I always have MC Player set to with "Shuffle On". I play smartlists controlled by selection rules, but no intentional sorting or other modifications, because I like random play.
I use MC playlists in three ways: on iPods, through a Netgear MP101, and directly from MC. I'm using MC 12.0.279. When I play directly from MC its OK; the songs play randomly shuffled. When I play on an iPod, its own shuffle mode seems to kick in, though it seems somewhat less than random.
Problem: When playing via MP101, some playlists play shuffled (as I desire) with every song in random order. But some playlists behave similar to "shuffle automatic"; I hear all the songs on an artist's album, then it jumps randomly to another artist and plays that entire album. I never want this playback behavior, but I don't know where it arises. The MP101 is set to Shuffle, though switching it between Shuffle and Normal doesn't make any difference. Apparently the song order is determined by MC. Or is it?
By examining some of the smartlists that work, I see they have a modification, Sort by [random]. But I never put this in, don't know how it got there. Is the correct solution to add this to all my smartlists?
I searched prior postings and MC help but didn't find a clear statement of the circumstances and ways that MC controls song playback order, such as how Player and smartlist settings interact, and what happens when fed via the UPnP server. Do I have the best solution, or is there something I'm overlooking?