The Black App has caused consternation and some real anger, the main issues showing up here being how to get functionality back where the app has been updated and the ability to access local media libraries where SMB 2 or 3 is not activated.

The workload on your help lines/chat bots/whatever must be appalling and the feedback here is unanimously negative.

Surely you can help the owners of your hardware by posting clear guidance as to how they can sort them out on a DIY basis.  You’d also be doing yourselves a big favour by getting a lot of people off your backs on the help lines and this forum and Reddit.  I have seen a number of posts from users with either video links or written instructions.  These, because of the chaotic nature of the forum, are very difficult to find.  Authoritative instructions from Sonos itself could be made “sticky” and would be readily accessible for those with problems.

I suggest that clear YouTube-type instructions be set up as follows, with a clear distinction between Apple and Android/Windows systems from the start, as that seems to be a major source of confusion:-

SMB issues are hardware based.  There are many variations out there but surely you could cover Windows 10 and 11 and whatever are the latest Apple versions with:-

1 How to check whether your hardware and OS can in fact run SMB 2 or 3

2 How to find what level of SMB your library is stored under.

3 How to activate SMB 2 or 3 in your system if step 1 says it can be done

App Issues are all yours and you should:-

1 Make a clear statement to iOS users that, once the app has been updated to the latest version, there is no way back. They can then look at your timeline and start hoping.

2 Put up an authoritative set of instructions for Android users wishing to roll back.  There are plenty of these in the forum but they are not official.  Making it official would save an awful lot of people’s time.

Indexing Issues

These again are down to your apps and will probably disappear once people are empowered to sort out the SMB issues, but it would be worth stating authoritatively that this can be done in the Windows app, presumably through your Apple app.

By my count I have defined 15 sets of instructions here (2 Wi and 2 Apple versions for each SMB issue, one each for the others).  None of these procedures are exactly rocket science and there is at least one video clip on the forum already which has been very well received.

Surely you have somebody who could write up these instructions and post them; if you haven’t got one in house, hire a high school senior geek to do it over the weekend.

It’s about time for Sonos to step up and take some sort of responsibility for what you absolutely have to know is a massive ****-up.  At least doing something like this would be a (very overdue) start to that process.

Are you listening?

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