shuffling seems a bit... repetative, don't you think?

Nice catch.. Sounds like a rand generator isn't being seeded somewhere.. tsk tsk tsk.

I got this on Kubuntu 9.04, songbird 1.2. Gets rather annoying after a while.

i agree!

It's a legitimate problem then.

I'm also having this problem, any word on a fix?

It's not a bug, it's a feature :) At least I guess so. A feature that needs change.

I think this is because in Shuffle mode Songbird plays tracks from a kind of "internal shuffled playlist". When you turn Shuffle mode on, Songbird makes a shuffled, internal copy of the playlist and plays the tracks in that order.

So when you pick and play some previously played track again manually, the playback continues from that position in the internal shuffled playlist. And because it's still the same playlist, the next songs will be the same as before. The shuffle order changes when you turn the Shuffle mode off and on again. But the tracks are still repeating if you go back to a previously played track.

As far as I have tested, all players (iTunes, Foobar.. and some others) except Winamp do it this way. And I hate this way. I In my opinion only Winamp handles Shuffle mode right.

I suppose Winamp also has some kind of internal playlist but there's one major difference. When you select and play a track manually, Winamp doesn't jump to that track in the internal playlist and continue playing from that location. After the manually selected song has finished, Winamp continues to play the internal shuffled list from where it was before. In a way it excludes the manually played track from the play order.

For example:

The playlist is Track 1 to Track 10, in normal order.
The internal shuffled playlist is 5, 1, 3, 8, 7, 2, etc..

Songbird/iTunes/Foobar/etc behavior:

Play order:
Track 5
Track 1
Track 3
Track 8 - User: "I want to hear Track 5 again."
-> Play Track 5
Track 1 - Player: (continues the internal shuffled playlist from Track 5 again)
Track 3 - User: "Bah. The same songs again..."
..etc

Winamp behavior:

Play order:
Track 5
Track 1
Track 3
Track 8 - User: "I want to hear Track 5 again."
-> Play Track 5
Track 7 - Winamp: (continues the internal shuffled playlist as if Track 8 was the previous track)
Track 2 - User: "Yay! A new songs!"
..etc

I REALLY wish Songbird would add Winamp-like Shuffle functionality. It prevents repeating the same songs every time you select and play a song manually.

I have this exact same problem. It get's very tiring if you have Songbird open all day and you play a song you like more than once in a day and you end up listening to the same list of songs again. Thoroughly frustrating...

What say you, oh mighty developers?

Has this bug been logged in Bugzilla? I couldn't find it

I couldn't find a bug report about this so I made one:
http://bugzilla.songbirdnest.com/show...