Weird Album Shuffle Behavior

[Drifter]

Hi, I've been using MusicBee for years and really appreciate it.

I almost only use MusicBee to play my own saved library of mp3 and flac files.

I have a long lasting "audio player behavior" issue with the software however, where MusicBee does not shuffle tracks inside of an album until I open Preferences (ctrl+O) and press "save", closing it again. After that, it shuffles properly, but manually clicking play on a desired track instead shuffles a random track from that album.

My issue is very weird, so I'll try my best to explain it again and more clearly with a step-by-step:


- MusicBee is closed

- I launch MusicBee

- Shuffle is ON (bottom right)


Here's how it behaves on EVERY fresh software launch:

- Using "MediaNextTrack" plays tracks in order and does not shuffle

- Using "Playback : Play Next Album" selects an album at random from my playlist, but always chooses the first track of the album, and plays the rest in order rather than shuffling.

- Manually clicking "Play" on a song plays it without issue (Desired Result)


Now, I open Preferences with Ctrl+O, click "Save" without changing anything, and here's the new behavior:

- Using "MediaNextTrack" shuffles tracks within the same album until it finishes all tracks, then jumps to a new random album and a random song within it (Desired Result)

- Using "Playback : Play Next Album" selects an album at random from my playlist and plays a random track within. (Desired Result)

- Manually clicking "Play" on a song plays a random song from the album rather than the one I clicked on


--------------

This has been consistent across multiple different installations of MusicBee. I have no idea how to fix it.  I have NOT fiddled a lot with the settings, because I don't know what most of them do.

- Here's what my "Now Playing" settings look like:




I'll be monitoring the thread and am open to sending you my complete settings files.

Cheers

[redwing]

It seems "Shuffle album tracks" setting resets (only internally since the setting is still ticked) when MB restarts. The user has to re-enable the setting manually to get it respected.

[Drifter]

It seems "Shuffle album tracks" setting resets (only internally since the setting is still ticked) when MB restarts. The user has to re-enable the setting manually to get it respected.

I've been suspecting that too, so I tried to check if my settings weren't being saved properly, but couldn't find anything. I'm not exactly too savvy on the subject either.

But to confirm: everytime I launch musicbee, I have to ctrl+O, save, and then it behaves somewhat like I would want to.

Still has that weird issue of when I click a song, it plays a random one from the album instead, as if I gave the signal that I want "this album" instead of "this song".

[Bizy]

Drifter:  the 'weird issue' you describe is related to one of your settings:  you have 'shuffle album tracks' checked. (Yet, if you uncheck this, MB still won't do what you want. I tried to figure it out, but couldn't. 
b.

[Drifter]

Drifter:  the 'weird issue' you describe is related to one of your settings:  you have 'shuffle album tracks' checked. (Yet, if you uncheck this, MB still won't do what you want. I tried to figure it out, but couldn't. 
b.

Well, I WANT the player to shuffle album tracks when I'm telling it to seek the next album or track, but if I double click a track in particular I don't want it to shuffle and play a random song from the selected track's album instead.

You get what I'm saying? It's weird/unexpected that it does that.

[Bizy]

Yes, I got that! ;-)

All I'm saying is:  it's related to that setting. (So for MB, you're not clicking a song, but an album, that it will play shuffled - no matter what song you click.)

You would need an optional setting: 'shuffle album tracks except when play now' or 'play now overrules other settings' or something like that.)

[Steven]

Yes it is the case the "shuffle in album" setting is not loading on restart. Thats fixed for the next v3.3 update

[Drifter]

Yes it is the case the "shuffle in album" setting is not loading on restart. Thats fixed for the next v3.3 update

Thank you! What about my other "issue" as described here: "Manually clicking "Play" on a song plays a random song from the album rather than the one I clicked on."

Is it planned for the near future?

[Steven]

can you explain what exactly you mean when you say "Manually clicking Play" ?

[Drifter]

can you explain what exactly you mean when you say "Manually clicking Play" ?

Sure.

After I do my little "ctrl+O" and "Save" in order to make MusicBee start shuffling albums and tracks, whenever I double click on a Song in my playlist to play, instead of playing that particular song it insteads plays a random one from the album of the song.

For example:



I have double clicked on the Red highlighted track, but another one from the album played.

Instead, I would like the track I clicked on to play, then to resume normal shuffling within that album afterwards.

EDIT: Right click and choosing "Play Now" has the same effect.

[Steven]

https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee33_Patched.zip
unzip and replace the existing musicbee files

[Drifter]

Looks like I got my wish fulfilled. Works perfectly on startup, both Album Shuffle and my so-called "unwanted shuffle after double click" are fixed. If I had known it'd be so fast I would have made a forum post long ago!

Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it. I'll keep you posted if I find anymore weird shuffling behavior.

[Drifter]

EDIT: Nevermind, I found the option in Sorting/Grouping. Fixed it.

-------------------
Original message:

Actually, I do have another issue that I've just now noticed.

The shuffling "By Album" seems to take into account "Album Artist" tag rather than the actual "Album" tag, so it doesn't play the whole album in one go.

For example:



If the random shuffle hits a AKITAKA TOHYAMA song, it'll play those two songs then move to an entirely different album, skipping all the ones by SATORU KOSAKI.

I don't recall that happening before, but I may be mistaken.

[CritterMan]

You seem to be using the Album Artist tag the way the Artist tag is generally used. It's recommended to use the same Album Artist tag for an entire album and the Artist tag to break it down by track. Regardless of if a change is made to prevent this behavior in this case, you may want to adjust how your music is tagged.

[Drifter]

You seem to be using the Album Artist tag the way the Artist tag is generally used. It's recommended to use the same Album Artist tag for an entire album and the Artist tag to break it down by track. Regardless of if a change is made to prevent this behavior in this case, you may want to adjust how your music is tagged.

Actually over the past few years I've manually adjusted most of my library's tags in order to facilitate shuffling with the "Album" tag. I think I forgot to redo my settings in Sorting and Grouping after my last reinstall, that's all.

No bugs here, I'm a thoroughly satisfied customer.