Do you have Sonos speakers that only work on S1?

Hi @jreddaway, as an experiment try setting your NAS to SMBv1 only (disable v2 and v3) and see if your S1 system loads your music library. It’s possible that your ‘tri-lingual’ SMB setup is confusing S1.

Yes, the P5 which I have got working fine except for the NAS connection, which is what makes it so frustrating. I also have an old connect:amp which I was going to try next after a reset, but am holding off on that for now. 

Yes, press250, I tried this and the S1 setup still couldn't access the folder. The S2 system couldn't read it when just SMBv1 was in play but was fine when v3 was turned back on, even with v1 still active. 

It's all very mysterious; the S1 setup just seems to be unable to make the NAS connection, but I can't believe that capability has been deliberately disabled. That's why I'm sure I must be making a mistake somewhere. 

 For sure S1 uses SMBv1.  I think press250 has a good idea.  Not familiar with S1 on a Windows PC.  Does the “add a share” work the same as it does on the S2 Windows app?

Yes, @mopac, the "add a share" popup card is the same in S1 as in S2, the only difference being that the S2 version has the correct // hints for the path format, unlike S1. 

Identical inputs on all 3 lines (path, user name, password) work in S2 but not S1. And BTW I was coming to it through the third wizard or whatever option on the previous screen, the add from a NAS one. 

All very frustrating. 

 Have you tried using the “Browse” option to find your NAS share in Music Library Settings / Add?  That writes the path automatically.  Of course you still have to enter credentials.

Yes, @MoPac . In S1 it brought up the path with \\ which is wrong anyway and the server name as text, which didn't work even when I corrected \\ to //   . Nor did it work with the numerical IP address, with either \\ or //  . All with just SMBv1 activated.

You can understand, perhaps, why i am so frustrated. I can't think of any combination I haven't tried...

I have an old S1 system here (App version 11.14) connected to a Netgear NAS library - it’s SMB v1 only. So it definitely should be working for you. I’d perhaps double-check the share permissions and user credentials. 

 That’s weird.  You’re right about the forward slashes //.  That’s how my paths show.  What is the name of your Synology share?  I thought it was something like Music or Shared Music.  Waking up my Synology to check.  My Synology library is not indexed to Sonos because if it was the library would be too large.

 At one point were you able to index that Synology share?  If so what did the path look like.

 I’ll get on the Windows PC to see what the name of the share is on my Synology.

 From the Windows PC Sonos S2 app using the 3rd option “Add music from your networked share I browsed to Network / Synology NAS Name / Music.  Cannot test this share as it will overload my library.  The “Network” in that path is not a folder.  It’s a blue PC screen icon similar to what you see when you map a network drive.

 Weird how they show backward slashes in the examples.  Maybe leftovers from the HTTP days.

Thank you, @MoPac , @press250  and @Ken_Griffiths , for your interest in my problem and for all your suggestions.  I’ll try and address them in some sort of order:-

My two NAS-based libraries load fine on the S2 app, per this screenshot where the older box is ##.20, a fixed IP address as they both are

There are no problems with S2 at all except that the library can only be manged from the handheld controllers and not from the PC app, where this function is greyed out.

My two NAS boxes are on different versions of the Synology DSM software, the newer one on 7.2.1-69057 and the older one on 7.1.1-42962, which is the latest available version.  I have gone through all the permissions etc on both NAS boxes and they are identical.  I have set up a new User on the older box with maximum permissions to everything, the same as the User I have used for several years with no problems.

I have tried accessing both libraries with SMB set to both s1 only and s1-s3.  I can see, with both boxes, that when I shut off the s3 and go back to s1 only, the S2 App loses its connection immediately.  It come back equally quickly when s3 is turned back on, whether s1 is left on or not.

I have summarised what I have found in this matrix, testing the two apps from the two platforms with the two SMB configurations on each

The results for the S2 app are as expected.  You can only configure the library from a handheld and it doesn’t recognise SMBv1 but once that’s done it works fine (apart from album art, queue management, indexing if you’ve got the latest firmware and all that stuff).

The S1 App absolutely refuses to work for me.  I am impressed, Ken, that v14.11 does the business for you but there is some difference between your Netgear and my Synology gear which stops it in its tracks. I just wish I knew what it is.

I am going to give up on this and just use my perfectly serviceable S1 units for streaming. I am becoming increasingly impressed with Amazon Music, which I am enjoying on a free introductory offer; the crunch will come when that expires and I have to start paying for it. That’s going to be a difficult one.  My own library is available anywhere from iBroadcast, which is still free.

Maybe Mr Spence is right and all us dinosaurs with local libraries should just fade away and get with the streaming programme…..

All the best to all.

John

OK, here’s another bit of intrigue.

I definitely don’t want to host my library on my PC and have it running 24/7, hence the NASs, but the master copy of the library lives there.

I tried just going into the S1 App and hitting the option to add my music folder on the PC and blow me down it picked it up with the path D:\music and spent the next hour or so indexing it and there it sits, correctly indexed, album art and all, on the old P5.

I thought my luck might have changed so tried connecting to the NAS through the Browse button but still no dice as the app wouldn’t access the share

Just to check, I confirmed that Windows File Explorer on the PC can see the share and drill down into the folders on it as far as you like. So there’s no problem with my network; it has to be something in the app.

That’s enough time for me down this rabbit hole for now, but any suggestions will be followed up in a day or two.

Best regards to all.

 If your PC Sonos app has grayed out functions it may be an indication it needs to be updated.  I had to go to firmware 16.3.3 ( speaker updates ) before grayed out options became available again.

HI, @MoPac 

I have very carefully avoided that firmware "upgrade" because it brings with it the awful indexing screw-up. I'm very happy to work around a few greyed out and seldom used functions by using the tablet app in order to keep my library useable.

Maybe the next "upgrade" will sort that out, along with the missing album art etc etc,  but I'm not holding my breath and will avoid any firmware "upgrades" until there is positive feedback here. Unless, of course, Sonos do something - perhaps in the Cloud - that forces the issue. I wouldn't put it past them, either deliberately or even by mistake........

 I see your point.  I don’t really listen to my compilations much so that indexing screw up doesn’t bother me as much.  I’m sure they will fix it in the next speaker firmware update.  Lots of angry users posting about that issue.

 My reason for staying up to date is the ability to easily find a share using the “Browse” option in the PC app.  Don’t need that at this point though as my library never disappeared after the May app update.

@jreddaway I don’t have any specific solutions to your issue, but I do wonder if you are making things too complicated.

It sounds like you have a library spread across three different locations (two NAS plus iBroadcast), two different versions of Sonos, at least two different physical controllers for Sonos, three different versions of SMB, and possibly two different subnets (this part wasn’t clear to me).

My suggestion is that you simplify things.

If you’ve just spent 5 entire days uploading your library to iBroadcast and it’s working, why not ditch the complicated NAS setups just use that?

Thanks for your interest, @edmountain , the complicated situation you note is only a temporary one brought about by my wish to try and get some S1 hardware back into use, the Play 5 (gen 1) being the unit I chose for this experiment.

My normal system is really very simple - we use S2 and my library for everyday use lives on a small NAS. We control it through four Android devices, three of which run the v16 app and one the 80.07.05. I use the 80.07 unit so as to keep up with developments while my partner,  who is not a fan of technology, stays on V16 because that's what she's happy with; I often use it too as it displays album art, which i like to have and which has been lost in the updates.  The system runs happily to six speakers around the house on the same subnet with static IP addresses, all but one of which are on ethernet connections.  

As for the complications, first off uploading to iBroadcast was no big deal; I started it running and noticed five days or so later that it had finished. It's nice to know there is a backup out there and that I can play from it wherever I may find myself but, having installed it as a service on my system to try it out, it now just sits there and gets as much use as Sonos Radio. In fact I might well uninstall it from the S2 setup.

I do indeed have three copies of my library. The one on my PC is the master where new material is added and tags are edited, and it is the one and only place where any changes are made. It is mirrored onto a small but reasonably fast NAS as changes are made and it is this copy to which Sonos is pointed.  The third copy is on an older, slower NAS which used to house the Sonos library but is now purely an on-site backup which is powered down most of the time.  I brought the second NAS into play for my S1 experiment so as to be able to test various SMB settings and compare them in real time, but it was used only for the tests. 

Each NAS has one instance of SMB installed on it; switching it between versions takes a matter of moments and the results of doing so can be seen in real time on the various controllers.  In normal circumstances these are set-and-forget but, where you are trying to see how one controller which will only use SMBv1 and the other which will use anything but work, you have to try the various combinations to be sure.

Having determined that I can use my S1 speakers in a separate system on the same subnet as my main S2 setup, and that I can run the two apps on the same controllers to manage them both, I have now reverted to my standard, simple system. For all intents and purposes and within the limitations of the current Sonos software, it is 100% rock solid.

The only thing that I am frustrated by is my inability to get my library to play on S1 from my NAS but, as you rightly suggest, if I really want to play that material I can do it from iBroadcast, so I'm happy with that.

I am now convinced that any specific solution to this very niche issue will have to come from Sonos and I have little expectation of that happening, but would love to hear from any other denizens of this forum who have any suggestions. At least I made a proper effort to work it out, even if it was only partially successful.