the shuffle option for auto dj plays tracks to often. have 2500 tracks in but it repeat the same songs. there no more options to change it than in sequential. in v2 the handling was more better. have post it in request forum for some time but it seems no other on are unhappy with that and no official reaction. will post it to the support too.

thanks

I agree. 

The shuffle works on some strange pattern that keeps repeating the same songs.

I got used to ocassionally move some songs around the playlist in hope to disrupt the pattern.

 It is not a big problem, but it would be nice if the playlist would shuffle through the entire playlist every once in a while.

Totally agree. Shuffle is really bad. There is something wrong with the way it picks the songs. Always repeating the same songs and other never get played. Not working at all.
I'm using a workaround, created several playlists with general rotation rules to simulate a better random process.

the shuffle option for auto dj plays tracks to often. have 2500 tracks in but it repeat the same songs.

The RANDOM_UNIQUE_PERIOD setting in /usr/local/centovacast/etc/centovacast.conf controls how long Centova Cast will "remember" which tracks were played and avoid repeating them.  During that period, you will not hear the same track repeated unless you have multiple copies of the song in different files in your media library.

in v2 the handling was more better.

With all due respect, if that's true then you're imagining it.   v3 uses the exact same code as v2 for this -- it's literally identical.

All my mp3s are 1-3 hours long (dj mixes)

I wonder if the length has anything to do with it?

Yes, per above the RANDOM_UNIQUE_PERIOD value is specified in minutes so if your tracks are very long, you won't see the same level of randomization as a station that has, for example, typical 3-5minute tracks.  For 3hr tracks, the default RANDOM_UNIQUE_PERIOD of 6hr will basically only guarantee that you never hear the same two tracks back-to-back, but will do nothing beyond that.

Increasing the RANDOM_UNIQUE_PERIOD value will increase the randomness but will increase CPU load every time a track is selected, since MySQL has to sift through a longer track history to weed out duplicates.  (If all of the stations on your server are playing 1-3hr tracks then this will make no difference to performance at all, but if some of them are playing typical 3-5min tracks then those stations will be impacted.)

in v2 the handling was more better.

With all due respect, if that's true then you're imagining it.   v3 uses the exact same code as v2 for this -- it's literally identical.
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ok maybe imagine :-) at this point
but if you read my postings in http://forums.centova.com/index.php?topic=2628.msg7641#msg7641

quote:
"in version 2 you could upload the songs and they were randomized automatically in the library. if I inserted it into a playlist I could play it in sequence order. so the playlist repeat only after all tracks was played 1 time. in v3 this does not work anymore?"

maybe its possible as an feature to shuffle a playlist one or two times and than play in sequence order.

RANDOM_UNIQUE_PERIOD
now i know why the jingles plays to often the same too. there only two options to play it. "play ONE track from this playlist in order" would be cool.

i like centova and a important part is the auto dj feature, thats why i use this software.

(hope it was comprehensible because my bad english)