Why is Shuffle play so hard to find/deactivate?

I always listen to full albums. They always play in order from first song to last song. I frequently listen to several albums by one band or performer in a row. I have never clicked on shuffle, so maybe that’s why I don’t see this problem.

I have never ever switched to shuffle but every now and then it just comes, it then takes ages to figure out how to switch it off. Just put the “shuffle” button in a prominent place on the album and this would not be a problem.

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In reply to Danny, I just go to Roon, press play and it shuffles, I eventually find the unshuffle button, press it and it plays okay, then when I visit Roon again, the same.

Look at Settings - Play Actions - Albums. There is a shuffle button that is probably turned on.

Roon has many different ways to play “shuffled”. You can shuffle the queue, you can shuffle straight from clicking on an album, and Roon Radio.

The queue setting for shuffling does not automatically come on, nor does it default to on.

Can you clarify what you are hitting to play and which one of the above circumstances you may be encountering?

The problem is that the shuffle button is only available on the queue screen.
If shuffle is activated and you are in an album view and want to play it unshuffled you have to click a lot: go to queue screen, click shuffle button, go back to your album, click play.

That you can’t see in album view, if shuffle is activated, don’t make it better. I cannot remember how often I started to play an album and it don’t play in order. Very frustrating.

Imho shuffle should be automaticly diabled if you click ‘play now’ on an album. All other play modes or playing single tracks should let the shuffle mode unchanged.
Or the shuffle button should be in the footer, so you can always see the shuffle mode.

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Queue shuffle is such an uncommonly used feature we decided to move it to the queue and off the main footer.

Those people who turn it on, probably would figure out how to turn it off. in my opinion it’s not a very useful feature, but we didn’t want to break backwards compatibility with the users that did use it.

I suspect James_Fitzgerald is correct. I mainly play my library on shuffle because I like the variety. When I want to listen to an album it always plays from the beginning in correct order.

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neat… have you tried just picking a seed track or artist and letting Roon Radio shuffle for you?

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For me it is an important feature and I use it often. I have two main use cases.
Background music, radio or playlists or subset of my library with mood specific focus, plus adding single tracks manualy - shuffle on
Listening to albums - shuffle off

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Good decision in my opinion, I would never use a music player without a shuffle function

I have to generally agree. I don’t often use shuffle but when I do I find it catches me out the next time I play and I have to think “how do I turn this thing off”. Roon doesn’t often make me have to think like this.

.sjb

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… but there’s an indicator in the footer to prompt you.

It is too small to be recognized, but make it clickable and everything is fine

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I never use “Shuffle play” but for some reason, every now and again it seems to be activated. On my Mac Book Pro, bottom right corner there is the shuffle symbol but it is inactive, nothing happens when my cursor hovers over it. I did eventually find it in the queue menu, but surely, if it is on the main page and anywhere where one can initiate the playing of music, then everyone is happy. I never use it but understand that there are people that enjoy the feature.

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I sometimes use Roon Radio for parties, but I’ve got so much music I’m satisfied listening to my own.

I tend to agree that 1) shuffle is a useful feature and 2) it can be very confusing how it is turned on or off.

I would suggest that – instead of changing the shuffle icon to a different color to signify a change in status (i.e., blue = shuffle is on, black = shuffle is off) – change the icon itself so that it alternates between showing two parallel directional lines (i.e., parallel lines with arrows) when tracks are played in order, and then showing the current intersecting lines (i.e., the ones it currently always shows) when tracks are shuffled. With this approach, I would suggest just keeping the icon displayed blue at all times.

In short, it is counterintuitive to have the lines that cross showing at ALL times, even when tracks are playing in order. I think that’s part of the confusion (in addition to the fact that control can sometimes be hard to find).

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I finally found the shuffle icon on the main screen, next to the track total time. Is there a reason we can’t toggle it on/off from here? And where is Repeat?

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both are on the queue page… they affect the queue.

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Well, of course… why didn’t I realize that? Yes, rhetorical question. But they are both on the main screen on my iPhone. Hmm. Thanks. .