Random play especially in connection with consume has been a problem for a long time.
Lately in at least 2.114 and 2.118 there has been improvements (thank you) but now the now playing display does not match the actual song playing.
The playing songs seems to randomize but the now playing display advances according to the (in the que tab) shown play order.
It is also the on the now playing display shown song that is “consumed” not the actually playing song.
Now my conclusion is that now the randomized playback stops when it randomizes to a title already (incorrectly) consumed.
In addition to that if I jump to (select) the last title listed in the que then after playing it playback continues with the next randomized song BUT the now plaing display is empty and the play icon returns to the triangle. Now it is impossible to stop playback since the gui is out of sync.
I would suggest that changing so when randomizing the play que list also is randomized and resorted to reflect the actual playorder.
Adding a new song or album to the que would trigger a new randomization and updated que list order.
Hello,
At the moment Consume is not really aligned with the other modes. It removes the track just played and plays the next track in the queue, sequentially. However if Random is on as well another track has already been (randomly) prefetched and it is this mismatch you experience with the wrong track being displayed. Sometimes Random choose the same track as Consume and it seems to work.
Random mode plays tracks randomly and is not a shuffle. A shuffle is when the order of the queue is reorder and each track is played once. Random can at the moment play the same track twice in a row, shuffle would not do that. Every time a new track is going to be selected it is randomly picked from the present queue.
That explains a lot, I though that selecting Consume was a function that you added on top of the other selection.
Se there are several different use cases and preferences from users.
In some case you want a “party mode” where you have a specific playlist that you want to repeat for the whole evening (Random).
The way I tend to use Volumio is that depending on situation and mood I select a couple of albums/artist that is fitting.
Then I randomize and would like them to consume as being played.
It is also very nice in any use case to be able to see which song is being played next, so you have the chance to skip it.
I am pretty sure that there are many users out there who would like this.
I am not a developer and if I where I would definitely try to help coding for this great project.
For me currently the last really important piece missing in Volumio is this.
I don’t know which is the smartest, most consistent ,easiest implemented way but possibly …
Add a “button” in the Que tab “Shuffle” or “Re-shuffle”. That in combination with consume would work fine. So the Reshuffle would not be a playback mode but rather just something done to the current playcue. If you add another album to the que you can just reshuffle again.
Also possibly in the Play tab add at the bottom the title of the next song (if it fits also in the cellphone gui)
The main problem right now is if you combine Randomize and Consume you can end up in a situation where you basically have to reboot Volumio to get control back.
Again a big thank you to all who put in effort on Volumio.
Sorry there is something else wrong with “random play”.
It repeatedly stops even without having consume active also.
It almost always stops after playing first song, then it stops over and over again. Sometimes it plays a couple of titles before stopping.
Sometimes the play indicator stays as the “pause” symbol but sometimes it changes back to the “triangle”.
I don’t use playlists but instead I alsways add music to the que via first “Clear and Play” and then “Add to que” on following selections.
Repeat does not work at all for 2.118 - don’t use that mode.
Random should work in default mode (sequential play), but in combination with Consume it will sooner or later get screwed up since Consume deletes sequentially and Random wants to play randomly. They are not aligned.
There seem to be another problem with playlists where Volumio just stops the playback. There are several posts about that lately.
The Volumio people told me the other day that they are planning for a substantial rewrite of this part of the code. It will happen soon. We have to wait…
I’m struggling with similar issues and just wanted to do a bug report when I found this thread.
If I understood it right, there ist no shuffle mode in volumio? I tried to use “random” mode and I thought it doesn’t work properly because I have to here a song of a list twice or even more times.
Did I got it right that Volumio once upon a time had a functionality to add random songs to always play some music ?
I found some traces in /volumio/app/randomqueue.js that looks promising. I just have no clue how to use or activate it.
This functionality would be the last detail to get me really happy about Volumio.
With an brandnew RPi3+ I am bound to run 2.382 which does not have random nor consume mode at all.