How do I revert to playing the loaded queue after listening to Radio or TV

Hi ​@RavingDave,

I’ve had a look around and can see that this was changed with the new app. As the TV source ‘replaces’ the queue, it’ll show that instead of what you had queued but the app should revert to the queue you had once the TV is powered off.

If the queue doesn’t return after powering off the TV, please let me know.

I hope this helps!

Hi Jamie, in my case I have a Playbase with an optical connection to my TV. I can play music via the ‘queue’ facility OK. When I then switch on the TV I then get TV sound as expected, with the source shown as SPDIF. If I then switch off the TV (standby) all sound stops (as expected), but in the Sonos App the source still shows as TV SPDIF with the little dancing sound meter still active. To get back to my queue I either have to use the PC App or SonoPhone - both of which allow me to restart the queue. I also tried powering off the TV completely, but the same thing happens, with exception that the dancing sound meter stops. 
 

My other use case is where I have an alarm to play the radio (on a Play5) at a certain time for an hour. At the end of the hour the Sonos App still shows the music source as the (silent) radio, with no way to get back to the loaded queue (except via PC or SonoPhone)

So any thoughts on this Jamie?  Is the facility to get back to the loaded queue after listening to the TV or radio on the develpment roadmap for the new App?

Hi ​@RavingDave,

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. 

I don’t have the means to test this myself but I’ve spoken with the team about this and they’ve said that after turning off their TV, the queue returns in the app. It’s quite strange that the app still thinks it’s getting sound from the TV as when my colleague turned off their TV the previous queue started showing again. 

As a test, if you fully power the TV off at the wall, does that bring the queue back or is it still empty? Whether it does or not, I would recommend submitting a diagnostics after you turn off the TV and when the app shows something is still playing then reach out to our support team to troubleshoot with them. They have the necessary tools available to look into your system and can see what’s going wrong.

You already have some workarounds with using another app, but I would say once the issue with the Playbar still expecting TV audio is resolved, then that should also resolve the issue with the queue not returning.

Hi Jamie

I’d already tried a full power off of the TV - which in my case still did not bring back the queue.  I’ll try submitting the diagnostics as you suggest.

I also raised the similar, but not exactly the same, issue with playing a radio station on another device (Play 5).  So in this case I have a queued playlist playing on my Play 5.  Then an alarm interupts this and plays a radio station.  Once the alarm switches off the Sonos App  just shows the radio station as the current (non-playing) source.  However, what I would like to do is have an option to revert back to playing the loaded playlist (as used to be an option in the old App).  There seems no capability to do this in the new App - so again I currenlty have to revert back to a PC or another App.  (See attached images;  first shows radio playing, second shows radio as source after alarm has stopped playing, third shows image from Sonophone with the queue still loaded and available to restart).

What I remember from the old App was that while the current radio station source was not playing there used to be a ‘playlist icon’ for the device in the bottom left of the screen.  This allowed users to re-start the loaded queue - In my opinion a useful function?

Hi ​@RavingDave,

I’ve given this a test on my system and I was able to replicate that too, when my test alarm goes off, it stays on the alarm music source with the queue empty.

I’m not sure if this is intended behaviour so I’ll raise this with the team and I’ll also ask for more clarification regarding returning to the queue after playing with the TV. If I get any more information I’ll let you know but for now the workaround would be to start playback again with the desktop app if that retains the queue. 

OK, thanks for confirming you can replicate the issue raised, but just for the avoidence of doubt where you say “it stays on the alarm music source with the queue empty” ,what is really happening is “It stays on the alarm music souce, but the queue remains inactive and inaccessible”.  (ie the queue is still in the system - as evidenced by being able to get to it from the Windows PC app)

I don’t have a Sonos soundbar yet but this issue intrigues me.  I assumed that I could play music through the App through the soundbar (like any other speaker) - yes?

If I then switch the TV on - what happens - does this then start the TV sound through the speaker - configurable behaviour?  But the issue being described here - is that saying that once the soundbar is playing the TV sound that the way to stop it is by switching the TV off?  And there is no ‘End Session’ equivalent to like when you have been playing from Spotify etc.?

Strangely, there used to be an issue whereby when playing music to a speaker that was initiated from Alexa voice or Spotify App for example, there was no way to stop this music and get back to the queue from the Desktop App - the ‘End Session’ only appeared in the mobile App.  Even selecting tracks from the queue and ‘Playing’ them were ignored and the other source continued.  However, I’m happy to say this has been fixed at some point (more than a year ago) as double clicking a song from the queue starts it and stops the other source.. I only just found this out. 😀

Hi ​@RavingDave, 

I’ve received a reply regarding this and have been informed that the queue not returning after TV, radio, or alarm playback is intended behaviour with the Sonos app, which isn’t the answer you or I was hoping for. 

This is now a feature request, so I’ve marked this thread as such and will forward it to the relevant teams. I don’t have any ETA or when or if this feature will return, so I’d suggest using the desktop app to access the queue after it doesn’t return, or waiting for a reply from a community user that has as third-party alternative they can recommend.

Thanks for the update. Hopefully the development / product team will see this as a key usability feature and so will prioritise it to be re-instated as soon as possible. 
 

in the meantime for IOS users I would recommend the SonoPhone or SonoPad third party apps which allow you to quickly restart the loaded queue after listening to the radio or TV.