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Audio glitches with Youtube Music via the Sonos App?


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Since the switch to Youtube Music (from Google Play Music), has anyone else noticed audio glitches periodically in the music they listen to via Youtube Music in the the Sonos App?

Every so often in a song I get a quick static glitch sound. This does not happen with other sources, like Sonos Radio or Bandcamp. 

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Best answer by Mark P 29 October 2020, 22:14

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@controlav.

 

Sorry, you feel this is ridiculous.

What other conclusions can you come to, when YTM casts fine for hours with no glitches,  Yet when playing the same tracks through Sonos there are glitches in EVERY track?


Because the YTM SMAPI endpoint is a poorly written piece of software (so many examples on this forum), unlike the old Google SMAPI endpoint and (I assume) the direct YTM endpoint (wherever that is).

I also have those glitches and before when it was google Play Music there weren’t any. Now with YTM they’re all the time. Can Sonos and Google debug and fix what is obviously a bug? 
 

I also submitted a support report 1773489082, the glitches are observed on Play:5 

Same problem here. The glitches appear only in combination of sonos with youtube music. Listening in the browser on Win10 there are no glitches.

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Hi @Loretharn.

Welcome, thank you for reaching out to Sonos Community, We appreciate your time and effort in posting your concern here in our community.

Have you already done any Troubleshooting steps so far?

Can you try to use a different controller to play youtube, and try also to remove and add back to YT in the Sonos application.

I’d also be tempted to do a network refresh, by unplugging all Sonos devices, then rebooting the router. When the router comes back up, plug back in the Sonos devices wait for 1-2 minutes, and test it again

Let us know if it works. If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

Hello, Mark P,

reinstalling youtube on the app did not help, but unplugging und replugging everything helped. Since then I had only one glitch and then no more. 

 

Thank You

Loretharn

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Hi @Loretharn.

Thank you for reaching out to Sonos Community.

Glad it works, if you can you submit a diagnostic report from your Sonos system and reply back with your confirmation number just to see if everything is in good condition now.

If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

I too am having this issue on two 1st gen play 5s and a play 1.  All other streaming services work perfect youtube music makes the glitch sound consistently.  I’ve unplugged them all and the router and restarted that didn’t help.

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I will add my name to the list of those having issues with YTM only.  I have no issues with any of the other services.  Some days are worse than others.  Today, for example, has been pretty excessive.

I think I have tried most of the suggested conjurations to no avail...

Note that the API used by YouTube Music is the same one used by all other streaming devices. Sonos doesn’t create an API for just one service. I suspect it is the implementation of that API by Google’s/YouTube’s engineers that needs addressing. 

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Hi @babygrogu.

Thank you for reaching back to Sonos Community.

I would like to recommend calling our customer phone support on this so you can be assisted with more thorough and in-depth troubleshooting steps as well as remote diagnostics that can be remotely gathered from your Sonos devices with your permission. 

If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

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I opened up a ticket and submitted audio sample of the chirping noise. Hoping they will fix the issue with the API between YouTube Music Service and Sonos.

Ticket number: 02729032

New Recording.m4a (from Move):

- Paired : Dining Room - Play 5 and Move
- chirping : Between - 2m56s and 3m00s

New Recording 5.m4a (from Bathroom Play 1):

- Paired : Dining Room(Play 5), Bathroom(Play 1), Master Bathroom(Play 1), Master Bedroom(Play 1), Bathroom(Play 1), Move
- chirping : Between - 4m20s and 4m30s

Add me to the list. YTM and the squeeks. I can't personally hear it, but it drives my wife crazy. No problems on Spotify. Please Sonos fix it. 

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@controlav.

 

Sorry, you feel this is ridiculous.

What other conclusions can you come to, when YTM casts fine for hours with no glitches,  Yet when playing the same tracks through Sonos there are glitches in EVERY track?


Because the YTM SMAPI endpoint is a poorly written piece of software (so many examples on this forum), unlike the old Google SMAPI endpoint and (I assume) the direct YTM endpoint (wherever that is).

I think @controlav has an interesting point but perhaps could have explained it more clearly to folks who aren’t software engineers.

@ChrisKalas the reason YTM sounds fine through Chromecast while it’s glitchy on Sonos is likely because Chromecast can interface with YTM directly since Google controls it, while Sonos can only use interfaces made available to third parties.

It seems YTM doesn’t even have an official way for third party apps to access the service. Has anyone seen other non-Google apps besides Sonos that can play YTM? I’ve seen some unofficial open source interfaces which allow searching and accessing data about artists/albums/etc, but there’s no public interface for actually streaming music as far as I know. 

Makes me wonder how Sonos is able to do it. My guess is that they have a special arrangement with Youtube which gives them access to a non-public interface, since the integration adds value to both Sonos and YTM as products.

If there is a special arrangement, then it’s hard to say whether the cause of the glitches is on Sonos’ or Youtube’s side.

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LZL - that makes sense.

Arguably, SONOS should not be providing the service if it does not come up to expected standards (no matter who is providing it).

Please don’t get we wrong, I’ve been very happy with SONOS since 2010 when I bought my first bundle (including a CR200 that is still working fine)

Napster - worked great for years until artists started pulling their music

Google Play Music - worked great, no issues at all

YouTube Music - works but glitches in every track

 

Hopefully a bright spark will come up with a solution soon.

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I think @controlav has an interesting point but perhaps could have explained it more clearly to folks who aren’t software engineers

Makes me wonder how Sonos is able to do it. My guess is that they have a special arrangement with Youtube which gives them access to a non-public interface, since the integration adds value to both Sonos and YTM as products.

If there is a special arrangement, then it’s hard to say whether the cause of the glitches is on Sonos’ or Youtube’s side.

There is no special arrangement: YTM implemented a SMAPI endpoint like every other music service, which is publicly documented, then they give Sonos the urls to it to add to the global list of services. Anyone who knows how (eg my apps) can consume that endpoint for enumeration. Playback does require certificate pinning, so only the official Sonos apps can stream (this is to avoid piracy so makes sense).

However reliable streaming does require the YTM endpoint actually provides streams in a reliable and timely fashion, and that appears to not be the case. My guess is that there aren’t enough servers allocated to that SMAPI endpoint because Google don’t care enough.

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LZL - that makes sense.

Arguably, SONOS should not be providing the service if it does not come up to expected standards (no matter who is providing it).

Please don’t get we wrong, I’ve been very happy with SONOS since 2010 when I bought my first bundle (including a CR200 that is still working fine)

Napster - worked great for years until artists started pulling their music

Google Play Music - worked great, no issues at all

YouTube Music - works but glitches in every track

 

Hopefully a bright spark will come up with a solution soon.

What I find strange is that I haven’t heard sporadic glitches like this since the days of CD rips and mp3 downloads via dial-up internet. Error correction works well enough these days that corrupt transfers are uncommon, so the worst that happens when the network is bad is that the audio pauses until the buffer can refill enough to resume.

Another strange thing is that when I hear a glitch and then skip back to a few seconds before it and replay, I don’t hear it the second time.

Yet another strange thing is that I’m pretty sure I hear at least one glitch in every track, but never two in a short time, so it’s not frequent enough to be super obvious. For weeks I wondered whether my ears were mistaken until I came across this thread.

Maybe YTM won’t allow tracks to be streamed in perfect fidelity via third party software because they can’t guarantee it won’t be copied, so they add minimally invasive glitches to each one. It sounds a bit ridiculous, but when was the last time anyone heard glitches like this on any streaming music platform?

Userlevel 1

I think @controlav has an interesting point but perhaps could have explained it more clearly to folks who aren’t software engineers

Makes me wonder how Sonos is able to do it. My guess is that they have a special arrangement with Youtube which gives them access to a non-public interface, since the integration adds value to both Sonos and YTM as products.

If there is a special arrangement, then it’s hard to say whether the cause of the glitches is on Sonos’ or Youtube’s side.

There is no special arrangement: YTM implemented a SMAPI endpoint like every other music service, which is publicly documented, then they give Sonos the urls to it to add to the global list of services. Anyone who knows how (eg my apps) can consume that endpoint for enumeration. Playback does require certificate pinning, so only the official Sonos apps can stream (this is to avoid piracy so makes sense).

However reliable streaming does require the YTM endpoint actually provides streams in a reliable and timely fashion, and that appears to not be the case. My guess is that there aren’t enough servers allocated to that SMAPI endpoint because Google don’t care enough.

Ah that makes sense; I had assumed it was Sonos that had to build the integration against a Youtube API, not vice versa.

In that case, seems better to take this to the YTM support forum.

But given that YTM still needs a lot of work to catch up with competing music platforms, I’d guess fixing this would be low priority.

The odd thing is that when it was Google Music, it worked well. It was only when they switched over to YTM that things became troublesome. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions. 

Userlevel 1

LZL - that makes sense.

Arguably, SONOS should not be providing the service if it does not come up to expected standards (no matter who is providing it).

Please don’t get we wrong, I’ve been very happy with SONOS since 2010 when I bought my first bundle (including a CR200 that is still working fine)

Napster - worked great for years until artists started pulling their music

Google Play Music - worked great, no issues at all

YouTube Music - works but glitches in every track

 

Hopefully a bright spark will come up with a solution soon.

What I find strange is that I haven’t heard sporadic glitches like this since the days of CD rips and mp3 downloads via dial-up internet. Error correction works well enough these days that corrupt transfers are uncommon, so the worst that happens when the network is bad is that the audio pauses until the buffer can refill enough to resume.

Another strange thing is that when I hear a glitch and then skip back to a few seconds before it and replay, I don’t hear it the second time.

Yet another strange thing is that I’m pretty sure I hear at least one glitch in every track, but never two in a short time, so it’s not frequent enough to be super obvious. For weeks I wondered whether my ears were mistaken until I came across this thread.

Maybe YTM won’t allow tracks to be streamed in perfect fidelity via third party software because they can’t guarantee it won’t be copied, so they add minimally invasive glitches to each one. It sounds a bit ridiculous, but when was the last time anyone heard glitches like this on any streaming music platform?

This idea is plausible, my experience with the glitches is the same as yours (I’m a network engineer and understand that this is not a connection / network issue)

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Man - I’m so glad I found this thread.  I love YTM - because I also get AdFree YouTube streaming for me and my son.  Awesome deal.   

I managed to record the glitch.  Is this what everyone is hearing?

 

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Man - I’m so glad I found this thread.  I love YTM - because I also get AdFree YouTube streaming for me and my son.  Awesome deal.   

I managed to record the glitch.  Is this what everyone is hearing?

 

Thanks for taking the time to make this!

This is really interesting because my glitches are totally different. One sounds like a click and another sounds like the volume was lowered for a split second but you can still hear the audio.

Here’s a recording of each:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10IkxX60opuVGJ53J8NkWz8DKAFfSrIdN

 

 

I went ahead and started a thread on the YTM side: https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/thread/104742971

Let’s try getting some attention on that side by upvoting and adding any new details :)

This audio glitch has made YTM totally unlistenable through Sonos for me. It’s a shame because I’ve been using Google Play Music through Sonos for a very long time and it always worked great until the forced switchover to YTM. The audio glitch for me is like fingernails on a chalkboard. Extremely harsh irritating sound, especially at volume. It happens at least once per song, but often more. For some reason I’ve been naively thinking they’d fix it, but I guess I’ll just have to switch streaming services. Here’s demo of what I hear (at 2 sec):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xkgOHdxDee8W6C32xyvoM5xaewREDA7I/view?usp=sharing

I am also experiencing this exact same problem since switching over to YouTube music, there are a number of threads on this subject so there is a definite issue - sonos support have been absolutely useless on this and despite me sending them these threads refuse to acknowledge them or provide further information.

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Glad I’m not alone.

I used this “Email the CEO option” on the SONOS support page and was connected with someone from the SONOS team.  Spent 30 minutes on the phone. I sent him the recording with the Chirping sound and provided more insights.  He never got back to me (Three weeks and counting).

I guess we are on our own with this one :-|

 

Btw - I rebooted my Google Wifi routers and the problem went away for a few days. But now it’s back and it looks like the chirping is more frequent. 

 

I don’t have internet issues. I have Sonic 1GB Fiber internet.  It’s the most reliable network I ever had.

It’s not very likely to be in between your router and the source (your 1GB Fiber connection) but much more likely to be internal to your local network, either wired, SonosNet of wifi. Or, it could potentially be the servers at YTM sending a data interruption down. But it’s happening across a pretty wide variety of people, so it’s not terribly likely to be the pipe size. 

Sonos is, however, more sensitive to local issues much more than a standard device. Certainly, like a normal device, there’s a connection from the Sonos to your router to the outside world, but then Sonos also has a connection from the Sonos to your router to your controller device, and also from the Sonos to any and all other Sonos devices in your network. 

I’m happy to hear that someone at Sonos is looking at it. If it’s on their side of things, it will get fixed, although perhaps not as quickly as you’d like. However, if it’s on YTM side of things, Sonos doesn’t have much clout with them (especially given the lawsuits between the two companies) , and it would be up to the YTM engineers to fix. Given the rather poor implementation of the Sonos API that YTM did, it’s hard to think they have a cadre of high performing coders on the issue….but I could be wrong there. 

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