Shuffle doesn't include all file from playlist

[Halnilam]

Hi

I've been looking into this matter for a while - not thoroughly just a while - but couldn't find anything close from what seems a pretty obvious and simple problem:
whenever I play music, I can't get it to shuffle among all the files.
Let's say I have 20 mp3 audio files, named from 1 to 20, one would expect the shuffle to attribute virtually a number from 1 to 20 to the files and play them in an order that is not the order of the files' name but still plays them all? But what I notice is that it just plays a random number of songs, can even be 1, and then stops. It's bothering me, because i want it to be able to shuffle one full playlist, not play repeat and listen several times the same song, not have it cut the playlist in the middle, just play ONE TIME every song in a random order.
Do I make myself clear? Does anyone sees it, is it something I can fix in the settings or else and that I missed?

Cheers
H

[brokey]

I hope that the problem that I am getting makes sense and is similar to yours...
Anyway, when I first start playing a track on VLC and have shuffle turned on, after it completes playing the track it will go to another track in the same folder...it might play another one before it goes to another folder (album)...sometimes it goes back to the original folder and plays another track before going to another different folder...sometimes I have to physically select other folders and files so that that folder is recognised to play...

I hope that makes sense

cheers

col

[Halnilam]

hum no, i think what you mean is like you have to physically open the folder (by playing a song or double clicking it) so that VLC can read music files, even tho it was already in the playlist but as a folder, not developed as several mp3 files, hence it doesn t read mp3 files in folders as long as they aren't manually open? I noticed that too yay.
But it's a different problem. Maybe that happens because you need to allow vlc to add these files to its library, I know I forbid it, thus it makes sense to me that it might not know what's is in the files for every file i add in a playlist is "new" to vlc.

[Ranger101]

I've been looking into this matter for a while - not thoroughly just a while - but couldn't find anything close from what seems a pretty obvious and simple problem:
whenever I play music, I can't get it to shuffle among all the files.
Let's say I have 20 mp3 audio files, named from 1 to 20, one would expect the shuffle to attribute virtually a number from 1 to 20 to the files and play them in an order that is not the order of the files' name but still plays them all? But what I notice is that it just plays a random number of songs, can even be 1, and then stops. It's bothering me, because i want it to be able to shuffle one full playlist, not play repeat and listen several times the same song, not have it cut the playlist in the middle, just play ONE TIME every song in a random order.

When I open a folder with videos(90 videos) from VLC and choose to shuffle playlist, VLC stops playing files without playing the whole playlist. I neglected it for the first time but it happens again and again. I think it is what you meant and I have the same problem. (VLC version: 3.0.11 Vetinari)

[brokey]

I have stopped using VLC and have gone onto WACUP which is a continued version of Winamp...does everything I need...

cheers

col

[DERoss]

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64
VLC 3.0.11 x64

I created a playlist in an .xspf file for 41 .mp4 files. Some are video and audio, and some are audio only. They are all relatively short popular music, the longest not more than 10 minutes.

I selected the .xspf file and the Random button. After playing many but not all of the .mp4 files, some started to repeat. Should not VLC play all the files in my playlist once without repeating? I did not select the button for looping.

[DERoss]

windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64
VLC 3.0.11 x64

Here is a possible solution.

My saved VLC playlists are in .xspf files, which are actually xml files. After some introductory markups, there is a tracklist section containing a track element for each .mp4 file. Each track element contains a vlc:id sub-element that is merely a unique sequence number. After the tracklist section is an extension section that lists the sequence numbers as vlc:item elements.

I would design playing a playlist to use the extension section in the order listed, using a temporary copy of that section. With the Random
button selected, however, I would randomly (pseudo-randomly) rearrange the vlc:item elements when making the temporary copy.

If the looping button is NOT selected, playing would stop when the last vlc:item is used. Thus, no file would be played twice before all the
other files were played. If the looping button is selected, a new randomized temporary copy of the vlc:item elements should be generated
for each loop. Yes, this might cause the last file played during one loop to become the first played in the next loop; but with my playlist
of 41 files, there would be only a 1/41 chance of that happening if the randomizer were reasonably good.

NOTE: An encryption application that I use depends on a randomizer. It does not use a mathematical random number generator, which would be
deterministic. Instead, it collects random data from many sources on my PC, including mouse positions, timings, and keystrokes.

[eeldna]

Windows 10 (latest built), VLC 3.0.11 (x64)

The random play is badly broken. It repeats the same songs frequently and misses others.

= Context
I have thousands of songs. They are in the following folder structure D:\Music\<Genre>\<artist>\song.flac
If I want to play Rock, I use explorer and go to D:\Music ... I then Right Click "Rock" and select "Play with VLC media player" or "Add to VLC meda player's play list". Let's assume VLC media player was closed.

= Behaviour
1. VLC will read in the D:\Music\Rock folder and have 500 artists. It then expands ONE folder and adds the artist's tracks (eg. 10 tracks). It then plays a song from artist "A" believing it's the complete list.
2. Then it randomly selects either another song or one of the artist names. If it selects a new artists, it's as if the "random" is reset. Basically, repeat step 1.

This is what I believe is causing the randomness to be broken. Whilst playing my songs, I can hear the same track 50 times, sometimes twice or three times in a row.

= Possible Solution
When reading the song list, expand folders. Then randomise the full list.


Thank you. I hope this helps.

[guygreej]

Honestly this is my biggest concern with VLC. Random play is so choosy. I can have 20 songs 1 - 20. It will choose songs 1 - 8 and endlessly cycle through them forever. For all of 2020 I've been using this random play on my entire music collection playlist and only few songs came up. How random is it if the entire year the same songs are played. Finally installed the shuffle.rua extension to simply shuffle the playlist and go song by song and it is a sweet sweet dream. rediscovering some music i had all along and honest had to create an account to rant on this, what a let down to deny my own experience of music by a player. My own music even that I already have.

[Halnilam]

OK I get it, I think. VLC actually does decent random (at least better than in my first post) if one uses the library.
I indeed notice that if I re-activate the library that i previously de-activated, now I can access my "mediatheque" - well sry my interface is in french =) i guess it s translated library - from which I can move files, even folders, to the "playlist" icon. If I now "play" that list, it appears that VLC will open the folders and subfolders when finishing a track, and it seems the random this way is way better. Note that I haven't been doing that long and I can't tell for sure, but at least it works better that when you just play files in VLC from the desktop.

[DERoss]

This might be a separate problem --

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64
VLC 3.0.12 (x64)

Instead of using a preset playlist, I used [Media > Open Multiple Files]. After playing several of the selected .mp4 files, VLC started repeating the most recent file although there were several unplayed files remaining.

[Halnilam]

==> "I have stopped using VLC and have gone onto WACUP which is a continued version of Winamp...does everything I need..."
That's why one chooses to post a topic about a bug on VLC in the first place, to try and have it fixed. I know how to switch to winamp on my own. But then I don't solve anything on my initial problem, that's why this trend is not called "How do I install another media player in 2021 while in my thirties"

So yeah no, going back to what I previously posted, the playlist doesn't actually change a thing, still shitty as frack.
Someone has came up with smtg new?

And no the expanding playlist folders trick doesn't do it here.

[DERoss]

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64
VLC 3.0.18 x64

Although I have been retired more than 19 years, my prior 30+ years as a software tester working on complex systems used by the US military to operate its earth-orbiting space satellites prompted me to test this latest version to see if this problem was fixed.

First of all, I noticed the "Shuffle" button has been renamed "Random". Most music devices and computer software for playing music use the term "Shuffle". There is a difference. If I generate a sequence of random numbers, the concept of "random" means it is indeed possible that the same number will appear more than once. If I shuffle a deck of cards, however, the cards will be in random order; but there will be no duplicates.

I generated a playlist of 15 .mp4 files containing songs that are definitely old. I am 81, and at least one song is older than I am. I ran this latest version of VLC to play the list and selected the "Random" button. After 28 plays, one song had not yet played; the other 14 played twice. The first song was repeated immediately after the second. The 26th play was immediately repeated as the 27th.

I then used Excel to generate a series of 28 random numbers in the range of 1 to 15. VLC's performance was consistent with Excel. As I noted earlier, however, random play is not the same as shuffle play. By renaming the button as "Random" was an easy way to address this problem, but I think it was not satisfactory. I want the capability to shuffle play.