Lock Screen control Apple with new relaese

I want to revert to 8.6 too! The new version (9.0) crashes on me all the time and the old volume and lock screen controls were far superior.

If you can live without Airplay on other devices in your house, you don't need to downgrade to 8.6. You just need to turn off Airplay on other devices on your network.

Here's what you need to do to to get the lock screen controls back if you have one or more AppleTVs on your network (which I suspect is the only Airplay device most people have):

On the AppleTV menu, go to Settings> Airplay> Airplay (toggle to "Off").
Do this on all AppleTVs on your network.
Restart the Sonos app on your phone (just kill and relaunch worked for my, there was no need to go into Sonos settings> Advanced Settings> Restart Controller as others have suggested).
Hey presto - Lockscreen controls are back!

All you need to do in order for Sonos to maintain a convenient usability feature is to restrict a different feature on every other device in your house. Presto!

Come on, this isn't a real fix. It's inconvenient to unlock my phone every time I need to change the volume, or to pause music whenever we get a phone call. At the very least, just let us keep the features of 8.6, because the only thing 9 has done is made my user experience worse.

I completely agree Nevetssav,

This is completely lame, I am so sick and tired of losing Sonos feature's and hardware with firmware updates that regresses the system I paid a lot of money and spent a lot of time educating myself on. It is very troubling to say the least. If Sonos does not get their act in gear, and realize the loyal customer base will not put up with this for long, they will feel the financial pinch that was self induced as far as I am concerned.

Yeah I'm in the same boat, I only just purchased my Sonos items (sound bar, 2 x play1, 1 x play3) last Christmas and chose them because of their ease of use. Now only 6 months later they pull this rubbish and remove functionality that I paid for! The way I see it is these speakers no longer work as they did when I purchased them and they are still within warranty so perhaps I should be entitled to a refund. Forced obsolescence is a real thing and I'm sick of it!

I contacted Sonos about it and their response was unapologetic and in their words, "locked screens control functionality was no longer viable" for them so they simply removed it.

The other major thing that is unacceptable is that they only advised us about the loss of function after we download and install the update! That's BS!

I replied to their message and I am waiting for another response.

This is an apple issue, not something Sonos can change at the moment, although I believe they are in dialogue with Apple. It's an Airplay 2 "feature". You want to have a rant direct it at them. And yes i find it annoying too.

This is an apple issue, not something Sonos can change at the moment, although I believe they are in dialogue with Apple. It's an Airplay 2 "feature". You want to have a rant direct it at them. And yes i find it annoying too.

If what you say correct and knowing Apple it could well be, Sonos could at the very least communicate that to its end users and give us the option to update or not. They did not mention that in their response to me either they simply said it was no longer viable for them. What ever the case the fact is that I am left worse off than before and my speakers are only 6 months old.

If what you say correct and knowing Apple it could well be, Sonos could at the very least communicate that to its end users and give us the option to update or not. They did not mention that in their response to me either they simply said it was no longer viable for them. What ever the case the fact is that I am left worse off than before and my speakers are only 6 months old.

Release notes for 9.0:

https://www.sonos.com/en-us/software/release/9-0

Alert: Changes to Lock Screen Controls for iOS

It will no longer be possible to control your Sonos system from the lock screen of your iPhone or iPad, including use of the hard volume buttons from the lock screen, if you have an Apple TV or other AirPlay-capable non-Sonos devices in your household with AirPlay enabled. It is still possible to use hard volume buttons from within the Sonos App. Learn more.

If what you say correct and knowing Apple it could well be, Sonos could at the very least communicate that to its end users and give us the option to update or not. They did not mention that in their response to me either they simply said it was no longer viable for them. What ever the case the fact is that I am left worse off than before and my speakers are only 6 months old.

Release notes for 9.0:

https://www.sonos.com/en-us/software/release/9-0

Alert: Changes to Lock Screen Controls for iOS

It will no longer be possible to control your Sonos system from the lock screen of your iPhone or iPad, including use of the hard volume buttons from the lock screen, if you have an Apple TV or other AirPlay-capable non-Sonos devices in your household with AirPlay enabled. It is still possible to use hard volume buttons from within the Sonos App. Learn more.

Here is a screen shot of the expanded update icon from my App Store. This is where I and I dare say most people would look to see what the new version will bring. It would be extremely easy for them to inform us of the loss in functionality at this location rather than having to hunt for it.

I don't disagree. But to definitively state that Sonos did not inform their users was incorrect.

I don't disagree. But to definitively state that Sonos did not inform their users was incorrect.

They did not email me personally with the information and yet they are able to send me regular emails advertising their new products. They made a general public announcement that one would have to look up on their web site to see, therefore I was not advised of the changes and given a chance to opt out.

I didn't get an email on my Birthday either. They can be quite inconsiderate sometimes 😉

They did not email me personally with the information and yet they are able to send me regular emails advertising their new products. They made a general public announcement that one would have to look up on their web site to see, therefore I was not advised of the changes and given a chance to opt out.

Do you realize how silly you sound?

They did not email me personally with the information and yet they are able to send me regular emails advertising their new products. They made a general public announcement that one would have to look up on their web site to see, therefore I was not advised of the changes and given a chance to opt out.

Do you realize how silly you sound?

Yeah, that's fair enough. After re reading my previous post I do realise that it was worded poorly and does sound silly. I also realise that posting my frustrations here is a waste of time but that's just it, I am extremely frustrated and remain that way as I am still left with only one half arsed solution to restore on screen controls and that's to disable airplay on my other devices.

Sorry for venting my frustrations here.

I don't think there's an issue with being frustrated about this. It's quite understandable. And you seem to understand that a part of the issue has to do with Apple's side of things. I don't think Sonos is happy with this either, why would they be.

Venting is good, I just don't know if it's productive to start pointing figures and find targets for your frustration.

They did not email me personally with the information and yet they are able to send me regular emails advertising their new products. They made a general public announcement that one would have to look up on their web site to see, therefore I was not advised of the changes and given a chance to opt out.

Do you realize how silly you sound?

I think @Pauliemac is reasonable to suggest that Sonos didn't sufficiently broadcast the penalties of AirPlay2 support and 9.0 adoption. They collect our emails for a reason - the least they can do is tap into that when it's useful to their users, rather than just for corporate advertisement, data collection, and resale. People don't expect the deprecation of a key feature without an explicit heads up, and I don't think anyone has an expectation that end users browse patch notes before downloading and applying one - primarily because patching depends on user trust that the product won't become actively worse overnight, but hey Sonos defied the odds.

Anyways, we're still waiting on some sort of announcement about when we'll see a fix or reversion for this. I'm not an iOS app wizard so maybe there really aren't any options, but it would be nice to know if they considered alternatives like releasing a legacy (pre-9.0) Sonos control app for non-AirPlay2 compatible devices/households, or even reverting to pre-9.0 and let us just dodge the push forever. They're trying to pin the blame on Apple, but there was a period between AirPlay2 release and the 9.0 push that left lock screen controls working - it'd be nice to know what's so hard about recreating that and then not screwing it up (honestly - it'd be nice to know as a customer). It's just hard to buy that their hands are completely tied following such a sloppy feature retirement masquerading as an upgrade.