Creeping on 4 months since the software update and we STILL can’t edit the queue. One of the most basic functions to streaming music in 2024 smh how is that not a priority to correct??

The company has their priorities all f’d up. Brace yourself, queue editing might not be until October, assuming they keep to their new timeline which doesn’t look good as they missed this week’s app update. 

I was assuming for a second that queue editing was there and I just couldn’t figure out the UI, but no, queue editing is missing from the official mobile app but present in the (vastly superior) desktop app. So your Sonos system can still manage the queue. Again, it’s “priorities”. Your crazy priorities (playing the music you own or subscribe to) might not be Sonos’s priorities (headphones, alarms, burning customer goodwill).

One good thing that has come out of this whole sorry months-long episode is that Sonos have learned how to better release software, and have clearly moved from an old “waterfall” style “we have a single code branch and we will ship that code on day X and it had better work” to a more modern “continuous delivery” style of “ship small changes frequently” approach. Given all the broken/missing core features that should fall under either “bug fixes” or “finishing the UI one button at a time”, it is interesting that there haven’t been any updates for a while.

The ‘queue management’ features likely got pushed down the list because of user requests that got quite a few of these things listed below introduced first (in general order of their roll-out). The below is summarised and so not an exhaustive list…

• Accessibility/Voice Over features
• Alarms
• Network permissions fix
• Support for Roam 2
• Music Library improvements & Search
• Improved Add product & connectivity for Sonos Boost
• Added support for Sonos Ace
• Sleep timer
• Additional playback options - play next etc.
• Device setup reliability 
• Improved battery consumption
• Mute button
• Numerical values for volume controls
• Line out settings (Sonos Port)
• Stereo/Mono (Amp)
• SonosNet channel selection
• Service reauthorisation (Android)
• Fixed Android crash on startup
• Option to forget a Sonos Household
• Timezone settings 
• Line-in Autoplay (Android)
• Multi-product setup for installers
• Music library configuration & search
• Account settings - Sonos Pro
• Line-in Autoplay & compression settings
• Sub Audio improvements with Amp
• Improved volume control responsiveness
• TV Audio Swap Beam (Gen 1), Beam (Gen 2), and Ray (Android & iOS)
• S2 to S1 downgrade tool
• Group volume improvements
• Improvements to speech enhancement and night mode
• Playback improvements (Android)
• Ability to clear a room queue

Other companies call this process “beta testing”, using a representative voluntary selection of customers. If SONOS has learned anything from this “sorry months-long episode” (well-said!), we won’t know until the next time they roll out a major system change.

Based on the reviews I’ve read on the App Store this “months-long episode” has months-long yet to go.

I don’t believe the app that was released in May was ready for Beta. 
 

Admirable effort, Ken. But you do realise that you are also pointing out that Sonos released an app with these features, almost all of which have been there for years, missing from the app in May 24!

Seeing this crime itemised as above shows the gravity of it. And the stupidity.

And you also say that this is not an exhaustive list 

Yes of course @Kumar - clearly though, these features have ‘always’ been present on the Sonos speakers themselves, just not accessible/controllable via the new Sonos App.

I think we all may realise aswell, that my summary list is taken from the Sonos updates release notes - I’m just showing that "queue management" is not yet in the Sonos App because of the above list of things mentioned - presumably the listed features were prioritised for the new App, perhaps either because some users shouted for them louder than others (music library search possibly being one example of that) and/or there were some ‘quick wins’ …and/or some features were seen as perhaps more important than ‘queue management’ - (Accessibility/Voice Over features perhaps being a good example there).

The decision taken to release the App without access to these features will always be down to Sonos and nothing I (or other users) can do about that now. Some chose to use other controllers and methods to regain access to the things missing in the new App.

Although, I will just say that perhaps we shouldn’t forget aswell, that some users (myself included) have found that even without these things, the new Sonos App has always still worked okay. I think I’ve demonstrated that a good many times here in the community these past few months.

The new Sonos App certainly finds all my Sonos products and services and I’ve not encountered difficulties playing audio to any speaker, or group, even from a local NAS (SMBv2/3) shared library… that’s just my personal use-case of course, but family members and friends have had a similar experience too with the new App/Sonos system in their Homes.

You will also agree that the Spence mea culpa in the investor call establishes that you and similar are the outliers, not the norm.

The final list is gonna be huuuuge  

Makes you wonder WTF they were doing since the s1/s2 split since the systems were almost feature  parity. So little actual change. Comments over on Reddit are basically “if you want 16.1 just roll back to S1 cause they are basically the same.”

Really! Didn’t even know this.

I will tell you what is the biggest thing they did in S2 that is missing in S1 - Hi Res, in a fashion.

After many years of saying - correctly in my opinion - that the science does not justify the need for Hi Res audio, except psychologically. Since I don’t have those psychological blinders on, I don't care that S1 does not do Hi Res.

I can’t answer that @Kumar as I have not seen the Sonos user-data to truly comment - I’m just commenting on my own experience and personal use here and what I’ve seen at the Homes of family and friends too.

I don’t think it’s all bad news as some might have us believe. I don’t however understand why we have a working Sonos App/System and some can’t even get their App to work at all?

I went away ‘glamping’ the other weekend and took with me two Roams and 4G/5G LTE router and that all worked fine, even on a mobile data sim connection for each and every day we were away - the App worked just fine to stream Amazon Music HD (mostly) to the two speakers (grouped, rather than paired).

The (attached) was recorded the other day showing my iPhone XR and what happens when I launch the new Sonos App on that older device - it finds all 25 speakers in 10 Sonos Rooms and loads up 18 Music Services (including the local NAS library) and populates the Home Screen in a matter of seconds.

Yes, there is still the missing ‘queue management’, but I can wait for that. There are also a couple of things I’d like to see optimised in the new App too, but it’s never left me in a position where I was not able to play audio on my chosen speaker(s).

I think I can safely say that features existing on hardware, but that are inaccessible to the end user are considered by the end user as “missing features.”

It seems many of the complaints I read on line are concerning poor ability of the new app to implement features. 

I will continue to use a 3rd party controller until I’m confident the Sonos controller is up to par.

Spence disagrees with you, Ken, vehemently. Read all he has confessed to in the investor call in the first week of August, it is a laundry list of serious consequences.

And then see what he is spouting on Reddit thereafter. In conversations with members on that forum.

 Yes the app works but you have to get used to all the errors that pop up saying “I’m not gonna’ do this for you!!!!” Then I gets done anyway.  How many people just give up after seeing those errors because of the time it takes for the operation to finally complete.

The attached was recorded just a few moments ago (I reside in the UK - if you wish to check the time/date) -it’s a recording of the Sonos App on my iPad …and is a search for ‘Kumar’ and a playback of a chosen random track - I’m just doing my best here to show the App can and does work for some users.

 The App has always worked for my Home system, which is certainly above average size compared to some systems I’ve seen mentioned here in the community.

All I can add is that it’s the exact same App that everyone else is using (assuming folk have installed the latest updates).  So I do have trouble understanding why the new App is not working for some users, but I accept Sonos have acknowledged the issues and that their developers are working at trying to fix these things with fortnightly updates in the next few months. 
 

Anyhow this has been my own user experience with the new App and it’s mostly always worked in this way since its release in May.

 I get no errors when I search.

Even room/group ‘volume control’ that some community users seem to complain about has not been an issue here with the new Sonos App either.

Here’s a previous recording (attached) that I made for that issue, which I chose to keep - that’s another issue Sonos has acknowledged too by the way, but it has been fine for my Home system. 

Initially, I did notice some minor lag in this area, but I was able to resolve this matter myself by improving the Sonos device SNR levels as mentioned here…

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/understanding-the-network-details-section-in-the-sonos-app
 

I ‘steered’ my Sonos devices (where available/practicable) onto the 5Ghz WiFi band, as that is a faster connection compared to a 2.4Ghz WiFi, or SonosNet, link …and I ensured the SNR reading in every case shown in the Sonos App was 45dB or higher. That certainly assisted the Sonos setup here, so it’s perhaps worth considering trying that, perhaps?

Can you perhaps give an example of the errors you see? It’s always worth submitting a diagnostic report when you see an error and post back the details of the error here in the community -  do not include the diagnostic reference, but mention that you submitted a diagnostic report.

It may perhaps help to get some things fixed. 

Out of curiosity, I had a quick scan through Reddit the other day, and there was an installer who claims to have installed 100 systems, and received one call about the update. That could be true, or misinformation, I don’t know. Its hard to filter what we read online, unless we know/trust the person posting.

I know Sonos will have extensive data about usage of their 15,000,000 households, what products and functions users are using, some information about their networks, eg when you submit a diagnostic. I would expect they are getting extra telemetry from the new mobile App and web App.

From my personal experience, I am lucky, as I am not using local music library, or Sonos playlists/queues, so I am not seeing the loss of functionality that many users have experienced or are experiencing at the moment.

In the real world, I also personally know of other Sonos users that don’t use the App, they just use their TV remote for their Sonos HT system and AirPlay for Music, who are totally unaware of the new App. I doubt they know what Reddit is and definitely wont have a Reddit account.

Without doubt there is a loss of functionality, as per release notes, affecting many users, and its highly probable those users are the most vocal?

The one irrefutable data point we now have is Spence saying that Sonos will have to spend up to 30 million dollars to fix the problem and have to postpone new product roll outs till this problem is fixed. 

And also saying that he takes responsibility for this major hiccup.

In my book that should conclude the ongoing speculation about how many or how few people have been affected by this issue.

Another datapoint: $30 million dollars spent on fixing an issue for 15 million Sonos households, on average equates to $2 per household.

IF they are unaware of the new app, and don’t use it, then it’s also likely they don’t update, and probably haven’t updated either, so they will be on the older S2 code which will continue to keep working for them, so to be fair, aren’t using the new code yet… 

And here is another that is more relevant, IMO: USD 30 million unbudgeted spend for a company whose net income in 2023 was negative USD 10 million.