Ken, the issue with the group volume control I'm trying to describe is that on some screens I pressed the dot of the group volume and it can slide and adjust the entire group but the individual speaker volumes didn't appear and in another screen when pressing the dot they did and I could adjust each speaker individually. The behaviour of pressing the dot was inconsistent, depending on which screening the App I was in. Apologies I can't recall on which screen did or didn't work. Is this not something you've seen?

No, but I understand that the iOS FileBrowser App simply uses the same/similar connection method (SMBv2 etc.) as the new Sonos App to a network shared music library folder and can display/play the library content - it does other things too, but more importantly it will demonstrate to you if you have the correct sharing protocol in place - otherwise if not, then it won’t connect to your library either.

That App definitely does not support SMBv1 and you can setup a samba connection simply by using the UNC (network) path to your shared folder (as a general example: //MyPC/Music) and then enter the user-name/password that you added to your library share - if it does not work then, like jgatie mentions, it’s probably the sharing protocol that is not correct.

I have attached a photo from the FileBrowser App showing it connected to my local music library just mostly for information only. You should see something similar when it is correctly connected to your shared library.

If it doesn’t work, then follow the link that jgatie provided to carefully/correctly setup the share/user credentials using SMBv2 (or higher).

I’m guessing that perhaps such (networking) things are likely outside the general remit of the Sonos Support Staff.

I can’t say I have noticed it ​@sjw, but will keep a lookout for it - I just see this. See attached.

I’ll go onto try it when in different screens and report back if I see anything like you mention.

Not sure if Sono monitors this, but beyond the Mobile app being awful. For example if I have one speaker set playing and want to now add my second set. It lets me add it, starts playing then immediately refreshes and only shows the first set playing but the 2nd one added is still playing. then no way to add it to turn it off. Need to unplug the unit. If that’s not bad enough, the new Sonos update on mac is now crashing. 

This could be caused by a number of things network related - it maybe best to reproduce the issue(s) seen and immediately submit a Sonos system diagnostic report from within the Sonos App, note it’s reference and contact/chat with Sonos Support Staff via this LINK and see what the Staff can perhaps suggest to help you to resolve the matter.

Perhaps send them your crash-log(s) too.

Highly doubt its a network issue, especially since it happened after a sonos software update. The network has been consistent for years. Apps usually crash when they corrupt system memory or leave bad pointers. Not sure what software they use to develop their products but its pretty easy for a developer to corrupt memory if they’re using c/c++. The crash attached show a badly managed thread.

Ah okay - well I hope you are able to get it sorted. If not, then I can only ‘politely’ suggest again that you perhaps speak with Sonos Support.

FWIW - The software that Sonos use, according to what they’ve mentioned online, is an entirely native Swift/SwiftUl app for iOS, and Kotlin/JetPack compose for Android, with the exception of the components of the app that perform setup of Sonos products, which apparently continues to use Flutter for its Ul implementation.

All seems to be working here, but I guess that’s no consolation. 

Thanks again, Ken. With the multiple diagnostics I was hoping that the SMB issue might have been discovered if that indeed was the culprit. As I’ve mentioned (and I don’t expect anyone to remember), I’ve contacted Crucial’s Support staff and they confirmed that the host computer (our iMac) sets the SMB version for the external drive. As for Sonophone, you may be correct that it utilizes the SMBv1 protocol but, it works. At this point, I can’t imagine a new-ish iMac with a new-ish OS (Sonoma) would utilize SMBv1. Who knows? When I opened Terminal and punched in the command string to show said version, it came up with nothing.

I researched FileBrowser and, among other things, appears to be a player/music controller as well. It costs $8.00. I just may give it a try. I’ll drop in my network path; The last listing is the one in question and I grabbed this from my office Mac. I believe it’s accurate as Sonophone found the library. Thanks, Ken.  

I think their problem is a general lack of QA automation and defensive programming. Many of the issues should have been caught in QA. Switching between Sonos products in the app, should have standard set of use cases that they automated. Best case it should have been caught as part of a unit test, but definitely by UAT

By all accounts, the development and QA teams caught the issues and warned the higher ups that the release was not fit for purpose (the quote was they were “yelling and screaming” in meetings).  They were overridden by executives worried about the release of the new headphones by the end of the fiscal year. 

In addition to the network path, you need to add a user-name and password (usually) for the shared folder too - this is usually an account on the PC itself - I see some user account names like "Sonos User" or "Sonos Share" etc. in use by others who have posted online in the past, but it can be any PC account …and that user requires a ‘minimum’ level of ‘read-only’ (ideally) local network access to the folder - As I mentioned earlier, I’m not a MacOS user myself, but the setting up of the share I believe is covered in the link that @jgatie provided.

The path to the shared folder wlll be the same as you see in the Sonos Desktop App - it might be the local network user/credentials that you need to add to the share (and to Sonos) to maybe get things working - but that’s just a bit guess on my part, based on my own use with a Windows network share.

You could even perhaps try with a brand new ‘network shared’ folder on your Mac PC Hard Drive. Setup the local network share with an account/password read only access… and then just copy a few albums to it as an initial test. Then add that path to the Sonos App = something like this, perhaps:

 //Bradleys-iMac/MyMusicShare ("read only” user account set as ‘Sonos-User’/Password: 123456)

I understand. The screen grab I posed depicts the Desktop app and, via that, my inputing of the network path, user name and password were accepted successfully.  And, again, Sonophone can only utilize information from the Sonos speakers. Here’s a pasting from their Support page:

“5% of users: shared their music via a very old NAS which just supports the SMB1 protocol. Sonos dropped support for this, my App cannot circumvent it.

For all cases it’s important to know, that (even with my app) you still have to configure your music library properly with Sonos. The reason why my app needs you to configure your music library via Sonos is, that in the end, it’s the Sonos boxes that need to connect to your music to play it. The app alone ‘just’ selects tracks; it’s the Sonos boxes, that download and play the music.”

So, this leads me to believe that there’s a Sharing issue of some kind that’s tripping me up. I was hoping the multiple Sonos diagnostics might pick that up for me. I’ll check out the link for adding said Library via the iPhone again.

Brad

Ok Brad - hope you’re able to sort it. I still reckon it maybe solvable in your case.

I was aware Sonos dropped support in their new mobile App for SMBv1 and HTTP network shared folders. They diid mention back in early-April 2024 that they were going to do that, even before the new Sonos App was launched.

Microsoft, Apple, Google & Amazon are also not using SMBv1 by default. I reckon that any 3rd-party Apps may have to be updated too (eventually) and suggestions are that the Sonos Desktop App may go too, at some point, but I guess we’ll have to see what happens.

A bit of an anomaly in how the iMacs depict the network path in the S2 desktop app once the path has been set.  For some otherworldly reason, it alters the exact text used to set the path on the iMac one is sitting at while the other shows THE exact path text.

Here’s an example. This was taken from my older, rarely used office S2 desktop controller. It’s path has been altered while the one downstairs (the one that I cannot get to work) shows up as I typed it into the Add Library process on that iMac.  The Green Orifice library has Volumes instead of my local I.D., the name of the hard drive and then the name of the Sonos music folder.

Now here’s a photo of the iMac which hosts the Library-in-Question that I would like added to my iPhone but currently cannot. It shows the exact opposite of the upstairs Green Orifice path.

It’s, for some reason, renaming that path.  Who knows why but, again, Sonophone hasn’t had an issue finding it. Frustrating and, it could be a simple Sharing issue that I’m not catching. I may follow the “Allow Guest Users to connect to shared folders.” I’ve been doing this so long, I may very well have already done that too.   Brad

Thanks, Ken.  I read that back then when I knew NOTHING of SMB.  I appreciate your kindness and patience.

I would perhaps leave the current shared library folders for now (you don’t want to mess things up for your other 3rd-party Apps) - just simply create a local network shared folder on the Mac PC Hard Drive, follow the instructions in the link jgatie gave you to setup the share and call it something simple like ‘Music’… so path becomes //Bradleys-iMac/Music. Copy a few albums, or artists, tracks to that new folder share for testing.

Add the share to the Sonos App, but I recommend you use the ‘mobile App’ only to enter the path and perhaps your own PC account logon credentials, just  to see if that works for you.

Thanks very much, Ken. I’ll give that a shot.  Brad

P.Spence RESIGNS! 

This took too long, but maybe it’s a sign.  Time will tell.  Meanwhile, the most RECENT negative app reviews on the Apple and Android app stores are a stark contrast to the upbeat “my system works fine” reports from the fan base here (who are appreciated for their often helpful suggestions). 

https://apple.news/Ao5owY6eyS_SjB1qT147qvA

Also see The Verge stories posted today on Spence leaving - the comments from readers are pretty interesting. 

The new “temp” guy has to focus on rebuilding their now TERRIBLE customer support & either fix the app FINALLY or bite the bullet and reintroduce Orange Sonos.  The leadership/marketing/PR teams LIED to the user-base in May and foisted this crapap on their once loyal customers.  There had to be a reckoning.  I do feel for the Sonos staff that had to be let go b/c of the arrogance and ignorance of the C-suite and board though.  P.Spence gets a fat check once he clears out in June.  He’ll be just dandy!  My friends, and family still struggle far too often to get our many speakers to work since May!  The contracted, offshore, so-called Support is worse than useless!

Any person tied to the technology side needs to be fired. Seems like Chris Mason is the tech person, which is surprising they don’t see themselves as a tech company and buries tech under finance. The absolutely worst place to put tech.

kassey… I finally called Tech Support and got ahold of a young man that, for his part, tried his best to get me reunited with my missing curated music library that I lost in May of ‘24. While getting a lot of help and suggestions in this very forum and, trying everything that I could including posted links, I called Support.  After an hour+ with the technician and after several diagnostics, the tech ended the call by saying: “It’s the app.”

So, while not being completely downtrodden, I figured that Sonos “might” reissue an app that would resolve these issues specific to missing curated music libraries (non-streamers). Yet, after reading the Apple News article via your link, the paragraph that stood out at the end sunk my ship:  “The former CEO didn’t help matters when he suggested the old Sonos app could be relaunched, only to backtrack after learning that the underlying Sonos infrastructure no longer worked with the legacy software. “  Oh well. Again.

No way to browse folders except swiping? Are you kidding me? My library has thousands of folders. Scrolling to “p” by swiping is absurd and would ultimately damage my screen with so many repeated swipes. Why can’t I just click a letter and advance to the folders that start with “p” the way so many other file-related apps do? Why can’t I search for a folder name?

How can such obvious functionality somehow elude your designers?

Hello, Ken… I reached out to FileBrowser’s team and got very ntensive steps to take as they pertain to the OS on our iMac (Sonoma) and, gave me a link with said steps. The specific step that I thought that I missed was the Network > Firewall setting(s).  That didn’t work for us but, I got that out of the way. Then Nathan suggested that I turn File Sharing “Off”, reboot the computer and then, turn File Sharing back on.  I tried that but, no difference. I think I’ll download FileBrowser (I don’t need the professional) to make sure the SMB thing isn’t an issue although, Nathan assured me that Apple abandoned the SMBv1 protocol several OS updates ago. And, as you suggested, I will give the test Music Library on the internal drive of the iMac a shot.

Thanks AGAIN for suggesting wise solutions for my particular issue. I am still holding out hope that the new CEO will suggest producing a revised Smart Installer with an option that would return us to the Browse and Select method when selecting Libraries and, possibly/somehow return pre-May 2024 functionality.

All the best… Brad

wordwrkr: You get management in a big rush to ship an update, the update is a miserable failure, you discover you can’t go back, you discover going forward is a LOT harder that you thought, things blow up, you get fired.

Nobody outside Sonos knows exactly where, or how many fingers to point.

IMHO, looking backwards - except when adjusting the code - is a waste of time at this point. We’ll see how this pans out in the months ahead. I don’t see this being “fixed” any time soon. The article (Verge?) that quoted a Sonos employee as saying that “they’re not going back” wasn’t surprising as it may very well be true they can’t or won’t but, I hope they can provide options for some of us non-streamers.

I think for many of us long-term and perhaps once loyal Sonos customers/users/evangelists, that last year has been pretty awful.  Even for those of us have have some decent level of home network skills/experience, it’s been tough to see update after update, often fix 2 things and break another one or 2 in the process. 

The decision to move a majority of operations off the local network and putting Sonos Services/operations as a man-in-the-middle just makes the entire environment much more complicated for the users & developers.  

Consumers of Whole-Home-Audio should NOT have to become experts at fixing these new and much more complex networking/mesh system issue period.  Too many don’t have the knowledge base, time, or desire to spend hours with so-called Sonos support or scan the thousands of forum topics/discussions here or on Redit et al.  They want plug, play, and music - like Sonos promised from the start.   

https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/15/24344430/sonos-cco-deirdre-findlay-leaving

Management has be worse than incompetent and we’re finally witnessing some action, but the fundamentals of how we now interact with our expensive speakers/sound equipment has apparently changed from now on.  Even if they fix the major on-going bug/features, too many users will have sub-par performance/lags/drops/static and more. 

While the majority of us openly thank the awesome folks who continue to help others on these forums, expecting the average customer to have such background/experience/knowledge and energy to make their gear work as it did last May is an artificial expectation.