Alphabetical playlist order

You are quite wrong. Sonos does not replicate the alphabetical order in my Tidal listings. They certainly mess with it! I just want Sonos to list playlists alphabetically which they do not. Try finding Mozart listings scattered about the Sonos listing in amongst everything. Sonos lists are just by the latest playlist. I would like my Mozart playlists to be together. I dread my Christmas music scattered about the listings. It will be all over the place.

As ​@controlav says, Sonos doesn’t alter the data presented to them by Tidal in any way. 

You may want to  submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing/replicating this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it. Don’t post the resulting diagnostic number here, they get sensitive about GDPR.

There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

When you speak directly to the Support staff, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your network and Sonos system.

​@controlav has been programming Sonos apps for years and is our resident expert in the SMAPI interface.  If they say Sonos presents 3rd party content as delivered by the service and never mess with it, you can be sure they are telling the truth.

Okay. I see what is happening. I can use the Tidal app directly, then tap on my Playing Now bar and choose Sonos streamer as the playing device. The Sonos app receives a non-alphabetical list from Tidal so has not messed with it (apologies). I still think that it should be possible in the Sonos app to list alphabetically as an option. Using the Tidal app is a slightly clumsy work-around whereas in the BlueOS (Bluesound) app the listing is alphabetical.

Sonos policy states that it will not alter the content, giving the service providers autonomy over the look and feel of their implementation in the Sonos app.  Altering the content after the fact would violate that policy.

This is an interesting reply. Providing an option to list the content alphabetically is not altering the content itself. Just listing it differently. Maybe it is time that Sonos looked again at their policy. Sonos is not altering the content or violating a policy by listing everything in a playlist alphabetically. The actual music content remains the same.

Sonos says they won’t alter the data as it comes from the service.  This includes the order of the data.  Now you can argue the other way until you are blue in the face, but that’s the policy.  

Which begs the question - Why would you argue?  If I went to my TV manufacturer’s user forum to ask why the Netflix app isn’t showing episodes in a particular order, and was told by some people in the know that Netflix controls the order, I’d thank them and head off to Netflix.  I wouldn’t spend post after post arguing that Samsung should be responsible for Netflix’s content.  It’s such a confusing dynamic. 

This is a very sensible if obvious reply. I will stick with the Tidal listing. Why? Because if Sonos listed alphabetically, I am quite convinced this would also go too far and apply to a playlist. This would mean that, for example, Dvorak Serenade for Strings would start with F for Finale (last movement) and M for Moderato (first movement). Sonos seem to know so little about computer programming. As an experienced programmer I could write the code myself. But I won’t.

Have at it: https://developer.sonos.com/s/?language=en_US

There are multiple reasons for Sonos NOT sorting third party content. Here are a few:

1. When to sort? You don’t want to just blindly sort everything, eg tracks in Albums would be bad
2. What to sort by? For example, release date is not available via SMAPI so cannot be a sort key
3. In order to sort the entire list must first be downloaded, some lists can contain 10s of thousands of items