Shuffle a Genre Doesn't Work

[HFBoroni 3]

So I was in the "Shuffle All issue" post on the forums, but I was in the "Android TV / Fire TV" section. I found it with a search and didn't pay much attention after that. Once that solution was posted, I thought my identical issue with my Samsung TV was resolved... BURMP! I was told I needed to post in this, the Samsung TV section. So here we go...

I just re-tested the problem. In a nutshell, doing a "Shuffle" within a Genre is all over the map. Right now, I picked my "R&B & Soul" genre (Yes, one I named uniquely for my own use). I shuffled that genre. The first 3 songs? "Hot Blooded" by Foreigner (genre: "Classic Rock"), "Keep on Lovin' Her" by Jeff Lorber ("Jazz"), and "I'll Make Love To You" by Richard Elliott ("Smooth Jazz"). Clearly, something about the "shuffle" in a genre is broken.

[Luke 42077]

HI there, what version of Emby Server are you on? What version of Emby for Samsung?

[HFBoroni 3]

The server is on my Windows 10 Home laptop, version 4.8.3.0. And Emby for Samsung 1.2.6.

FYI, I switched last night to using "Instant Mix" and I'm not so sure that's working as designed. I chose some older pop/rock artist and first songs were Christmas.

[Luke 42077]

OK we'll take a look at this. For an immediate fix you could install the latest version of Emby for Samsung via USB: https://emby.media/emby-for-samsung-smart-tv.html

[HFBoroni 3]

I get my Samsung apps from the app store. Right now it says 1.2.6 is the latest version and I'm on it. I went to the web page to install via USB and it appears all the older versions (the most current is 10 years old?) aren't applicable to my 3-year-old TV.

Thanks for looking into it! As a retired Software Engineer, I know how much "fun" this debugging can be.

[Luke 42077]

Hi, the tizen usb install can be used with your tv.

[HFBoroni 3]

Okay, tizen USB installed. Genre shuffle still not working. I picked one genre, shuffled it, and got songs from all over the map.

[Luke 42077]

7 hours ago, HFBoroni said:

Okay, tizen USB installed. Genre shuffle still not working. I picked one genre, shuffled it, and got songs from all over the map.

Hi there, what version number did you install?

[HFBoroni 3]

Emby for Samsung 1.7.6.

Interesting, minor difference, the word "MediaServer" (my name for the music server on my Windows laptop) is surrounded by a green background in the old version 1.2.6; in the new version, 1.7.6, it's surrounded by a white background. (Odd, but that way I can then tell if I'm on the old vs. new version.)

Anyway, when I click on a genre and choose "Shuffle" it is definitely not sticking with that one genre. In my latest test, not even the first song was in the same genre.

Then I thought, "I'll create a playlist from my entire Blue-Eyed Soul genre, cleverly call it "Blue-Eyed Soul". When I clicked "Create" it went round and round and never completed. I thought it froze (see below), so I restarted the server and re-started the app on my TV. Now there's a new option: "Playlists". I chose that and it was empty. I re-did the creation of a Playlist with all the songs in the Blue-Eyed Soul genre (222 songs). As my TV whirled and twirled (doing the "Create" playlist), I checked Task Manager on my laptop -- it was using a lot of CPU. When that went to almost zero, I saw my TV was back. So, I checked my new genre (it had been created!). But instead of 222 songs it had 1,709 tracks!

It just seems when I pick a "Genre" it does not have the right guardrails on just that genre. So, when I shuffle the genre, it's really shuffling a whole bunch of songs. Same with picking a genre and trying to create a playlist -- no limit (by genre), instead, a lot of songs. I did see that a lot (most? all?) of the genre's songs WERE in the new playlist, but I can't figure out how to verify they all (222) were in it.

Hope this helps.

[Luke 42077]

Quote

Interesting, minor difference, the word "MediaServer" (my name for the music server on my Windows laptop) is surrounded by a green background in the old version 1.2.6; in the new version, 1.7.6, it's surrounded by a white background. (Odd, but that way I can then tell if I'm on the old vs. new version.)

Hi, it's hard to visualize this. Can you show a screenshot example? Thanks.

[HFBoroni 3]

The background thing is a bit of a red herring (er, "green" herring)! It's more of a curiosity, not an "issue". I can't show the difference unless I uninstalled the 1.7.6 tizen version on my Samsung TV and re-installed the 1.2.6 one. So, I made up a JPEG that simply points out a difference I noticed. Namely, when I make a selection on the main screen between "MediaServer", "Playlists" or "TV Shows", the 1.7.6 version that I now have installed shows my choice with a white border; in the 1.2.6 version, the selection would be green instead.  

[Luke 42077]

13 hours ago, HFBoroni said:

The background thing is a bit of a red herring (er, "green" herring)! It's more of a curiosity, not an "issue". I can't show the difference unless I uninstalled the 1.7.6 tizen version on my Samsung TV and re-installed the 1.2.6 one. So, I made up a JPEG that simply points out a difference I noticed. Namely, when I make a selection on the main screen between "MediaServer", "Playlists" or "TV Shows", the 1.7.6 version that I now have installed shows my choice with a white border; in the 1.2.6 version, the selection would be green instead.  

Right OK. The color change is just our newer design.

[HFBoroni 3]

Any update? This seems to have gone into a black hole. (No worries; I assume you have more pressing issues!) 

[Luke 42077]

HI, we are looking into the genre shuffle issue. Thanks.

[HFBoroni 3]

@Luke I am also watching the other thread on this, under Google TV I believe. (https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/126643-shuffle-all-issue/) @ebr appears to be the analyst on that. I'm travelling in the insanity of Texas eclipse land right now without my laptop where my server (v4.8.3 IIRC) is located, so I can't attach logs or the like.

 

Everything seems to point to a server issue, not client. My additional info for debugging, I also use multiple genres (like "Rock; Pop"), but out of 20K+ MP3s, I'd say less than 2-3% have more than one genre. The genre shuffle is not tied to those exclusively.

 

Cheers!

[HFBoroni 3]

The other thread mentions server release 4.9.0.16 may have fixed the issue...?

[viking19 32]

Yes, 4.9.0.15+ has fixed the genre shuffle/play issue on Android TV so maybe on Samsung as well, you would have to install it to be sure. There are still problems using genre shuffle/play on the web browser and android mobile depending on which genre area shuffle/play is started from. Hopefully the devs release a stable version with the current fixes so that it is mostly usable.

[HFBoroni 3]

Excellent! I looked over the download page (https://emby.media/windows-server.html) and I'm not sure what version is currently stable. And I can't see a page that lists version[s] that are in Beta. 

[Luke 42077]

59 minutes ago, HFBoroni said:

Excellent! I looked over the download page (https://emby.media/windows-server.html) and I'm not sure what version is currently stable. And I can't see a page that lists version[s] that are in Beta. 

Beta is at the bottom of the page.

[viking19 32]

@HFBoroni I'm sure you've got this by now but for future purposes this will download a setup.exe and install over top off your existing server.

If you want to run a test beta(or older stable) server in addition to your current one you can go to https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby.Releases/releases then scroll to the bottom of the first(newest) beta (or down to an older version) and click on Assets then scroll down to embyserver-win-x64-x.x.x.x.7z and click on it to download the portable. You can then unzip it wherever you want and create a whole new server for testing. 

Edited April 29, 2024 by viking19
hockey is distracting

[HFBoroni 3]

Hey, I was traveling from my winter home back to Oregon for the last few weeks and finally had a chance to get back to this. I uninstalled my Emby server on Windows 10 (4.7.x.x IIRC). Then I clicked on the "Beta Channel" shown above. I ran the "setup.exe" and ended up with 4.9 according to the "Add/Remove" page. However, on the Dashboard page it shows version 4.8.7.0. I tried shuffling "Blue-Eyed Soul" and, while there are a lot of songs that ARE in that genre, there are about 10-20% that are not. First song was "Classic Pop" and another was "Classic Rock". Oddly, each and every "wrong" genre were from the same collection I have -- a Top 100 batch of Songs from 1968, all in the same Windows folder. There is a total of four different genres in those songs: one song **IS** "Blue-Eyed Soul", 45 songs are "Classic Pop", nine are "Classic Rock", and 11 are "R&B & Soul". Potentially important to note, that the one "Blue-Eyed Soul" song is the VERY FIRST SONG (alphabetically)! "(Sittin On) The Dock Of The Bay (Otis Redding).mp3"

One question about removing the old version - There were some checkboxes asking, basically, how much to remove when I uninstalled the old EMBY server. I didn't check any of them thinking I wanted my config data left intact. Should I have completely removed any trace of the old before installing the new?

Thanks!

[HFBoroni 3]

Okay, I lied (above)!! The VERY FIRST SONG (alphabetically)! "(Sittin On) The Dock Of The Bay (Otis Redding).mp3" is **NOT** (obviously) "Blue-Eyed Soul!" The only song in that folder that has that genre is "Cry Like A Baby (The Box Tops).mp3". Sorry for the confusion! Only if you sorted all the songs by genre would that have come out "First".

[Luke 42077]

4 hours ago, HFBoroni said:

Okay, I lied (above)!! The VERY FIRST SONG (alphabetically)! "(Sittin On) The Dock Of The Bay (Otis Redding).mp3" is **NOT** (obviously) "Blue-Eyed Soul!" The only song in that folder that has that genre is "Cry Like A Baby (The Box Tops).mp3". Sorry for the confusion! Only if you sorted all the songs by genre would that have come out "First".

HI, so are you saying it's correct now?

[HFBoroni 3]

Nope, it's not correct. I'm trying to help debug why the Top 100 of 1968 (66 songs) were included in the shuffle of "Blue-Eyed Soul" when only ONE song was that genre. The rest showed up intermixed with actual songs tagged with Genre:Blue-Eyed Soul. I'm not sure why Emby doesn't just go song-by-song and get the genres of each of them right.

[Luke 42077]

OK we'll take a look at it. Thanks.