Shuffle option not working properly since update

[Dachimotsu]

I love using VLC's option to add everything from a folder and its subfolders to a playlist instantly. I keep all my music in one categorized folder, and all I have to do is right-click it to get a shuffled playlist of every song in my collection. At least, that's how it used to be.

For some reason, VLC now likes to focus very hard on only a select few folders, and will mostly just play the songs in those folders over and over before occasionally playing something new. I tried playing one tiny folder and one huge folder at the same time, and it ran through the tiny folder twice before playing anything from the big folder.

Furthermore, it used to be that if there were any songs I didn't want played, I could just archive them in .rar files and VLC would skip them. But now it plays them, anyway.

Specs: I am using Windows 10, and my version of VLC is 3.0.4 Vetinari (which it says is the latest version as of now).

[unidan]

Hi,

Just to be sure, are you talking about random order playing or shuffling ? the Playlist engine has been remade from scratch for the next major version.

> Furthermore, it used to be that if there were any songs I didn't want played, I could just archive them in .rar files and VLC would skip them. But now it plays them, anyway.

We can play music directly from archives so yes, it won't work and is not a bug. You could try to rename the archive file to change ".rar" into ".rar.something" maybe ?

[Dachimotsu]

Is there a way to disable its ability to read from archives?

And as far as the shuffling goes, the issue is that the randomization restricts itself to only a small percentage of folders at a time, rather than drawing from all folders at an equal pace.

[Dachimotsu]

(pushed to second page, at least 72 hours have passed) Bump.

Update on my issue: I spent a couple days rapidly cycling through my entire music collection without shuffle turned on, just so that every song was in VLC's history. Shuffling still did not work properly after this, but I noticed a pattern. The bigger the subfolder, the less likely it seems that any songs from it will play. My biggest subfolder has only had one song played from it since this issue began.

[Dachimotsu]

(pushed to second page, one week has passed)
Bump.

[Dachimotsu]

(pushed to second page, over a week has passed)
This is my last bump. It's sad, but if this issue isn't at least addressed, then I'll have to find a different media player.

[stillem39]

I’ll bump this as well, as I’m having the same issue. I have a bunch of tv shows that I love just putting on random, but it will mostly just pull from one or two folders at most. Is there really no fix for this yet?

[stillem39]

The only “workaround” I’ve found so far is to open “multiple files” and add all the videos I want to that playlist. And then I saved the playlist itself. Then I just open that playlist when I start VLC and it seems it shuffle it properly. Still a pain though...

[nikijs89]

I regret updating. I have big library of tv shows and i like to watch old episodes in random when reading news. After update, only few folders play over and over again. Folders with many seasons are in playlist, but only files from smaller folders are played. I switched back to windows media player (fixed all codec issues on my own and after few registry tweaks, its "working" better than new vlc). Its really funny, cause i hate wmp and i tried to fix this vlc bug, but i dont have knowledge. As i delete and add shows regularly, workaround with creating playlist manually wont work for me. Sad day for VLC, but thanks for many years of playing my files. BB

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I regret updating. I have big library of tv shows and i like to watch old episodes in random when reading news. After update, only few folders play over and over again. Folders with many seasons are in playlist, but only files from smaller folders are played. I switched back to windows media player (fixed all codec issues on my own and after few registry tweaks, its "working" better than new vlc). Its really funny, cause i hate wmp and i tried to fix this vlc bug, but i dont have knowledge. As i delete and add shows regularly, workaround with creating playlist manually wont work for me. Sad day for VLC, but thanks for many years of playing my files. BB

You can activate the playlist parsing in preferences. Did you check?

[nikijs89]

Automatically preparse already enabled and tried to set timeout for 1min, but same behavior. Is there any other place where parsing can be enabled? all folders shows in playlist, but they dont expand and vlc loops through already expanded folders. For example, i have cartoons folder with simpsons subfolder and all seasons in subfolders. When i play cartoons folder and on start some other show opens, there is no chance any simpsons episode will be played. If i open only simpsons folder, some seasons are looping around with small possibility hitting rest of episodes. Im not only one with this problem and did not find solution in forums. Even here no solution in previous posts. I guess i will risk and return to older version.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Subdirectory behavior, set to Expand in advanced preferences?

[nikijs89]

Subdirectory behavior, set to Expand in advanced preferences?

Ok, im dumb for missing that setting. Thank You. This setting needs to by turned on by default. There are many complaints about this behaviour and for lazy ppl its a pain to solve. Thanks to all hard working VLC developers out there.

[John Pawl]

A broken random play is a real deal breaker for users and potential users. Your average user will not know the proper setting to get random play to function properly, or where to find the setting. "Expand" should be enabled by default, as this is how almost everyone would want to random play, and how VLC random play used to work long ago. Random play is a primary & important feature on media players, having it broken by default is not a good idea. It should be ready to use without any tweaking from the user.