Shuffle still SUX after firmware update.

I formated my Fuze, loaded the new firmware(V01.002.26A), formated again, analized 1600 sample songs (Just to test. will analize the rest later) with MediaMonkey, loaded them into the Fuze. Everything else seems to work OK but the shuffle still SUX! In the first two days of listening to the Fuze(Approx 27 hours) there has been 20+ songs repeated. I don’t turn my Fuze off but simply put it on pause and set it in the docking station at night to charge. I shouldn’t hear any songs repeat until AFTER it has shuffled/played EVERY song loaded. I thought the shuffle was supposed to be fixed with the new firmware. Did I do something wrong?

Message Edited by mmike on 04-17-2009 08:28 AM

@mmike wrote:
Did I do something wrong?

Yeah you just can’t read.

Bugs Fixed:   

• Shuffle doesn’t access beyond 2000 songs 

The shuffle was “fixed”.  What they fixed is the bug that it wouldn’t shuffle over 2000 songs.  If you had more than 2000 songs on your Fuze, only the first 2000 would be shuffled and not the remaining.  That’s what they fixed.

They never said they would change the way it does the shuffle.  So that hasn’t changed.

Do you have repeat on?  Try turning off repeat and leaving shuffle on.  

SUX?  Is there really a need to misspell the word and write it in all caps?  Seriously? 

Message Edited by Corilof on 04-17-2009 06:42 AM

Message Edited by Corilof on 04-17-2009 06:42 AM

@corilof wrote:


@mmike wrote:
Did I do something wrong?


Yeah you just can’t read.

Bugs Fixed:   

• Shuffle doesn’t access beyond 2000 songs 

The shuffle was “fixed”.  What they fixed is the bug that it wouldn’t shuffle over 2000 songs.  If you had more than 2000 songs on your Fuze, only the first 2000 would be shuffled and not the remaining.  That’s what they fixed.

They never said they would change the way it does the shuffle.  So that hasn’t changed.

Do you have repeat on?  Try turning off repeat and leaving shuffle on.  

SUX?  Is there really a need to misspell the word and write it in all caps?  Seriously? 

 

Message Edited by Corilof on 04-17-2009 06:42 AM

Message Edited by Corilof on 04-17-2009 06:42 AM

Well said!

No repeat is not on.  Why would they make the shuffle repeat songs before it plays all the songs first? What is the reason for this? Do the majority of folks really prefer having some songs repeated and other songs not played at all and having those songs chosen by the Fuze? Makes no sense to me. You stated:

The shuffle was “fixed”.  What they fixed is the bug that it wouldn’t shuffle over 2000 songs.  If you had more than 2000 songs on your Fuze, only the first 2000 would be shuffled and not the remaining.  That’s what they fixed."     Well that’s just it…It never shuffled even the first 2000 songs so the shuffle still isn’t fixed. It may have played some (not all) of the songs in the list at random but it never shuffled the songs. When you shuffle cards or dominoes you mix them up. You don’t put the ones picked out of the shuffle back in the group until all have been played. 

Message Edited by mmike on 04-17-2009 01:23 PM

“Hello, IT Department, have you tried turning it off and on again?” – The IT Crowd

Try turning the Fuze off and on again before complaining. This applies to all electronic equipment, not just media players.

It sets it’s random seed at boot, and at no other time that I’ve found. Even turning shuffle off, changing songs, and back on doesn’t reset it. This is actually expected behaviour.

Also, most of this is actually it being random and you just paying more attention to some songs than others, which gives the impression it isn’t working properly. There was a horribly trollish article on Slashdot about this a while back. Suffice it to say, the problem is with you and not the player. Sorry :\

mmike

I’m with you.  I have not had it be much of a problem in real life but conceptually it seems very logical that you’d want them all to get played once before you started repeating.

@mngrif wrote:

“Hello, IT Department, have you tried turning it off and on again?” – The IT Crowd

 

Try turning the Fuze off and on again before complaining. This applies to all electronic equipment, not just media players.

 

It sets it’s random seed at boot, and at no other time that I’ve found. Even turning shuffle off, changing songs, and back on doesn’t reset it. This is actually expected behaviour.

 

Also, most of this is actually it being random and you just paying more attention to some songs than others, which gives the impression it isn’t working properly. There was a horribly trollish article on Slashdot about this a while back. Suffice it to say, the problem is with you and not the player. Sorry :\

OK I turned it off and I’ll give that a try. Thank you for the suggestion. I truly hope your suggestion makes it shuffle. It’s not that I’m paying more attention to some songs than others. There simply is no way to listen to all 1600 songs in 48 hours much less 27 so you are incorrect on this assumption.

@mmike wrote:


@mngrif wrote:

“Hello, IT Department, have you tried turning it off and on again?” – The IT Crowd

 

Try turning the Fuze off and on again before complaining. This applies to all electronic equipment, not just media players.

 

It sets it’s random seed at boot, and at no other time that I’ve found. Even turning shuffle off, changing songs, and back on doesn’t reset it. This is actually expected behaviour.

 

Also, most of this is actually it being random and you just paying more attention to some songs than others, which gives the impression it isn’t working properly. There was a horribly trollish article on Slashdot about this a while back. Suffice it to say, the problem is with you and not the player. Sorry :\


 

OK I turned it off and I’ll give that a try. Thank you for the suggestion. I truly hope your suggestion makes it shuffle. It’s not that I’m paying more attention to some songs than others. There simply is no way to listen to all 1600 songs in 48 hours much less 27 so you are incorrect on this assumption.

Odd, I would have assumed that having Repeat off would prevent it from shuffling the same songs over again…

I keep my repeat on, so I wasn’t aware of this.  If that’s the case, then I would suggest it be changed within the next firmware update.  Having Repeat Off and Shuffle On should not repeat any song.  Of course, turning off the player should reset the shuffle, so once it turns back on any song is fair game.  

That’s how I feel about it.  And I do agree that the current way it shuffles songs could be improved. 

I don’t think the repeat function should have anything to do with the shuffle function at all.  It either shuffles or it doesn’t.  Repeating is a completely separate issue.

If we could get a SanDisk employee to chime in here, it would answer a lot of questions.  When are tracks randomized?  Every time the player turns on?  If so, that’s why you get repeats.  If they are only randomized when a database refresh occurs, then you shouldn’t get repeats unless you add/remove something.  Does the repeat function have some strange link to the shuffle function, and if so, why?

@tenzip wrote:

I don’t think the repeat function should have anything to do with the shuffle function at all.  It either shuffles or it doesn’t.  Repeating is a completely separate issue.

 

If we could get a SanDisk employee to chime in here, it would answer a lot of questions.  When are tracks randomized?  Every time the player turns on?  If so, that’s why you get repeats.  If they are only randomized when a database refresh occurs, then you shouldn’t get repeats unless you add/remove something.  Does the repeat function have some strange link to the shuffle function, and if so, why?

Well the way I’m thinking about it:

Repeat and Shuffle should work together.  Since both features are on the Fuze, why not utilize both of them together?

If Repeat is On and Shuffle is On.  Then (let’s assume I have 2000 songs), then every song should have a 1/2000 change of playing.  After a song has played it should randomly pick another (theoretically, there would be 1/2000 change that the song that just played would play again).  

If repeat is Off, then the Fuze randomizes the song on start up.  So if you were to let the Fuze play a week, it would play through all 2000 songs once, in a random order.

 

That’s just how I think it should work.  Feel free to disagree.  I don’t exactly know how it works right now.  

If I had 2 songs on, Shuffle On, Repeat Off, would it play the two songs and stop playing (since repeat was off)?  Or would it just keep randomly playing them? 

Shuffle is just that a Shuffle… Its plays a completely random song after a completely random song. If you player repeats a song then you need to hit NEXT. There is no way to play any player (That I have ever seen or heard of) where it shuffles through the media and wont repeat a song. Thats not how it works. the closest thing you can do is hit play all and turn shuffle off because the player sorts alphabetically and not by artist, it would be pretty well shuffled.

@conversionbox wrote:
Shuffle is just that a Shuffle… Its plays a completely random song after a completely random song. If you player repeats a song then you need to hit NEXT. There is no way to play any player (That I have ever seen or heard of) where it shuffles through the media and wont repeat a song. Thats not how it works. the closest thing you can do is hit play all and turn shuffle off because the player sorts alphabetically and not by artist, it would be pretty well shuffled.

Well first, it’s not completely random.  

Second, Winamp depends on the repeat function.  It won’t replay a song if repeat is turned off.  

Just because you don’t know of any other player who would do this doesn’t mean the Fuze couldn’t make it happen.  It’s certainly not impossible (and really shouldn’t be that hard to do).  

And sure it is how it works.  You can have to different situations: picking from a sample with replacement (repeat on) or picking from a sample without replacement (repeat off).  Shuffling is just a procedure to randomize.  You can shuffle a deck of card, give a card out and shuffle the same deck with that card missing…  then give another card.  Or you can shuffle the deck, give the card and put it back in.  Shuffle again.  It’s the same thing for the Fuze and would be easy to do.

Message Edited by Corilof on 04-17-2009 01:07 PM

@conversionbox wrote:
Shuffle is just that a Shuffle… Its plays a completely random song after a completely random song. If you player repeats a song then you need to hit NEXT. There is no way to play any player (That I have ever seen or heard of) where it shuffles through the media and wont repeat a song. Thats not how it works. the closest thing you can do is hit play all and turn shuffle off because the player sorts alphabetically and not by artist, it would be pretty well shuffled.

Actually, I don’t think this is how it’s supposed to work.  Suffle is not the same thing as random (or at least is not supposed to be).  There was a lot of discussion about this early in the Fuze’s life and changes were made to improve the shuffle feature in one of the early FW updates.

In the initial FW, the shuffle feature was implemented as totally random.  Meaning the next song was chosen at random without consideration for the previous played songs, so repeats were very common, especially in shorter lists.

In one of the early FW updates, they changed the logic to make it a true shuffle where the player in essence makes a temporary playlist of all the songs, randomizes it, and then plays the list from top to bottom.  This way you get random playback without repeats.  Also, my understanding was that this “temp playlist” was supposed to survive power cycles, so even if you turned it on/off, you still shouldn’t get repeats.  However, a datbase refresh would wipe the temp list.

And it seemed to work as advertised.  However, I’ve noticed a lot of repeats in Play All mode recently.  I noticed it prior to the latest FW update, so I think maybe something was broken in the 1.01.22 FW.   I think maybe the temp list is not surviving power cycles.  I don’t notice repeats within a given listening session, but after turning the player off and then then next day turning it back on and resuming playback, I frequently notice repeats of songs from the previous session.

If I flip a standard issue coin ten times and it comes up heads eight times should I complain about having a defective coin?

Just like a coin flip, every random shuffle selection is a unique event. The selection before it or after it or 25 selections before/after it has no bearing on the selection. 

I never “shuffle all” anymore with my Fuze…mostly listen album by album, only shuffle artist (once in a great while)  or GoList (occasionally) . I do think  that mine will shuffle through a full 200-song GoList without repeating any songs, although I can’t swear to it, because I don’t do it all in one sitting. :wink:

@conversionbox wrote:
Shuffle is just that a Shuffle… Its plays a completely random song after a completely random song. If you player repeats a song then you need to hit NEXT. There is no way to play any player (That I have ever seen or heard of) where it shuffles through the media and wont repeat a song. Thats not how it works. the closest thing you can do is hit play all and turn shuffle off because the player sorts alphabetically and not by artist, it would be pretty well shuffled.

 

THere are players that do shuffle without repeat.  THe basic difference is that instead of randomly going to the next song, it scrambles a playlist, then plays the list sequentially.  Said playlist could comprise your whole library, a genre, custom list, etc.

 This is how Rockbox does shuffle.  Also Foobar on the PC. 

 

 

Skinjob wrote:

 

Actually, I don’t think this is how it’s supposed to work.  Suffle is not the same thing as random (or at least is not supposed to be).  There was a lot of discussion about this early in the Fuze’s life and changes were made to improve the shuffle feature in one of the early FW updates.

 

In the initial FW, the shuffle feature was implemented as totally random.  Meaning the next song was chosen at random without consideration for the previous played songs, so repeats were very common, especially in shorter lists.

 

In one of the early FW updates, they changed the logic to make it a true shuffle where the player in essence makes a temporary playlist of all the songs, randomizes it, and then plays the list from top to bottom.  This way you get random playback without repeats.  Also, my understanding was that this “temp playlist” was supposed to survive power cycles, so even if you turned it on/off, you still shouldn’t get repeats.  However, a datbase refresh would wipe the temp list.

 

And it seemed to work as advertised.  However, I’ve noticed a lot of repeats in Play All mode recently.  I noticed it prior to the latest FW update, so I think maybe something was broken in the 1.01.22 FW.   I think maybe the temp list is not surviving power cycles.  I don’t notice repeats within a given listening session, but after turning the player off and then then next day turning it back on and resuming playback, I frequently notice repeats of songs from the previous session.

 

 

I agree with skinjob.  Shuffle is not Random, nor should it act like random.  Random is just what it is.  No Playlist, no nothing.   I could get one song playing right after it just finished playing.  But I expect shuffle to be a a little more sophisticated than just random playback.  I expect the playlist to shuffle initially.  Then play the songs in the shuffled order that was seeded until all the tracks have played.  Now if I use REPEAT, then I expect it to repeat just like an album would repeat.  So, repeat should then repeat the seeded list once all have been played one time through.

 

Now the question goes, when do I reshuffle the seed.  Obviously when I refresh the database, that would be a key time to reset the seed.  Also, when I cycle Shuffle on and off, it should reset the seed.  I also feel that if I choose another playlist (like album play, or genre play, etc…) then also that should reset the seed as well.

 

So in my opinion, I believe that If I say, Choose a Genre, and click play all, and have shuffle, then as long as that Genre/shuffle is active, It should service a power cycle or whatever.   I should be able to pause, or power cycle the player, and as long as I have not changed anything else on the player, it should survive.   Any thoughts?

maybe it is different shuffeling all music, but if I choose 1 album and have random on, it plays all songs on the album once in random order, no repeat.

Message Edited by Truex on 04-19-2009 01:04 PM

@robisan wrote:

If I flip a standard issue coin ten times and it comes up heads eight times should I complain about having a defective coin?

 

Just like a coin flip, every random shuffle selection is a unique event. The selection before it or after it or 25 selections before/after it has no bearing on the selection. 

 Wrong analogy.  If you shuffle a deck of cards and deal 8 queens of hearts in a row, then yes, you could say the deck is defective.  Random is not the same as shuffle.  Some players support BOTH and they are distinct functions.

I have had good results with the shuffle mode.  Best results are achieved if Repeat is turned OFF, of course.  Typically, I will select Shuffle after “play all” when I select a favorite genre.

When Shuffle is selected, the Sansa builds a list of tracks.  If you cycle the power, this list is retained, and the device will continue down the list.  My favorite feature in Shuffle is that the function IS list based, allowing one to back up a track, or several tracks, if a song was missed, or you would like to hear it again.

Some would like podcasts to blend in to the mix, I can’t imagine why one would want that.  The Shuffle routine builds its list based upon the scope of your selection, be it a single album (that you’d like to mix up the track order of), an artist (that you’d like to mix up the album tracks of), or the “whole enchilada”.

Some times I let the Sansa fly in this mode, but that involves running from Stravinski to the Toy Dolls, and it can be a little bizarre. 

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:


 There’s no place like 127.0.0.1