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Keep getting error 701 when trying to play songs specifically from large playlists on Spotify

  • 26 December 2020
  • 11 replies
  • 21903 views

Hi everyone,

Posting here to see if anyone has run into this issue themselves, because it is one of the more peculiar issues I’ve run into. Spotify works fine on Sonos except for two use cases that I have identified.

Spotify runs into the “An error occurred while adding songs to the queue (701)” error when trying to play songs specifically from the “Your Library > Liked Songs” section, however I believe this is probably due to the fact that I have a lot of songs saved on Spotify and Sonos might not be able to handle a queue import of a certain length.

So I tested this theory by going to a joke Spotify playlist I made a few years back (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3g6qK5QC298x5YnVk3Kebn?si=g9lm_npFRh-OOPxA-hRrdA) which just has 10,000 copies of George Michael’s seminal Christmas hit ‘Last Christmas’, and I ran into exactly the same issue “An error occurred while adding songs to the queue (701)”.

Is there an internal queue limit that Sonos uses? Have other people encountered this problem and potentially knows a fix?

I have a Sonos: Play 5 (Gen 2) and a Sonos One on my network, all updated with latest software. This error occurs on both the Android and the mac OS app, so I don’t believe it to be platform specific bug.

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Best answer by Rowena B. 29 December 2020, 17:25

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11 replies

Userlevel 5
Badge +16

Hi @icerfish,

Welcome to the Sonos community and thanks for reaching out to us. Let me share some information about error 701 and how to fix it.

The error message "Unable to add tracks to the queue" or error 701 displayed on the Sonos app when attempting to begin playback. This is usually caused by network communication problems, either between Sonos and your router or between Sonos and the internet. Do you get the same error message on your other music services?

Let me suggest the next troubleshooting and see if it works for you

  1. A sequential reboot means that we need to do this in order.
    • Unplug your network devices (modem, router, any wireless access points on the network) from the power and wait for 60 full seconds before you plug it back in.
    • Once the router is back online, unplug all your Sonos devices from the power. Please wait 15 seconds before you plug back them back in.
    • Force close the Sonos app from your iOS or Android device.
    • When the status light on your Sonos speakers are solid white, get back on the Sonos app and check if you're connected.
    • Check the status lights on your Sonos speakers, they should have solid white light an indicator that your Sonos is connected.
  2. Change the wireless channel on the Sonos app
    • Settings > System > Network > Networks > SonosNet Channel > You can toggle between 1, 6 and 11
    • Observe your Sonos system performance.
  3. If you have access to your router settings, below are the settings that need to be verified. You can contact your Interner Service Provider or router manufacturer for assistance.
    • The auto channel must be set to Off
    • Choose the best non-overlapping channel (1,6,11)
    • Set channel bandwidth to 20MHz
    • Both 2.4GHz and 5GHz should be enabled
    • UPnP should be enabled
    • 802.11 bands should be set to b/g/n
    • Airtime Fairness should be disabled (if applicable)

If there's no improvement with your Sonos system, it would be best for you to continue working with us over the phone to expedite the process.  I recommend contacting our phone support with your full network setup including the make and model of each device and for more in-depth troubleshooting steps.

Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns, we'll be glad to assist you.

 

UPnP should be enabled

No, NO and, once again, NO.

Will you people kindly remove this from your standard boilerplate.

UPnP in a router is for gateway control. It’s a notorious potential security hole, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Sonos’ use of UPnP for AV purposes. It should be disabled.

I for one am forced to enable UPnP on the cable routers my ISP is providing, otherwise Sonos won’t work. Don’t know if it’s in any way related but these routers are members of the hall of shame (incompatible hardware list) since my journey with Sonos started back in 2012.

I for one am forced to enable UPnP on the cable routers my ISP is providing, otherwise Sonos won’t work. Don’t know if it’s in any way related but these routers are members of the hall of shame (incompatible hardware list) since my journey with Sonos started back in 2012.

Indeed. There have been a few routers with badly written software where one type of UPnP affects the other.

These are, or at least now should be, a rarity and there’s no excuse for the Sonos script-driven support slavishly regurgitating what is dangerous and unnecessary advice.

Just look at them all:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Aen.community.sonos.com+%22UPnP+should+be+enabled%22

All since July 2020.

Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Well said @ratty. I would recommend @Smilja gets a new router if this security hole is required to be enabled for Sonos to work.

Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Plus the OPs problem has nothing to do with network problems anyway, he is just hitting the timeout issue inherent in loading large playlists into device queues.

This thread is a double-fail for Sonos support.

Plus the OPs problem has nothing to do with network problems anyway, he is just hitting the timeout issue inherent in loading large playlists into device queues.

To be fair, queue loading timeouts can be exacerbated by network throughput and/or packet loss issues.

Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Plus the OPs problem has nothing to do with network problems anyway, he is just hitting the timeout issue inherent in loading large playlists into device queues.

To be fair, queue loading timeouts can be exacerbated by network throughput and/or packet loss issues.


For sure, but this example seems to be exactly like all the other large-playlist repros.

Plus the OPs problem has nothing to do with network problems anyway, he is just hitting the timeout issue inherent in loading large playlists into device queues.

To be fair, queue loading timeouts can be exacerbated by network throughput and/or packet loss issues.


For sure, but this example seems to be exactly like all the other large-playlist repros.

Firstly thank you for actually reading my post! I assume there are a lot of `701` errors that appear in this forum, but I don’t think it’s an issue with either my Router or internet speed. But I will look into UPNP and see if disabling it helps at all (doubtful).

 

@controlav Are there any good threads about large-playlist errors you’d recommend to see if I can find any solutions there?

Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Firstly thank you for actually reading my post! I assume there are a lot of `701` errors that appear in this forum, but I don’t think it’s an issue with either my Router or internet speed. But I will look into UPNP and see if disabling it helps at all (doubtful).

 

@controlav Are there any good threads about large-playlist errors you’d recommend to see if I can find any solutions there?

There are no real solutions here: it takes too long, because it is too large. Not sure if the timeout varies by client (eg try my app, my timeout is 10s I think?) or is determined by the player itself.

Firstly thank you for actually reading my post! I assume there are a lot of `701` errors that appear in this forum, but I don’t think it’s an issue with either my Router or internet speed. But I will look into UPNP and see if disabling it helps at all (doubtful).

 

@controlav Are there any good threads about large-playlist errors you’d recommend to see if I can find any solutions there?

There are no real solutions here: it takes too long, because it is too large. Not sure if the timeout varies by client (eg try my app, my timeout is 10s I think?) or is determined by the player itself.

 

It could be an internet speed thing, as from memory Sonos doesn't support 5ghz, and my 2.4ghz always seems to run significantly slower in my experience. But overall have a 500mb async connection via Fiber. So potentially an issue?

 

But also this issue only started happening in the last few months, which might be because my "Liked Songs" on Spotify grows every week as I discover new music. I did however get a Sonos One, to supplement my Play 5: Gen 2. But I doubt that's the cause.

 

Right now it seems like the only way to listen to my liked songs (around 3,900+ strong) is to use Spotify Connect, which is not the most ideal implementation on Spotify's side, and that's probably only works because Spotify manages the queue internally.

Tried looking for your app but not on Android.