Hi @press250,

Thanks for sharing this detailed guide on adding a Windows share, I hope it will help users who need guidance on setting one up for the first time. 

Regarding your first point, the desktop app will remain from the time being. You can still use it to add shares with that functionality being added to the new web app in a future update, mentioned in this thread:

I hope this information helps and thanks again for providing these detailed steps.

@press250 

Step 5 - Music Library Setup. is nowhere to be found in android app.   Can't enter any details anywhere

(Latest app update) 

What about Mac? 

Are you connecting or Sharing out? In my experience, macOS typically just does the best available. If you wanna know what your current SMB connections are, you can open Terminal and run this command. It will show you all your networked drives and which version of SMB their using. Personally, all mine are SMB 3.1.1.

smbutil statshares -a

smbutil statshares -a

I have SBM set for sharing, Mac shows it’s sharing. No other device has issue with sharing except for Sonos. It started when they did the upgrade. They killed the share link. 

I try everything you said and i obtain the message Access to the shared folder XXXXXX\SonosLibrary is denied. I even put MusicShare as an administrator.

So f****** conplicated. 

I'm really  thinking to getting rid of Sonos.

So good sound but an as***** application.

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

I followed all these steps, but as someone else pointed out, Step 5 - Music Library Setup. is nowhere to be found in android app. 

I’ve p******* away hours troubleshooting this nonsense today. My system is only 4 years old and costs me thousands for around 15 now useless speakers. I don’t want f****** Spotify. Had I known I’d deal with this s***, I’d have had Bose speakers hardwired into the walls when the house was under construction before the sheet rock went up. 

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

How in the world is it alright for Sonos to tell me my systems are out of date and expect me to pay up for upgrades to my pc I don't need?

I cannot access my music library anymore. '’Access denied'’ when selecting any song…

I can't even find the folders to change these settings. Why does this have to be so complicated?

Bonjour, j’ai résolu mon problème en changeant ce paramètre dans mon NAS Synology 

Bonjour,

Comme d’autres utilisateur de Sonos, j’ai eu le message suivant :

Sonos n’a pas pu ajouter le dossier musical.

Raison : Impossible d’ajouter le dossier partagé //DESKTOP-EOS7G7H/Music a votre bibliothèque musical (913).

Après réflexion j’ai trouvé une solution au problème qui apparemment à fonctionner.

Voici l’explication : Clic droit sur le dossier Music et cliquer sur PROPRIÉTÉS en bas du menu.

Cliquer sur l’onglet PARTAGE et ensuite cliquer sur le premier bouton PARTAGE…

Une nouvelle fenêtre s’ouvre et vous cliquer sur le bouton V à côté du bouton AJOUTER.

Cliquer sur SYSTÈME WI-FI SANS FIL SONOS ensuite cliquer sur le bouton AJOUTER et pour finir cliquer sur PARTAGER.

Ouvrir votre application Sonos sur votre PC et ajouter votre bibliothèque musical.

Cela fonctionne à merveille chez moi et je vous souhaite le même succès.

You may try all this and find out with latest updates, Sonos doesn’t let you search your library anymore and made it extremely difficult to add anything from local library if you figure a way how. Best of luck to you and Sonos.

Updated yesterday and my library disappeared - ‘Unable to access...’ and all that malarkey. No guidance anywhere on the support site. Chat contact unavailable for the first three hours of trying. Managed to get onto a chat (You are number 35 in the queue) where support indicated I was still using SMBvb1 (quoi?!) and started to run through steps to remove v1 and re-enable SMBv2/3, but a ‘system error’ at the support end started giving me solutions to somebody else’s problem (‘Sorry about that please ignore’) before the connection dropped out. Now I’m promised that if I call the support line (and wait for an hour so for a response I guess) they will talk me through all of the steps I now need to take to get back to where I was last Saturday.

I like the kit and have been using it for around 15 years I think, but from the moment the salesman stopped talking and the tech support started explaining that ‘Oh, it’s not actually going to do that for you...’, it’s been a titanic struggle to get the system to stay where I want it to be and not be dragged into Sonos’ pointless development dreams. But we are all trapped by the sunk cost of our own time and energy in making this grim software do what we want..

As of now I have a system which will not play any of the 15,000 or so tracks that I have patiently ripped from my CD collection and put into a place where three days ago the system used to find it and play it, playlists and all, just as I wanted. And the Sonos response is ‘Don’t worry, you’ll soon be able to reinstall your alarms’. I have a clock that does that for me. I want this system to play my music.

Google translation

Good morning,

Like other Sonos users, I got the following message:

Sonos was unable to add the music folder.

Reason: Unable to add the shared folder //DESKTOP-EOS7G7H/Music to your music library (913).

After some thought I found a solution to the problem which apparently worked.

Here is the explanation: Right click on the Music folder and click on PROPERTIES at the bottom of the menu.

Click on the SHARE tab and then click on the first SHARE button…

A new window opens and you click on the V button next to the ADD button.

Click on SONOS WIRELESS WI-FI SYSTEM then click on the ADD button and finally click on SHARE.

Open your Sonos app on your PC and add your music library.

It works wonderfully for me and I wish you the same success.

Nope.  “An object named "MusicShare" cannot be found. Check the selected object types and location for accuracy and ensure that you typed the object name correctly, or remove this object from the selection.”  This is madness.  I. Can’t. Listen. To. My. Music.

I’m in the same boat. Two days ago I found the Sonos controller on my laptop for my two Sonos One speakers couldn’t find them and they also disappeared off my Windows 11 explorer wifi devices list. have attached via ethernet/rebooted laptop & computer and still no change. When I open my Virgin Media dashboard the two Sonos speakers are listed as connected devices. What the hell is going on here Sonos????

All works fine on my phone but no music library access from my NAS. Now I see everyone else has the same problem. Nightmare. Poor again from Sonos.

On my Windows 10 desktop, I shared my MUSIC folder as instructed on some of the posts. The message pops up:

Your folder is shared.  \\DESKTOP-7PBHEBR\Users\mrscn\Music

When I try to re-add my Music Library, instead of getting error 903 like I was getting, I now get error 1002.

Sonos was unable to add the music folder.
Reason: Unable to add the shared folder “//DESKTOP-7PBHEBR/Music” to your Music Library (1002).

It’s like it expects the Music folder to be in a different folder.

I think I’m changing my Sonos password to SonosSucksBigtime

Hello press250 and thank you for your post.

I did all the steps as you outlined.

Unfortunately, at Step 5, the Sonos app no longer lets you modify your Music Library.  Those features are “grayed out”.  The screenshot below is from a Windows 11 PC using the old app.  And on my iPhone, the new app only allows the users to add a streaming service or listen to Sonos Radio.

I have waited for the updated app that promised to “re introduce” what we lost.  I have spent dozens of hours trying all the different “work arounds” suggest in this community and other.  I cannot get music back into my house.  I have run out of patience.

I have never needed or had Windows file sharing installed/enabled, and refuse to do so now.  Here, add one more ridiculously unnecessary attack surface, exacerbated by Sonos' invasive new Terms of Service ... just to play music from the very device I'm using the app on.  Ludicrous

My security posture borders on paranoid, so I share your concerns. Opening up a READ-ONLY file share of your music files is an extremely limited risk. The proprietary music library mechanism built into the Sonos desktop apps (technically http sharing) was a far greater risk.

I don't recall ever ticking a box authorizing any Sonos apps to do http sharing and I don't think that's actually what it did (see Claude info here), but in any case some obscure Sonos proprietary risks aren't something likely to attract significant devotion of blackhat effort.  Windows file sharing, on the other hand, is installed and enabled on hundreds of millions of computers.  Not going there, and it's a ridiculous ask imo

You are clearly not comfortable turning on Windows file sharing and I respect that! For those who are on the fence, I offer the following ...

I am 100% certain: the Sonos desktop app created a proprietary http share, created a ‘Sonos’ user, and ran a SonosLibrary service. Anything scanning your network would come across the http share. Six years back I ran a packet sniffer to verify all of this, so I am absolutely confident that my answer is better than Claude’s in this instance. 

You are absolutely correct that Windows file sharing represents a ‘popular’ target, though that cuts both ways. SMBv2 file sharing has been included in Windows since 2008 and it is safe to say that it has been hammered on extensively by whitehats and blackhats alike. Those of us who work in infosec (decade+ here) are much more comfortable with risks that have survived the gauntlet of time than we are with risks to proprietary software from companies with zero security expertise. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I concur, and I too am 100% certain that the previous local library housed on a PC/Mac used a proprietary version of  HTTP sharing.  Sonos stated as much when they sent out the notice that HTTP sharing will no longer be supported.

Well i dont accept comments from Sonos at face value / as true, but that would be unsettling if true.  Applications don't need file sharing privileges to access local files, nor to create data and send it over a local area network.  Each Sonos device connected to your LAN receives, holds, and plays audio from a rather substantial buffer portion of the origin file, the buffer is presumably being created on a rolling basis by the host Sonos app that's reading a local sound file.  Just no need for any sort of file sharing to play a local file.  Control from additional instances of the Sonos app running on other devices on a local network wouldn't even necessitate file sharing, although maybe easier to do that way.  But for God's sake Sonos at least give us the option to simply play back local content from the local app, without invoking file sharing 

You are correct that “applications don't need file sharing privileges to access local files.” However, the Sonos desktop app did not need to be running for your Sonos devices to access the proprietary http file share. Indeed, no user needed to be logged in for your Sonos devices to access the proprietary http file share. You could reboot your Windows machine, leave it on the lock screen, and everything worked fine.

Having beat this thing into submission  at this point, I’d like to provide a community service. Even if you never enabled Sonos proprietary file sharing, remnants of it remain on your Windows PC. If you’re inclined toward “security paranoia” consider disabling the entirely-obsolete-and-unused Sonos Library Service:

• Run services.msc
• Scroll down, find SonosLibraryService, and double-click on it
• If the service is running, click the Stop button
• From the Startup type pulldown select Disabled
• Click OK

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Sonos actually works.  The Sonos apps do not “play” or “buffer” anything.  They are only controllers.  They tell Sonos devices what to play from which source, and the Sonos device then goes out and gets the media stream or file from whatever source it is told.  In the case of a local library selection, the Sonos device is given a network share and pathname to a file in your local library to fetch and play.  Without some type of network sharing, there is no way the device can fetch the file. 

Again, the Sonos apps are only controllers.  No media streams through or from the apps.   All media is fetched by the smart Sonos devices directly from the source, and if that source is your local library, the fetching is accomplished through some type of network sharing.