AutoDJ only plays artists from the first half of the alphabet

[Buckstop]

I'm really enjoying MusicBee, but I find that AutoDJ has a huge bias towards artists who's names begin with letters near the start of the alphabet. I'm playing my A's to death, and hearing my C's, but only occasionally make it down to K, and almost never beyond. Perhaps it would reach the Z's if I had enough patience, but after an hour or two, I'm usually ready to start a new playlist.

Is there something in the settings that I should change, or is this just the way AutoDJ works?

Thanks!

[Anti]

> is this just the way AutoDJ works?

No. Something is wrong.

> Is there something in the settings that I should change

I can't think of anything in the AutoDJ settings, Auto-DJ filter or shuffle settings which would play artists 'almost alphabetically'.

The only way to do it is to right-click the now playing list -> list -> sort by -> artist
But then it wouldn't be at all random; it would play all artists from A-Z and all tracks A-Z.

[psychoadept]

Is there something in the settings that I should change, or is this just the way AutoDJ works?

It would help if you could show us a screenshot of your Auto-DJ settings.

http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Screenshot

[Buckstop]

Thank you both for your replies. Here is a screenshot.

[psychoadept]

Hmm.  I wonder if this is an unintended consequence of the "play similar tracks" setting.  What happens if you turn that feature off?

[Buckstop]

scampbll,

With track selection set to "random," I get a random looking selection.

[psychoadept]

Hopefully Steven can explain why that setting might be causing a problem, then.

@Steven, I can confirm this issue.  If I turn on the similar artists feature, I get artists starting with: G, I, L, A, C, A, B, C, A, A, A, N, D, A, B, B, A.  If I turn it off, I get: A, J, D, P, M, M, E, D, A, S, F, D, M, A, T, R, B, E, D.

[Steven]

i have no problem with this function working for all artists. There certainly isnt any mid-alphabet cutoff

if you are using musicbee v2.2/2.3 the similar artists are saved to:
C:\Users\<your id>\AppData\Roaming\MusicBee\InternalCache\ArtistData\<artistname>.similar.dat
its a semi-readable file and you should be able to see the artists MB would be trying to match

edit:
actually i can see there is an unwanted bias towards lower alhpabet letters rather than bias towards more similar artists so i will correct that

[Steven]

this has the fix for v2.2:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_2/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

[psychoadept]

That looks a lot better to me.

[Buckstop]

When I run MusicBee.exe from the patch, I get this error message:

MusicBee v2.2.5064.35898 (Win6.1), 12 Nov 2013 19:04:

System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for '#=qj8j8p2SYcfkoHNUpqdQLLw==' threw an exception. ---> System.ApplicationException: Unable to load 'C:\Users\ADMIN\Downloads\MusicBee_Exe_Patched\bass.dll'
   at #=qpBl6i8R3eKedtIdD3xegZqxB$xmE5eRAkFkZyO5wvC8=.#=qO3LRXL9XOfTEI$Gh9Np0xsBpDB4H3LB2mPSzOY1erdo=(String #=qQi6bFZz0HTNheLQ6H3QBGQ==)
   at #=qj8j8p2SYcfkoHNUpqdQLLw==..cctor()
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at #=qj8j8p2SYcfkoHNUpqdQLLw==.#=qaqULOCCvPd4T7vMb0SZuKA==()
   at #=qxM9ZBmtJMF6QwSjx7zlrXHlO2HQfVnB3zvJBb4YiRGk=.#=qSdwlQWKiYE_7esj3s$O0nQ==(IntPtr #=qNwf7i24KFtOk7swymIZP3w==, ISynchronizeInvoke #=qvIuczKjffrkm8mHZ99y8wg==, Boolean #=qYmxP9NJ4ai4OqDd6D_otRw==, List`1 #=qmxfHILe54y2L02JjNsNY$A==)
   at #=qpDD_PF9NApfH0sEWzx9riSn9C0SUBpcofN4J0pPkORQ=.#=qmp2wRvN6BF18bF4JEOviSWnFGnGHAXvF$2plpT1wHdg=(IntPtr #=qdMYul9OR56cHcsxuMjQk9A==)
   at #=qhejMMePQBTBm843bUtgoCLN1gYBALRoZs0fsFbY0M6Q=..ctor(IList`1 #=qJ9DQ2g38RlVyFp5Dgwf2JQ==)
   at #=qhejMMePQBTBm843bUtgoCLN1gYBALRoZs0fsFbY0M6Q=.#=qhSCE4tn4ClURRCwX9_7gUAvC5y80roxad6Anu1wpDT0=.OnStartup(StartupEventArgs #=qhm9ef7WK67bRLBgIE9NqXg==)

[psychoadept]

You need to copy the patched files into your MusicBee directory.

[Buckstop]

I copied the files into the MusicBee directory, but it has not solved the problem.

[psychoadept]

You're still getting an error message?

[Buckstop]

I abandoned MusicBee, and this thread, a year ago without solving the problem. Today, I upgraded to the latest release, and am happy with the results. Thanks for your help!