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I create playlists separately and dump them all in a folder that is indexed by the Sonos music indexer. These are simple .m3u files in their own directory with a full pathname. 

Some of the playlists load and play fine. For others, the player spins a bit before it gives up with “Unable to browse music.” It is therefore not a problem with how the playlists are formatted. 

I know for a fact that songs in the “unable to browse” playlists are in fact correctly indexed in Sonos; I can play them if I navigate to the relevant folder, and can find them by artist. It is therefore not a problem with access to the files. 

So why are some playlists ok and others not?

Environment: Desktop - macOS Monterey; App - Sonos Controller vers. 16.4.2 (up to date, as per check for updates); build 81158074.

NB - There is a thread that addresses “Unable to browse music” but it’s several months old and it seems to be resolved. 

 

 

 How large are the playlists that don’t play?  When you test some of the content in the playlist using Folder or Artist view are you testing the first tracks in the playlist that won’t play?  What is the sample rate of the first files in the playlist being tested.  Do the playlists that don’t play in Sonos play with other software?

I don’t use the Sonos desktop controller App, but I do use .m3u playlists and I have no issue loading a 25k+ song playlist held on a local NAS using the iOS mobile App (see attached example), but I understand that if a playlist takes longer than 15s to load to a player queue, due to latency/size of playlist, then it will timeout - so maybe that’s the issue you’re seeing?

 

I don’t use the Sonos desktop controller App, but I do use .m3u playlists and I have no issue loading a 25k+ song playlist held on a local NAS using the iOS mobile App (see attached example), but I understand that if a playlist takes longer than 15s to load to a player queue, due to latency/size of playlist, then it will timeout - so maybe that’s the issue you’re seeing?

 That’s a big un!!!  Loaded pretty fast.

 

I don’t use the Sonos desktop controller App, but I do use .m3u playlists and I have no issue loading a 25k+ song playlist held on a local NAS using the iOS mobile App (see attached example), but I understand that if a playlist takes longer than 15s to load to a player queue, due to latency/size of playlist, then it will timeout - so maybe that’s the issue you’re seeing?

 That’s a big un!!!  Loaded pretty fast.

 

.m3u playlists have always been pretty good on Sonos, plus the source/tracks are stored on a local NAS wired to the LAN. I doubt I’d get it to load if it related to tracks perhaps held in an online cloud - I think that might struggle a little bit.

 How large are the playlists that don’t play?  When you test some of the content in the playlist using Folder or Artist view are you testing the first tracks in the playlist that won’t play?  What is the sample rate of the first files in the playlist being tested.  Do the playlists that don’t play in Sonos play with other software?

Varying length, but mostly larger ones. I was aware of a problem some time back where playlists longer than 1000 entries were unplayable, so I started splitting them off into multiple lists (e.g. 1980s-1, 1980s-2, etc). (I can generate playlists on the fly and easily control maximum length like that) 

Sample rates are all good and I don’t think that’s the problem (44 MHz IIRC). There may be a few 48.1 MHz files mixed in. 

On review I think the problem might actually be related to samba. When refreshing a library, I get the occasional message that the share has disappeared, despite there being no action taken to disconnect it. 

Thanks MoPac, I am still running down some more possibilities. 

 You can have very large playlists with no issues.  Look at the post above from ​@Ken_Griffiths where his M3U playlist is over 26,000 tracks long.  So no worries there. 

 Some WAV files at 24/48 will not play.  Those I have converted to FLAC.  Weren’t very many as 24/48 is pretty rare.

 How many shares is Sonos indexing (How many paths are written into the Sonos library )?  I only have one where all the music & playlists exist.

 You can have very large playlists with no issues.  Look at the post above from ​@Ken_Griffiths where his M3U playlist is over 26,000 tracks long.  So no worries there. 

 Some WAV files at 24/48 will not play.  Those I have converted to FLAC.  Weren’t very many as 24/48 is pretty rare.

 How many shares is Sonos indexing (How many paths are written into the Sonos library )?  I only have one where all the music & playlists exist.

Hello MoPac!

No .wav files here; a smattering of FLACs and AACs, but 98%+ .mp3.

There are two music library shares: one with the name “all” under which all the music files reside in a nice little hierarchy; and a second one for playlists only. 

Total number of individual tracks is about 38,000. Total accumulated size is about 510 GB. 

I have the files on an old Mac running Big Sur and hardwired into a Verizon router. I can see the shares on another Mac and I can play them in VLC. 

 Try putting the playlist folder in the “all” folder.  See if all playlists work at that point.  My music folder subfolders are Genre.  So there is Ambient, Blues, Classical etc…. Included with the Genre folders is a folder named Playlists.

 Try putting the playlist folder in the “all” folder.  See if all playlists work at that point.  My music folder subfolders are Genre.  So there is Ambient, Blues, Classical etc…. Included with the Genre folders is a folder named Playlists.

Ok I will, thanks for the suggestion! 

It appears to be resolved for now. I had to rebuild my music library after the resync started complaining about the share going off-line, and once that was worked through, the playlist files load. 

Closing this one.

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