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After the most recent upgrade to Sonos 13.4 (S2), I don’t see much cover art in the Sonos controller. More precisely, it seems that I see cover art if it is embedded into the MP3 file, but not if the cover art in a separate file called folder.jpg. In my collection, most albums have a folder.jpg, and only a minority of albums have embedded cover art. There are two reasons for this:

  • Albums that originally had on CD, cassette or vinyl.
  • For several years, Sonos was not able to display cover art that was embedded into the MP3 files that I bought, so I had to extract them to folder.jpg and remove them from the MP3 file.

Is any one else seeing this? Or is this just some accident on my system?

 

Is it unreasonable of me to expect that this error should have been fixed already? No official comment from Sonos or even a timeline for the fix either, means this all seems really poor on Sonos' part.


I have already replied back to support with this information. If any others can confirm the same behavior, please contact Sonos as well with your details so they understand how widespread this problem is and can accelerate a solution.

I can confirm this buggy behavior. Since 13.4 my folder.jpg files sometimes (but not always) show themselves in the queue, sometimes (but not always) they pop up in the music library, sometimes (but not always) they can be seen in the desktop app but not in the cell phone app. 


Hi all,

My Sonos recently stopped being able to play or index anything on my local network music file share. After some time with support, Sonos has confirmed to me via email that the 13.4 release contains SMBv2v3 support.

After further testing it’s clear that support for SMB v2v3 is buggy and resulted in my not being able to index music libraries or play anything on my file share over SMB. When I limit my server to only use SMB v1 Sonos is working fine again, but this is not a viable solution for me due to other clients that use the same file share.

I have already replied back to support with this information. If any others can confirm the same behavior, please contact Sonos as well with your details so they understand how widespread this problem is and can accelerate a solution.


Well, running with only SMB1 proved not to be a solution in my case. This morning I did not have a new set of imported playlists as I should have. (I generate a random selection every night and copy to the NAS). Troubleshooting revealed this error message from Windows:


You can't connect to the file share because it's not secure. This share requires the obsolete SMB1 protocol, which is unsafe and could expose your system to attack.
Your system requires SMB2 or higher. For more info on resolving this issue, see: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=852747

 


Have been talking to Dutch Support. They confirmed that the new SMB3 protocol (introduced in 13.4) was the culprit. Sonos is working on a solution, but couldn't give a ETA for it.

Thanks for that update!

I made some testing on my Synology NAS. I had it set to SMB1 minimum and SMB3 maximum. I changed that so that minimum was SMB2 with large MTU. At first music did not play, but it was sufficient to restart the Windows controller for the music to start playing. Still no cover art. Then I changed the setting to SMB1 as both minimum and maximum. Cover art are now starting to show up. Not only in Imported Playlists, but also in Albums where I did not see it before.

Since SMB3 support is certainly a welcome addition (and much belated), I’m prepared to cut Sonos some slack for things not working perfectly the first time.

 


Looking at my SMB (Linux Samba) server status I’m seeing this even though SMBv1 is enabled there: SMB3_02.  The smbstatus command should work on any Linux based server, it may need sudo/root to run.

If you can’t personally use the information please feel free to ignore it.

 

pi@pi-3b-2:~ $ sudo smbstatus

Samba version 4.9.5-Debian
PID     Username     Group        Machine                                   Protocol Version  Encryption           Signing              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7412    nobody       nogroup      172.16.1.115 (ipv4:172.16.1.115:41484)    SMB3_02           -                    -                    

Service      pid     Machine       Connected at                     Encryption   Signing     
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
music        7412    172.16.1.115  Wed Nov 24 09:36:16 AM 2021 MST  -            -           

Locked files:
Pid          Uid        DenyMode   Access      R/W        Oplock           SharePath   Name   Time
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7412         65534      DENY_NONE  0x89        RDONLY     NONE             /mnt/ssd-music   Current/B/Beach Boys, The/20 Good Vibrations The Beach Boys Greatest Hits Volume 1/Beach Boys - 11 - Dance, Dance, Dance.flac   Wed Nov 24 09:36:16 2021
 


As I said, I’m not at home to check, so it will need to wait till next week, and, as you say, my device is several years old, and is certainly possible that it has a different interface than yours. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Western Digital doesn’t do a tremendous job of differentiation when naming their devices, so it’s not always evident to a layman such as myself which interface is available for which device. 
 

That being said, when I get home on Monday I’ll definitely take a look. 


Odd. I have been able to mess with the settings on my MyCloud NAS before, but am currently not at home due to the holiday here in the US to do any testing myself. 

Apparently a MyCloud NAS is something quite different from a MyCloud Home NAS. If I'm mistaking, please show me how to configure my MyCloud Home. Always eager to learn...


Odd. I have been able to mess with the settings on my MyCloud NAS before, but am currently not at home due to the holiday here in the US to do any testing myself. 


Interesting. There was no mention of extended SMB support in the release notes, perhaps there was some last minute knowledge of a potential issue that kept them from exposing/raising hopes?

Have you tested with SMB v2 or even going back to SMB v1 to see if this issue is pervasive across all versions?

I'd like to do that but I've got a Western Digital My Cloud Home that can not be configured. So testing is not possible. The only thing I noticed was that cover art does show in the controller apps from mp3's or flac's that have the image embedded.


Interesting. There was no mention of extended SMB support in the release notes, perhaps there was some last minute knowledge of a potential issue that kept them from exposing/raising hopes?

Have you tested with SMB v2 or even going back to SMB v1 to see if this issue is pervasive across all versions?


Have been talking to Dutch Support. They confirmed that the new SMB3 protocol (introduced in 13.4) was the culprit. Sonos is working on a solution, but couldn't give a ETA for it.


This thread began 5 days ago. That must mean the problem of the disappearing cover art is at least a week old. Since then 8 people have sent in their diagnostics:
Stanley_4
beynym
Vegeta_UK
Erland Sommarskog
jkpalmer52
only_sleeping
Luc45
jreddaway
Still no reaction from Sonos, though. Question for those of Sonos who are following this: would it be possible to look at our diagnostics and let us know how Sonos is getting on with solving this problem?


How is this helping us to get back our cover art?

Up a few posts what connection settings were being used was asked for.

I can’t see it having any value to you, but maybe Sonos Support or the other poster may.


Using a Raspberry Pi here.

from /etc/smb.conf

[global]

# enable v1 authentication for Sonos access
ntlm auth=yes

# enable v2 authentication
#min protocol = SMB2
#protocol = SMB2

[music]                                                                                 
Comment = Pi shared folder                                                              
Path = /mnt/ssd-music                                                                   
Browseable = yes                                                                        
Writeable = Yes                                                                         
only guest = no                                                                         
create mask = 0555                                                                      
directory mask = 0555                                                                   
Public = yes                                                                            
Guest ok = yes 

How is this helping us to get back our cover art?


Using a Raspberry Pi here.

from /etc/smb.conf

[global]

# enable v1 authentication for Sonos access
ntlm auth=yes

# enable v2 authentication
#min protocol = SMB2
#protocol = SMB2

[music]                                                                                 
Comment = Pi shared folder                                                              
Path = /mnt/ssd-music                                                                   
Browseable = yes                                                                        
Writeable = Yes                                                                         
only guest = no                                                                         
create mask = 0555                                                                      
directory mask = 0555                                                                   
Public = yes                                                                            
Guest ok = yes 


No sure if this is helpful, but I have some “folder.jpg” album cover files in my album folders and the artwork still loads correctly for me on 13.4. My music library is stored on an old iMac and I am running the Sonos app on an iPhone SE (2020).


I’m having the exact same issue. Sonos is failing to display album art from NAS folders containing image files entitled “folder” or “cover.” I only see artwork if it’s embedded in the audio file metadata. Everything was perfect until the upgrade to 13.4.


I’ve been talking to Sonos Support (chat, then a person) regarding my music library’s external album art not displaying on either Sonos S2 on iOS or Sonos on Windows. The apps will display album art embedded into the library’s music files, sometimes. Sonos S2 13.4 on iOS, and 13.4 firmware on the Sonos devices. It is my belief that this occurred either on the 13.4 update, or possibly the one before. For the record, my music library is being served up by a Synology NAS that has had the relevant tweaks applied for the Sonos kit to be able to talk to it. Album art has been almost completely reliable for several years, up until a recent Sonos update.

The support representative acknowledged that there have been many reports of this, is going to escalate this to the relevant Sonos teams, and that I can expect an update or resolution soon (he mentioned to check in a couple of days).


I just talked to Dutch Support, they weren't aware of the problem and they had me run some tests (restarting the system, rebooting the Sonos boxes, copying a music folder with folder.jpg to a different location and re-indexing) but nothing helped. They escalated the problem. If I have any news I'll let you know.

Thanks for taking the time to talk with Support! I can’t say that I fancy to go through all the above.


In the case of Synology, make sure that it is set to use only SMB1.

So if I use the NAS for more things than just Sonos, everything else will have to suffer, because Sonos is crippled?

Actually, last time I had an issue, I think support told me that I should permit SMB1 and SMB2. (And at the time, I only had SMB1 permitted.)

Given that for me, the cover art is on and off, but more off than on, it seems that there is a change which raises the threshold for covert art to be displayed. Whether this is intentional or not is another matter.

 


Having the same issue… After last update no cover art visible! I tried all tips I found here, no success… Should be something connected to last update…


Several contributors have raised the Synology question. 

 

I have a Western Digital MyCloud Home NAS. And no cover art, so the NAS is not the culprit.


I'm running my music library on a WD My Cloud - same issues.


Several contributors have raised the Synology question. 

For what It's worth, I have been running my library on the same Synolgy NAS for two years or so and album art has always shown up perfectly. It is only since the controller update last week that this changed behaviour has been evident, and yes, I have done player and router reboots, re-installed the controllers etc. 

It simply cannot be coincidental that the display of album art worked perfectly before the update and, since the update, consistently fails to work.

It has to be a programming change, probably a very simple one, that has caused this change in functionality. Let's hope its equally simply fixed.