Is it possible to change it so when a DJ restarts the AutoDJ server using the AutoDJ script that it loads up a Station ID (7 seconds or so) first
Unfortunately that's not possible for the reason below.
and once finished carry s on playing the DJ mix where it left of and continue going through the playlist in order
Centova Cast's playlist system works on a per-invocation basis. So basically, every time your source software (i.e., ices-cc) needs to play a new track, it runs a Centova Cast script which asks for the filename of the next track to play.
Centova Cast internally does not care (or even know) how long it's been in between invocations of that script, nor does it have any idea if ices-cc has been running the whole time or was shut down for a length of time in between.
To put that in a nutshell, stopping the autoDJ will have zero impact on which track is served next. If Track 123 is about to be played next, it will be played next regardless of whether you leave the autoDJ running, or shut it down for an hour before starting it back up. (The only exception to that is, of course, if you have a scheduled playlist due to play when you start the autoDJ back up -- it will override the general rotation track which would have otherwise played.)
Even though i have the playlist set to play in shuffle mode all DJ mixes are still not being played equally. Many of them are repeating over and over and some don't get any playtime at all because of it.
No offence to you personally but we've heard this over and over ad nauseum, and nobody ever seems to be able to provide concrete evidence (i.e., logs) showing that the randomization is anything but random. We've analyzed many log files from our own streams and over time, taking weighting into account, the selection algorithm always appears to be doing what it should.
Usually it turns out the client has duplicate tracks in his playlists, either under different filenames, or as multiple entries for the same track in his playlist.
See also the
KB article about this which gives a bit more info.