit odd since the default is to leave it unchecked.

Try resetting preferences: https://wiki.videolan.org/VSG:ResetPrefs

You can make a backup of your current settings by copying the following two files which are located in
C:\Users\{yourusername}\AppData\Roaming\vlc

• vlc-qt-interface.ini
• vlcrc

I had the same problem. Here is what worked:
https://youtu.be/4_R1NQbnZeQ
In ADVANCED > PLAYLIST > >Subdirectory behavior > Expand