Question

How to solve the Error 913 (Music Library) on a Mac

S
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

There is a reported bug fix coming mid-June 2024. If you can’t wait until then…

(I did this running Sonoma 14.4.1) And thanks to folks in a separate thread on the details - just tried to put them all in one place.

I made a video of the process if you prefer that way: https://youtu.be/kjhKhDuvgDY


Part 1 - Set up the share (System Settings/Preferences)

  1. Open System Settings (in earlier MacOS it’s called System Preferences).
    • Click on the apple in top left of your screen to find that option.
  2. Choose General
  3. Select **Sharing**.
  4. Enable **File Sharing**
  5. Click the "i" symbol
  6. Click the "+" symbol.
  7. Add a shared folder by choosing the folder where your music is stored and selecting Open
    • The name of the folder here will be the ShareName that you’ll use in Part 3.
  8. Under ‘users’, confirm that the list includes an ‘everyone’ option, and that you set ‘everyone’ to *Read Only* at a minimum (or “Read & Write”)
  9. Ensure the customer's account is set to **Read & Write**
    • I’m not 100% sure ‘customer’s account’, but I took it to mean the account I login with on the computer.
  10. Click the Options button
  11. Ensure that both SMB and the customer's account below are checked and choose Done. 

Part 2 - Find your computer’s name

  1. At the bottom (or sometimes top in earlier versions of macOS) of the Sharing page, you’ll see Local hostname. Everything before the .local is the hostname. Copy that down - that will be your MacName that you’ll need in Part 3.

 

Part 3 - Add the share to Sonos

  1. Open the Sonos app on your mac.
  2. Choose Manage > Music Library Settings
  3. Choose the + for your music folders.
  4. Instead of ‘another folder or drive’, choose Networked Device
  5. Type the network path name when prompted, and press Next. The format will be \\MacName\ShareName
    • Remember the ShareName and MacName you captured earlier? This is where you’ll use them. Make sure the \ are the right ones (not /, but \).
  6. Enter the Mac username and password. The password is the same as when you login opening your laptop.
    • If you’re not sure about the username, you can find it this way:
      • Open an app called ‘Terminal’ on your macbook. (Go into Launchpad and type ‘term’ and it’ll show up)
      • Type whoami and press enter. 
      • The result that shows is your username. (e.g. Perhaps my computer shows my login name as Salami Slices but my username technically is different (salamislices)). Copy and paste that into the username that Sonos is asking for.
  1. If that doesn’t work, someone had mentioned trying the following:
    • From System Settings, on left side, choose ‘users and groups’
    • Click on the ‘i’ next to Guest User
    • Enable “Allow guest users to connect to shared folders” and choose OK.
    • Now, from Sonos app, when get prompted for username and password, leave them blank and just choose enter.
      • The idea is it would treat it as a guest and since gave access to guests, will work.

 

130 replies

K
Userlevel 1
Badge +1

Many thanks Salami Slices...

I too have now had success adding my music library, plus two additional music collections to “The New and Improved” Sonos App. That is, with the exception of no Playlists, except for one that I have no idea where it has come from.

A tip for anyone who is about to run through this solution – make sure to carefully read all the way through the instructions twice, and watch the video, before starting. 

 

I got this from Reddit:

So I've had luck with the following.

  1. Open ITunes (Music), click on Home in the upper left, then go to File -> Library -> Eport Library

  2. This will create a "Library.xml" file. Save it to your Desktop

  3. Make a Folder and name it "iTunes" on your Desktop

  4. Rename the "Library.xml" file to "ITunes Music Library.xml" and put it in the folder you just created.

  5. Move this Folder to where your music is. And I mean that literally. Like where you have all the artists listed in your iTunes Musics files.. Put it there.

  6. Remove and Re-import via Sonos and you "should' be all set. You should be able to just "Update Music Library" instead of removing/re-adding, but I'm not 100% sure.

Note - Update Music Library worked for me. I did not have to remove and re-import. The above steps need to be repeated whenever a playlist has changed. And I was able to just put the XML file in the Media folder - a separate iTunes folder was not needed.

Good luck!

M
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

This

solution works… And this brings up an interesting question: WHY? 

Let me explain what I mean: The solution puts the local music files in a network share, after which in principle I would not need the SONOS mac app to be running to get such files. And indeed this seems to be the case, you can actually quit the app and access to the files remains.

This is great, actually. I presume that if new files are added to the share a new scan will be required.

But the point I am getting at is it seems the scan is uploading the locations and metadata of the files in the share to the SONOS system, after which the SONOS system reaches out for the files itself rather than via the mac app.

Am I understanding this correctly?

Q

Thanks for sharing.

I’m just trying to use your suggestion, but I’m getting message “We’re sorry. We can’t open the document Library.xml because we found a problem with its contents.” No error details available. Location: Line 2, Column: 9

My music in on my old iMac HD running macOS Catalina 10.15.7 (Late 2012)

Thanks for any help.

Peter

E
Badge

Finally, after multiple attempts since last month I got my library to appear in the Mac desktop app. But the folder is empty. Nothing showing up under Music Library.

Any further fix suggestions?

M

Yes, I get the below as well.  No more access to any playlists!  Which is annoying.  When is Sonos going to fix this??

-----------------------------

Thanks for sharing.

I’m just trying to use your suggestion, but I’m getting message “We’re sorry. We can’t open the document Library.xml because we found a problem with its contents.” No error details available. Location: Line 2, Column: 9

My music in on my old iMac HD running macOS Catalina 10.15.7 (Late 2012)

Thanks for any help.

Peter

C

Can’t thank you enough for posting your video...after several tries and iterations, I was able to restore my library.   Couple interesting points:  I use a desktop MAC to house my library and I had to turn off both screensaver and sleep mode or else the synch with SONOS timed-out (note that my music library is huge as I have a ton of live Grateful Dead stuff on there….) - when I did that, it all seemed to ultimately be available within the MAC interface, with the exception of the playlists (anyone figure out how to get those back?);   also, within the crappy iphone app, which is unquestionably garbage in its current form, I have noted that some of my more extensive artist catalogs are abridged….for instance, certain later years of concerts are not accessible after many shows from earlier years….and, of course, no way to search for those.   Lastly, noticing A LOT OF PROBLEMS with tracks skipping across the system since I’ve resumed playing the library.  Welcome any tips there, but to the gentleman who posted the video, you are, in fact, our hero.   Thank you!

J

Updated the Mac OS controller to the latest June Release on Catalina today and am still unable to mount a local music library on the same Mac. Very disappointed. I have to replicate my library to a second Mac with the current Mac OS and mount it from there as a NAS drive. Ridiculous. 

S
Userlevel 1

Thank you, Salami Slices, for the considerable time and effort on your part to correct Sonos incompetence. 

However, this is a Sonos error and I refuse to waste my time on something that should have been tested before the new software was released. Sonos made the error and it is up to them to fix this. If they don’t, then my 4 Ports will be retired and I couldn't care less. I have current alternatives (old Logtitech Squeezeboxes) and a new suggestion from RichardBZ of a Bluesound Node DAC/Streamer if needed.

(iMac Ventura 13.6.7, iPhone, multiple iPads)

 

 

 

L
Userlevel 3
Badge

There is a reported bug fix coming mid-June 2024. If you can’t wait until then…

(I did this running Sonoma 14.4.1) And thanks to folks in a separate thread on the details - just tried to put them all in one place.

I made a video of the process if you prefer that way: https://youtu.be/kjhKhDuvgDY


Part 1 - Set up the share (System Settings/Preferences)

  1. Open System Settings (in earlier MacOS it’s called System Preferences).
    • Click on the apple in top left of your screen to find that option.
  2. Choose General
  3. Select **Sharing**.
  4. Enable **File Sharing**
  5. Click the "i" symbol
  6. Click the "+" symbol.
  7. Add a shared folder by choosing the folder where your music is stored and selecting Open
    • The name of the folder here will be the ShareName that you’ll use in Part 3.
  8. Under ‘users’, confirm that the list includes an ‘everyone’ option, and that you set ‘everyone’ to *Read Only* at a minimum (or “Read & Write”)
  9. Ensure the customer's account is set to **Read & Write**
    • I’m not 100% sure ‘customer’s account’, but I took it to mean the account I login with on the computer.
  10. Click the Options button
  11. Ensure that both SMB and the customer's account below are checked and choose Done. 

Part 2 - Find your computer’s name

  1. At the bottom (or sometimes top in earlier versions of macOS) of the Sharing page, you’ll see Local hostname. Everything before the .local is the hostname. Copy that down - that will be your MacName that you’ll need in Part 3.

 

Part 3 - Add the share to Sonos

  1. Open the Sonos app on your mac.
  2. Choose Manage > Music Library Settings
  3. Choose the + for your music folders.
  4. Instead of ‘another folder or drive’, choose Networked Device
  5. Type the network path name when prompted, and press Next. The format will be \\MacName\ShareName
    • Remember the ShareName and MacName you captured earlier? This is where you’ll use them. Make sure the \ are the right ones (not /, but \).
  6. Enter the Mac username and password. The password is the same as when you login opening your laptop.
    • If you’re not sure about the username, you can find it this way:
      • Open an app called ‘Terminal’ on your macbook. (Go into Launchpad and type ‘term’ and it’ll show up)
      • Type whoami and press enter. 
      • The result that shows is your username. (e.g. Perhaps my computer shows my login name as Salami Slices but my username technically is different (salamislices)). Copy and paste that into the username that Sonos is asking for.
  1. If that doesn’t work, someone had mentioned trying the following:
    • From System Settings, on left side, choose ‘users and groups’
    • Click on the ‘i’ next to Guest User
    • Enable “Allow guest users to connect to shared folders” and choose OK.
    • Now, from Sonos app, when get prompted for username and password, leave them blank and just choose enter.
      • The idea is it would treat it as a guest and since gave access to guests, will work.

 

Dear Salami Slices;

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.

Having become fed up over the last 5/6 weeks waiting for Mr Spence to put things right and with having to play Sonos Music (and to a certain extent Spotify) as the only music sources I could get through the system after losing everything with the App Update, I followed your (very clear) instructions to the letter and “hey presto* my music library, (on my Mac Mini}, is back and functioning. Unfortunately my playlists seem to have disappeared into the ether but “hey ho” small pickings are rich pickings. I did all this running Ventura 13.6.7.

I had to do the last step (7) to get it to work which worries me a bit - giving SONOS “Guest User” access - if they can screw up their own systems what might they do to mine!!!!

Let’s hope SONOS don’t screw everything up again with their “fix” whenever it appears.

Once again thanks - you’re a saviour.

 

 

J

Sonos- Catalina and USB Drives - Spent hours with Sonos Tech support. They tried lots to get a Catalina music directory to mount to Sonos, all failed with “unable to login with account and password”. We were able to “prove” the failure appears related to external USB drives (which work BTW with Sonoma). If the music library is on the internal Mac drive, it mounts and indexes as expected. Of course, you have to have enough internal storage for your music library. 

A

I keep getting this error message. Can anyone help? 

 

K
Userlevel 1
Badge +1

 

Dear Salami Slices;

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.

Having become fed up over the last 5/6 weeks waiting for Mr Spence to put things right and with having to play Sonos Music (and to a certain extent Spotify) as the only music sources I could get through the system after losing everything with the App Update, I followed your (very clear) instructions to the letter and “hey presto* my music library, (on my Mac Mini}, is back and functioning. Unfortunately my playlists seem to have disappeared into the ether but “hey ho” small pickings are rich pickings. I did all this running Ventura 13.6.7.

I had to do the last step (7) to get it to work which worries me a bit - giving SONOS “Guest User” access - if they can screw up their own systems what might they do to mine!!!!

Let’s hope SONOS don’t screw everything up again with their “fix” whenever it appears.

Once again thanks - you’re a saviour.

See the instructions I posted (page 4? - or just search for my posts), which worked for me to get my playlists back. 

J
Badge +2

Finally, after multiple attempts since last month I got my library to appear in the Mac desktop app. But the folder is empty. Nothing showing up under Music Library.

Any further fix suggestions?

I also had the share listed in the sonos library but it was empty. It seemed to be bc the indexing timed out before finishing. 

What ended up working for me (for a Sonology NAS) was to use the \\macname\sonos share creation as described on top of  page 1 here, but I made sure the NAS was using smb v2/v3 (a setting under file systems\advanced settings) AND attaching my MacBook running 14.5 to power while it indexed. 

I spent more than 4 hours on hold and on the line with Sonos support but they could not fix it. I stumbled on this to make it work. They now recommend smb v2 or higher, a recent change since they used to require smb v1.  Not sure if it was that or make sure that the mac didn’t go into any power save space to screw up the indexing of a many gig library. Still not sure it is all there, but at least I no longer have a blank library on my mac app. Still no love with the utter fail of an iPhone app.

A
No matter how I try -- using both of the methods given in the video, and in the text -- I keep getting this message. What could I be doing wrong? 
 

 

B
Badge

This didn’t work for me.  When I tried the guest route, it said it loaded my music but nothing was there.  Is there another work around?


Thanks for all the help everyone is providing

Jim

A

Finally, after multiple attempts since last month I got my library to appear in the Mac desktop app. But the folder is empty. Nothing showing up under Music Library.

Any further fix suggestions?

I also had the share listed in the sonos library but it was empty. It seemed to be bc the indexing timed out before finishing. 

What ended up working for me (for a Sonology NAS) was to use the \\macname\sonos share creation as described on top of  page 1 here, but I made sure the NAS was using smb v2/v3 (a setting under file systems\advanced settings) AND attaching my MacBook running 14.5 to power while it indexed. 

I spent more than 4 hours on hold and on the line with Sonos support but they could not fix it. I stumbled on this to make it work. They now recommend smb v2 or higher, a recent change since they used to require smb v1.  Not sure if it was that or make sure that the mac didn’t go into any power save space to screw up the indexing of a many gig library. Still not sure it is all there, butat least I no longer have a blank library on my mac app. Still no love with the utter fail of an iPhone app.

Id appreciate some specific directions to adjusting the SMB setting to v2 or v3. Where did you find that setting? 

N
Userlevel 2

This did work for a couple of weeks or so but the latest update has seemed to break this method. My music is stored on my Mac and always worked prior to the “new” app.  Sonos says it’s “updating music library” for hours and then stalls.  So I have no access to my music.  Has anyone figured out a way around the music library update timing out?

B

Thank you so much!  Spent hours on the phone with Sonos without success.

The new app just proves the saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

A

For what it’s worth, I finally got through to a Sonos tech who adjusted my MacBook so as to make my music library available. Took about an hour, involved many changes. So now it’s working — but only from the MacBook app, not via the iPhone controller. Hoping someday they’ll fix this …

R
Badge

I unfortunately cannot get beyond the selection of shared files in Sonoma 14.5. When I go to add the location of the music files it is ghosted out and will not allow me to select it. I guess I am stuck waiting for SONOS to fix it if ever.

S

For what it’s worth, I finally got through to a Sonos tech who adjusted my MacBook so as to make my music library available. Took about an hour, involved many changes. So now it’s working — but only from the MacBook app, not via the iPhone controller. Hoping someday they’ll fix this …

Thanks for this update.

Do you know exactly what the Sonos rep did to make your MacBook work? Hopefully they may have figured some of this out...

A

I wish I had been able to record the session: I didn’t, and can’t pass on the steps toward restoring my music library. The tech took over my MacBook and had to try many tricks: no way I could follow him. My suggest is to carve out several hours to get them on the phone, and just pray. What a mess…

 

S

Thanks, Avreyml!

I’ll try it again (last time was a few weeks ago and ended with no results).

T

Excellent process… I wish it worked for me. But, no. I’d like to THANK YOU (‘salami slices’… I think) for helping so many… as Sonos should be doing.

MacOS Sonoma v.14.5

I tried this process a month or so ago. It doesn’t give me errors, but instead sets up an empty library. I have 3000 CD’s ripped to iTunes/Apple Music ~350 GB’s. I tried multiple folder locations. Am reasonably technical. Long time PC user, but have been tinkering for 2 years on a MacBook.

Today, noticed available Sonos update. Ran it. Tried the traditional method to add the library. Denied with 913 error. Tried this method again… and, got the same ‘empty’ library.

I have fears that I may have ‘shared’ or altered a few settings that makes my Mac vulnerable or… irreparably broken (too dramatic?… I think not).

I didn’t try to find notes for the most recent update? Did it include this ‘913’ fix for MacOS? Did I screw something up for it not to work? A lot of ‘buttons’ were clicked. Or should I continue to not utilize my library on my Sonos speakers? Note: some are perfectly fine sounding, but now technically obsolete… so no ‘Apple Share’ or other… garbage sharing service. I used to LOVE Sonos… 

Sonos?

R
Badge

I am in the same spot with my large music library going back more than 20 years. I have not tried the various “fixes” with the concern that I did not want to alter settings on my iMac or MacBook (Sonoma 14.5) if Sonos was going to come up with a fix relatively soon. Also a lot of people are saying it does not always work. I am beginning to be dubious about that. I understand that they changed the type of Security allowed on NAS drives. Everybody keeps going back and forth about no longer using SMB1 and needing to switch to SMB2 or SMB3, but how do you do that? Is it even possible on a Mac? Do you need to get another type of drive and no longer use your internal hard drive?

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