I often need to move my music from Room A to Room B, shutting it off in Room A and starting it up in Room B. I use the red room name text at the bottom of the interface to do this. Unless I'm doing something completely wrong, it seems to be an overly complex multi-button operation to do this.
Let's say I'm listening in Room A, and I want to move to Room B. I hit the red 'Room A' text and I get the list of available rooms. Sonos doesn't allow me to just uncheck 'Room A', check 'Room B' and hit 'Done' to move the music from Room A to B. I have to first add 'Room B' and hit 'Done' so that both rooms become active, showing 'Room A + Room B' text on the interface. Then I have to go back in and uncheck 'Room A' and hit 'Done' again to get the music only in Room B. Sometimes, this does not work properly and the interface still shows Room A and I have to do the whole thing again.
This has been driving me nuts for a while now. I've always assumed it would be fixed in the next interface update, but it never is. Is it a bug, am I missing something, or is it just how it is meant to be used?
Any advice is appreciated.
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Diagnostic Reference no: 8195668.
In short I am toggling between rooms using the red group menu and currently it is showing that both the Living room and Kitchen are playing music, when actually the Bedroom is the only room playing and is not even highlighted? Now if that’s not frustrating I don’t know what is. Previously the beauty of Sonos was always trusting the software to do what you asked it to do but at present I am honestly at a loss as how to run my four speaker system and today my wife even had music playing in all rooms because she couldn’t define one room only. This simply isn’t fair for all your customers especially the ones who are long standing and have remained loyal to Sonos. Once again please sort this out quickly and revert to your previous software which was far more robust and also a lot more intuitive.
In short I am toggling between rooms using the red group menu and currently it is showing that both the Living room and Kitchen are playing music, when actually the Bedroom is the only room playing and is not even highlighted? Now if that’s not frustrating I don’t know what is. Previously the beauty of Sonos was always trusting the software to do what you asked it to do but at present I am honestly at a loss as how to run my four speaker system and today my wife even had music playing in all rooms because she couldn’t define one room only. This simply isn’t fair for all your customers especially the ones who are long standing and have remained loyal to Sonos. Once again please sort this out quickly and revert to your previous software which was far more robust and also a lot more intuitive.
Userlevel 7
+26
Looks like they're both wired there. Thanks!
The site should be up now so you can view the incidents. There was a hiccup this morning.
The site should be up now so you can view the incidents. There was a hiccup this morning.
Can't reach my incidents page so here are new diagnostics: 8181444. Both players now wired (does it show correctly?). UI still does not refresh correctly on subsequent grouping/move on android app, iPad app, mac os x app. I have screen capture videos I'll upload to Incidents once the site works. Thanks.
Thanks, Ryan! There's not a quick possibility to wire that currently-wireless player due to my cabling at home with the devices I have. I'll have a think about if there's a way to do it without losing the other wired devices. (I haven't had any issues with dropping music for a couple of years now, and with the new app everything plays flawlessly and my only issue is that UI not updating with the moving-music-with-grouping, and Spotify Connect but that's another issue.)
I'll follow-up with the support and not here.
Troubleshooting wise, the first thing to do really is going to be looking into the network and cleaning it up as much as possible. Since one of your players is wired in, it is talking to the other wirelessly. As a simple test, I'd try wiring your other player in too, and if possible, try sending the commands from a controller in the room with the wireless. That way you isolate out a lot of variables.
I'll follow-up with the support and not here.
Troubleshooting wise, the first thing to do really is going to be looking into the network and cleaning it up as much as possible. Since one of your players is wired in, it is talking to the other wirelessly. As a simple test, I'd try wiring your other player in too, and if possible, try sending the commands from a controller in the room with the wireless. That way you isolate out a lot of variables.
Thanks, Ryan! There's not a quick possibility to wire that currently-wireless player due to my cabling at home with the devices I have. I'll have a think about if there's a way to do it without losing the other wired devices. (I haven't had any issues with dropping music for a couple of years now, and with the new app everything plays flawlessly and my only issue is that UI not updating with the moving-music-with-grouping, and Spotify Connect but that's another issue.)
I'll follow-up with the support and not here.
Troubleshooting wise, the first thing to do really is going to be looking into the network and cleaning it up as much as possible. Since one of your players is wired in, it is talking to the other wirelessly. As a simple test, I'd try wiring your other player in too, and if possible, try sending the commands from a controller in the room with the wireless. That way you isolate out a lot of variables.
I'll follow-up with the support and not here.
Troubleshooting wise, the first thing to do really is going to be looking into the network and cleaning it up as much as possible. Since one of your players is wired in, it is talking to the other wirelessly. As a simple test, I'd try wiring your other player in too, and if possible, try sending the commands from a controller in the room with the wireless. That way you isolate out a lot of variables.
Userlevel 7
+26
Thanks for the detailed write-up, kpr!
I see quite a few people having problems with intermittent cut off of music (my friend is experiencing such), controllers losing devices: if the messaging has been adjusted could some music/source related messages be timeouting now and that causing also those issues in their network if their network is not optimal?
Intermittent playback is probably the number one thing caused by interference or network latency. We see this come up with every software update because players reboot and there are a lot of poor networks and environments out there. A router can change channels or not assign addresses right during the player reboot. That's the sort of thing we can help clear up, but from the outside, it can look like a problem with the software itself.
Lots of wireless noise, for example, causes data to need to be resent multiple times, and if it fails enough times, you'll get audio cutouts. Switching playback from one room to the next has a lot of background network activity. It looks simple in the app, but there's a lot happening behind the scenes and any communication issues could cause trouble. There are handshakes and data transfer that needs to go just right, otherwise, the communication doesn't work right and things go awry.
Troubleshooting wise, the first thing to do really is going to be looking into the network and cleaning it up as much as possible. Since one of your players is wired in, it is talking to the other wirelessly. As a simple test, I'd try wiring your other player in too, and if possible, try sending the commands from a controller in the room with the wireless. That way you isolate out a lot of variables.
Since you have that ticket open, it'd be best to keep everything in one place, so I'd say keep on with that thread, and they should help work on cleaning things up. We have to eliminate some of the basic stuff before anything that might be on the software side of things arrises.
Intermittent playback is probably the number one thing caused by interference or network latency. We see this come up with every software update because players reboot and there are a lot of poor networks and environments out there. A router can change channels or not assign addresses right during the player reboot. That's the sort of thing we can help clear up, but from the outside, it can look like a problem with the software itself.
Lots of wireless noise, for example, causes data to need to be resent multiple times, and if it fails enough times, you'll get audio cutouts. Switching playback from one room to the next has a lot of background network activity. It looks simple in the app, but there's a lot happening behind the scenes and any communication issues could cause trouble. There are handshakes and data transfer that needs to go just right, otherwise, the communication doesn't work right and things go awry.
Troubleshooting wise, the first thing to do really is going to be looking into the network and cleaning it up as much as possible. Since one of your players is wired in, it is talking to the other wirelessly. As a simple test, I'd try wiring your other player in too, and if possible, try sending the commands from a controller in the room with the wireless. That way you isolate out a lot of variables.
Since you have that ticket open, it'd be best to keep everything in one place, so I'd say keep on with that thread, and they should help work on cleaning things up. We have to eliminate some of the basic stuff before anything that might be on the software side of things arrises.
Hi Ryan,
Thank you for taking the time to check back on the forum.
I hope the following helps debugging and I'm interested in learning if I have problems in my setup.
I have an open question on that, reference: 171201-002723
I have trouble on using both methods. The first move succeeds but the move after that fails every time especially if I have not done anything in between. So, for me easy to reproduce both on Android app and iPad app.
Error #1: using the red quick group menu:
I've submitted diagnostics under: 8175909 for the error I described latest in this thread.
It also happened that the UI didn't update with any info about the record, or the room - I did the same steps, and the output is a slight variation of the error. Diagnostics are under 8175903 - I guess they'll show you similar info(?)
Those happened on Android app, running on Samsung Note 8.
I can also reproduce it on the iPad app.
Error #2: using the Rooms screen:
Same as error #1, i.e. music moves but old Room is focused (i.e. dark background), and new Room shows the music animation as music plays in it.
Error #3: using the Rooms screen:
There is an error that just the Group icon does not move in that screen every time. The music moves and the new Room is focused (i.e. with dark background) on Rooms screen but the Group icon is not on that control. I've seen this error only once so this is hard to reproduce.
It may be latency related as it seems the UI will lose track of the active Room. The error also occurs if I do the first move with the red quick group but move the music back from Rooms - or vice versa.
If it's not my system setup, then maybe it gets confused if it receives those messages in quick succession? Or the UI expects to receive something else in between?
It sounds like the handshake etc. may have been modified compared to the last version. I see quite a few people having problems with intermittent cut off of music (my friend is experiencing such), controllers losing devices: if the messaging has been adjusted could some music/source related messages be timeouting now and that causing also those issues in their network if their network is not optimal?
Thanks.
Thanks for the reports everyone, we're happy to look into this with you.
You should be able to unselect a room using the quick group menu and then select a new room and have the music move from one room to the other. The app should update the rooms selected with the change in music, though this may take longer than the transfer of music itself. There's more going on behind the scenes than you'd see on the app, and the final state of things take a couple handshakes before they reach your app. If the app is having any latency or communication issues to the players, the commands may take too long to send out, or might not reach the players, which could cause the sort of trouble you're describing.
...
Thank you for taking the time to check back on the forum.
I hope the following helps debugging and I'm interested in learning if I have problems in my setup.
I have an open question on that, reference: 171201-002723
I have trouble on using both methods. The first move succeeds but the move after that fails every time especially if I have not done anything in between. So, for me easy to reproduce both on Android app and iPad app.
Error #1: using the red quick group menu:
I've submitted diagnostics under: 8175909 for the error I described latest in this thread.
It also happened that the UI didn't update with any info about the record, or the room - I did the same steps, and the output is a slight variation of the error. Diagnostics are under 8175903 - I guess they'll show you similar info(?)
Those happened on Android app, running on Samsung Note 8.
I can also reproduce it on the iPad app.
Error #2: using the Rooms screen:
Same as error #1, i.e. music moves but old Room is focused (i.e. dark background), and new Room shows the music animation as music plays in it.
Error #3: using the Rooms screen:
There is an error that just the Group icon does not move in that screen every time. The music moves and the new Room is focused (i.e. with dark background) on Rooms screen but the Group icon is not on that control. I've seen this error only once so this is hard to reproduce.
It may be latency related as it seems the UI will lose track of the active Room. The error also occurs if I do the first move with the red quick group but move the music back from Rooms - or vice versa.
If it's not my system setup, then maybe it gets confused if it receives those messages in quick succession? Or the UI expects to receive something else in between?
It sounds like the handshake etc. may have been modified compared to the last version. I see quite a few people having problems with intermittent cut off of music (my friend is experiencing such), controllers losing devices: if the messaging has been adjusted could some music/source related messages be timeouting now and that causing also those issues in their network if their network is not optimal?
Thanks.
You should be able to unselect a room using the quick group menu and then select a new room and have the music move from one room to the other. The app should update the rooms selected with the change in music, though this may take longer than the transfer of music itself. There's more going on behind the scenes than you'd see on the app, and the final state of things take a couple handshakes before they reach your app. If the app is having any latency or communication issues to the players, the commands may take too long to send out, or might not reach the players, which could cause the sort of trouble you're describing.
...
Userlevel 7
+26
Thanks for the reports everyone, we're happy to look into this with you.
You should be able to unselect a room using the quick group menu and then select a new room and have the music move from one room to the other. The app should update the rooms selected with the change in music, though this may take longer than the transfer of music itself. There's more going on behind the scenes than you'd see on the app, and the final state of things take a couple handshakes before they reach your app. If the app is having any latency or communication issues to the players, the commands may take too long to send out, or might not reach the players, which could cause the sort of trouble you're describing.
I've tested it out and you can either deselect the active room and then choose the new one first, or select both and then deselect the one you don't want to play in. If you're having trouble using one route vs the other, can you let us know which one?
I'd love to see some diagnostics from your systems just after you try this out to see how the network looks. Can you follow the steps here to submit a diagnostic from your Sonos system and post your confirmation number? We may be able to clean up the environment here to make this work better. On top of that, if there is an issue we can fix here, those diagnostics are really great to pass on to the team.
You should be able to unselect a room using the quick group menu and then select a new room and have the music move from one room to the other. The app should update the rooms selected with the change in music, though this may take longer than the transfer of music itself. There's more going on behind the scenes than you'd see on the app, and the final state of things take a couple handshakes before they reach your app. If the app is having any latency or communication issues to the players, the commands may take too long to send out, or might not reach the players, which could cause the sort of trouble you're describing.
I've tested it out and you can either deselect the active room and then choose the new one first, or select both and then deselect the one you don't want to play in. If you're having trouble using one route vs the other, can you let us know which one?
I'd love to see some diagnostics from your systems just after you try this out to see how the network looks. Can you follow the steps here to submit a diagnostic from your Sonos system and post your confirmation number? We may be able to clean up the environment here to make this work better. On top of that, if there is an issue we can fix here, those diagnostics are really great to pass on to the team.
- would someone still have a system with 7.4 controller app? Could you take a screen capture video/screenshots of the rooms control on the Now Playing screen?
I can't seem to find a video showing how you move the queue to another roomu, and can't remember how it worked on android app. Was there a 'Now playing in: ' displayed and when you tapped on that you got to the group/ungroup screen? With that it was possible to move the music queue to the other room (you unselect/select).
Found this on you tube
https://youtu.be/GnVU7Ulzeb0
Many thanks! My googling skills did not find that.
I used to move the music queue by:
1. Tapped at the top like in that video (JEFF’S OFFICE) at 4:09.
2. Then tapped Group, selected Room B and unselected Room A and tapped Done -> the queue would move and Now Playing screen would change to Room B. It was nice.
Now (because of error with the red indicator not working properly):
1. Swipe down/tap near the cue at the top
2. Tap on Rooms tab [focus is on the tab you were before going to Now Playing screen, e.g. in Search]
3. Tap Group, select Room B and unselect Room A and tap Done (now wait longer than in previous version for the UI to refresh and become responsive, on average it now takes 8 seconds for me)
4. Double tap on Room B in the Rooms tab -> now I’m back to the Now Playing screen and can control the queue in Room B. Not as nice.
It will get easier to navigate as announced when:
- that error gets fixed
- the UI starts working much faster overall
I’m hoping for a quick next release of the app.
Userlevel 7
+17
- would someone still have a system with 7.4 controller app? Could you take a screen capture video/screenshots of the rooms control on the Now Playing screen?
I can't seem to find a video showing how you move the queue to another roomu, and can't remember how it worked on android app. Was there a 'Now playing in: ' displayed and when you tapped on that you got to the group/ungroup screen? With that it was possible to move the music queue to the other room (you unselect/select).
Found this on you tube
https://youtu.be/GnVU7Ulzeb0
On this particular issue:
- would someone still have a system with 7.4 controller app? Could you take a screen capture video/screenshots of the rooms control on the Now Playing screen?
I can't seem to find a video showing how you move the queue to another roomu, and can't remember how it worked on android app. Was there a 'Now playing in: ' displayed and when you tapped on that you got to the group/ungroup screen? With that it was possible to move the music queue to the other room (you unselect/select).
- I regularly move the music queue from one room to another, so if the red thing worked flawlessly it would be just what I need. My Connect is behind closed door in a closet so physically pressing the button is not feasible.
There needs to be an easy, working, way to move the music queue - and the UI correctly - to another room. The red thing is needed.
Right now the most reliable way to do that is via the Rooms tab. That tab may have been intended only as a way to group/ungroup zones - and not directly to move the queue. The red in the Now Playing would be the fastest way to move the queue but like many have noticed the UI just does not work reliably.
Others with darker UI have solved moving the music (and thus the queue) e.g. with an arrow icon that I instantly figured what it must do. And it did. You just selected the room where you wanted the music queue to play. You could group on that same screen.
While I know how to use the new UI, I really miss the dark UI when I see it in youtube videos 🙂
- would someone still have a system with 7.4 controller app? Could you take a screen capture video/screenshots of the rooms control on the Now Playing screen?
I can't seem to find a video showing how you move the queue to another roomu, and can't remember how it worked on android app. Was there a 'Now playing in: ' displayed and when you tapped on that you got to the group/ungroup screen? With that it was possible to move the music queue to the other room (you unselect/select).
- I regularly move the music queue from one room to another, so if the red thing worked flawlessly it would be just what I need. My Connect is behind closed door in a closet so physically pressing the button is not feasible.
There needs to be an easy, working, way to move the music queue - and the UI correctly - to another room. The red thing is needed.
Right now the most reliable way to do that is via the Rooms tab. That tab may have been intended only as a way to group/ungroup zones - and not directly to move the queue. The red in the Now Playing would be the fastest way to move the queue but like many have noticed the UI just does not work reliably.
Others with darker UI have solved moving the music (and thus the queue) e.g. with an arrow icon that I instantly figured what it must do. And it did. You just selected the room where you wanted the music queue to play. You could group on that same screen.
While I know how to use the new UI, I really miss the dark UI when I see it in youtube videos 🙂
Here are a couple of further observations on transferring music from one room to another.
1. The new feature using the physical buttons on the speakers is easier than any app. Many people seem to missed this. I just pause the speaker in room A using the physical button. Walk to Room B, LONG press on play on the speaker in room B. Job done.
2. Even using the Rooms screen to transfer music has one feature / bug that I find irritating. Even though the music itself is transferred successfully every time, control in the app is not always passed to the new Room. So the music is playing in Room B and you look at the controller and it is still showing Room A. It seems a bit unpredictable, although control seems to be passed more often if you untick Room A before ticking Room B But I have just got into the habit of tapping the new room after clicking 'Done', to make sure I have control over the right room.
Now, let me say one more thing before you all say 'but it shouldn't be necessary to figure all this out'. I agree. I am not trying to defend the app. But right here and now it is what we have all got, and I am just sharing things that have worked for me in the hope that they might help you too. If they do, great. If not, then sorry to have wasted your time. I am not trying to persuade you that you are wrong about the app, just trying to help.
1. The new feature using the physical buttons on the speakers is easier than any app. Many people seem to missed this. I just pause the speaker in room A using the physical button. Walk to Room B, LONG press on play on the speaker in room B. Job done.
2. Even using the Rooms screen to transfer music has one feature / bug that I find irritating. Even though the music itself is transferred successfully every time, control in the app is not always passed to the new Room. So the music is playing in Room B and you look at the controller and it is still showing Room A. It seems a bit unpredictable, although control seems to be passed more often if you untick Room A before ticking Room B But I have just got into the habit of tapping the new room after clicking 'Done', to make sure I have control over the right room.
Now, let me say one more thing before you all say 'but it shouldn't be necessary to figure all this out'. I agree. I am not trying to defend the app. But right here and now it is what we have all got, and I am just sharing things that have worked for me in the hope that they might help you too. If they do, great. If not, then sorry to have wasted your time. I am not trying to persuade you that you are wrong about the app, just trying to help.
I am not here to defend the app or Sonos. Just saying what makes life easier for me.
OK well that's fine but you didn't say that before, you said the room button is the way the app is supposed to be used. This is somewhat different to saying this is your preferred method.
Or much more likely: people having trouble using it, because the new design it's a lot less intuitive and efficient than the previous one.
IMO, that happens even with me every time Sonos makes a change in the UI and I have never seen any reason for any of the changes made. But that seems to be fashionable these days, so I have learnt to live with that. And going by history, when the next major change is done in a year or so from now, that one will seem a lot less intuitive than this one.
Thankfully in my case, I use the desktop controller more often and that has remained essentially unchanged for years now and I hope that state will continue in future.
Or much more likely: people having trouble using it, because the new design is a lot less intuitive and efficient than the previous one.
This rooms issue is as an excellent case in point. You could use it in the previous version, it still works like that in Spotify, and yet - even though no one ever complained about it - the functionality was removed in 8.x.
You can't blame your customers for that. It's just bad product design and management. And yes, most companies do struggle to admit that.
For some reason Sonos don't appear to respond to this particular issue (or many others lately) except ones to tell dozens of users their previously fine systems are experiencing wireless interference. I'd bet pretty much all users could submit a diagnostic and there would be a level of interference - but that doesn't mean it's the cause of their problems.
There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of problems with the app:
1. People not able to use it because it is new to them and it takes time to understand it and then get habituated to the new way of doing things.
2. People not able to use the app because the update process has created/unearthed IP address conflicts and the system is, in effect, broken.
Sonos rarely responds to category 1 posts, unless to say feedback noted, and replies to as many of category 2 as possible. Not all of these, and their response time has suffered and needs to improve, but the difference between 1 and 2 is an important one because response levels to category 1 will not change, from what has been seen for years now.
My guess to the reason for drop in response rate to category 2 is because of increase in support needs everywhere for the parallel Alexa integration. Management should have anticipated this and ramped up resources till things stabilised, no doubt. Or should have made no changes to the app until the Alexa integration had been stabilised.
Sonos greatest differentiator was its multi-room capabilities. That they wrecked the ease of that functionality and introduced software that makes it harder and more confusing to do is astonishing. And, as reported by many, it often simply doesn't work as intended and tick boxes are left on and music often plays in unintended rooms.
For some reason Sonos don't appear to respond to this particular issue (or many others lately) except ones to tell dozens of users their previously fine systems are experiencing wireless interference. I'd bet pretty much all users could submit a diagnostic and there would be a level of interference - but that doesn't mean it's the cause of their problems.
For some reason Sonos don't appear to respond to this particular issue (or many others lately) except ones to tell dozens of users their previously fine systems are experiencing wireless interference. I'd bet pretty much all users could submit a diagnostic and there would be a level of interference - but that doesn't mean it's the cause of their problems.
I am not here to defend the app or Sonos. Just saying what makes life easier for me.
OK well that's fine but you didn't say that before, you said the room button is the way the app is supposed to be used. This is somewhat different to saying this is your preferred method.
Guys it’s good to know it’s not just me who’s becoming more and more frustrated by this ridiculous update. Why oh why try to fix something that isn’t broke and Sonos you must understand the ease of navigation is as important to people as sound quality and if you mess with it you had better be sure it’s for the better. A friend who is thinking of updating his entire music system wanted to try my Sonos and whilst he loved the sound and portability, decided to give it a rain check as he couldn’t fathom the room controller for changing music in different rooms, without my prompting....come on Sonos please sort this out, you can do it as you previously proved!
Purely my personal opinion. I have found the app works well for me if I go through the tab bar for everything. It took me ten minutes of playing with thee app to decide that.
I am not here to defend the app or Sonos. Just saying what makes life easier for me.
I am not here to defend the app or Sonos. Just saying what makes life easier for me.
Sorry John. So you are saying the red room name was never supposed to be used? Then why have it there in the first place. This is a good example of why the app is unintuitive. For many people, the intuitive thing is to click the now playing room name to move music from that room to another. And if it actually worked as it is designed to, this would be the quickest and simplest way.
Ignoring the red now playing room name and instead swiping down and clicking Rooms may work but it is not intuitive to ignore an intended design feature to do this instead. And to suggest that we are supposed to not use the red now playing room name is ridiculous
The current room would still display. In fact it has to. I would make it bigger and let it also bring up the Rooms screen. If the two systems are identical in function then one is redundant. If they are different the whole thing is confusing. So two single tap routes to the same place sounds fine to me
Userlevel 7
+22
I’m used to clicking the current room name to bring up the full room control.
Userlevel 7
+22
The red room option is where I always make the mistake of hitting it when I want to control a different room.
Userlevel 7
+22
It shouldn’t be so different
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