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Issues with S1 Controller after recent update

  • 9 February 2023
  • 8 replies
  • 626 views

After the most recent controller (Mac) desktop upgrade, I have lost all of my album artwork.  This is also reflected on the IOS apps after the recent upgrade...there is no album art.  Occasionally album art will sporadically begin to load (very slowly) but it is never cached (like in the older versions of the controller), because when I shut the controller down and restart it, all of the album art is gone again.  I am aware of how album art is handled with sonos, and I had never had any issue with my library in prior iterations of the software.  I’ve been a sonos user for over 15 years, and am very familiar with the software & systems.   

I spent over 4 hours on 3 separate calls with Sonos support and was escalated to level 2 support.  
I went through all of the usual troubleshooting steps:

  1. Reboot entire system..Router, all zone players & speakers (with complete power downs on all sonos & network gear.
  2. Deleted and reloaded the desktop controller several times.
  3. Provided detailed diagnostics, including letting the level 2 rep remote into my system, so they could see my situation for themselves, including my network setup.  They did a speed check on my net and it returned over 500mb and asked me several times to try different configs (i.e. boost connected/not connected) with deleting, then adding the boost etc.  Checking to see which zone my setup was associated with and then verifying the network config once again.
  4. Removed and replaced the library location share several times along with re-index’s after each attempt.
  5. Verified all file share and disk access permissions were correct and that the sonos app was granted all appropriate access within my system.
  6. We even tried moving to an entirely different machine on my net where I had my complete library (iTunes) and reloaded the controller on that machine and saw the same issues.
  7. BTW..my machine is a 2 year old Mac mini with a 6 core processor, 32GB of main memory and a very fast solid state drive where the library resides locally on the machine.  I don't use a mesh network, I have a Netgear router w/the latest firmware and my net functions perfectly with all my devices on the lan.  The boost is located within 6 feet of the router, and the network matrix shows that noise levels are well within norms (yellow & green matrix)

Net...net...after basically a full day of trouble shooting, the problem persists and I have a sonos system now that is basically just a text based system, which I really don’t like at all.  This system has functioned perfectly well for well over a decade, and the only change I made was to download the new controller software when prompted.  Has anybody run into this issue and had any luck fixing it?

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8 replies

buzz

Full disclosure: I’m not a Mac user.

Is your album art embedded or included as a folder.jpg file? Perhaps the tracks that show album art are embedded and the others are not?

Just a thought: have you rebooted the computer after uninstalling the desktop controller and before installing a new copy?

A further thought: The controllers are impatient. If delivery of artwork is delayed for some reason, the controller will give up and move on.

O
Badge

Hey Buzz,,,thanks for the suggestions.  In response…Yes I did reboot prior to reinstall and in fact did it two or three times. Also I followed the same procedure on a separate machine (Mac laptop) that had a copy of my library but that machine also had the same results. I’m very familiar with the way that artwork is handled both in the embedded file and in the separate file folder as over the years I manually added artwork to many thousands of songs and albums in my original iTunes library.    It doesn’t matter….all of the artwork loads extremely slowly now or not at all. Also once I scroll down a page or two in albums, and I jumped back up all the artwork that had loaded is gone once again. It’s almost as though there is absolutely no cache within the controller app any longer, or there is no longer any cache persistence.  Display of artwork was never an issue in my Sonos system until the recent update to the controller software which I completed a few days ago.  Sonos Support keeps implying that it’s a network issue. But again, I haven’t done anything to my net work at all and I have a very fast, very noise free environment with plenty of range.  I have a home theater in my basement which is three stories below where my router is located and I get almost all bars on my wireless devices down there.  I proved this to Sonos support level two when I let them remote into my computer and I gave them admin access directly to my router home page. They ran several speed tests and a variety of other diagnostics and could find no issue with my network. They did say that my boost was somewhat noisy, but I took it and moved it 5 feet away from my router and re-added it to the system which brought it into the yellow on my network matrix and brought it to an acceptable noise level. That did not impact the issue.
Finally I’m aware that Sonos is moving away from the desktop controllers environment and is not spending any more development cycles on it which I understand in this new streaming world. However for those of us with large curated local libraries it’s kind of a disappointment. My solution right now is that I will probably end up using my Roon system as the control point and play out to all of my Sonos devices from within Roon.  It’s not optimal as Roon does not work as faultlessly as Sonos across many zones, but using Sonos with no artwork is not an option for me. It reminds me of the old days when all our control software was filed based with no graphics.  Anyway, I was contacted by Sonos Support again today with a request for more information about my system. So I’ll provide that to them in an ongoing attempt to figure this all out. It just seems very odd to me that I had such a smooth running system for so long and that after my recent update to the new Mac desktop controller I suddenly began having these issues…..very odd.   Anyway thanks again for your suggestions, much appreciated!

D
Userlevel 2

Any updates on this issue?  I have the same issue on my Windows S1 controller and iphone 14 app.

I like you have had SONOS for well over a decade and it worked great.  I invested in 6 zones players and at the time 3 of the required remotes.  I’m so frustrated with the performance and issues that I’m about to move on to another technology.  Support has not been able to help me after many hours. 

I hope you find a solution and share it here.

O
Badge

Hi dcliment…no I haven’t been able fix the issue after repeated attempts with Sonos support and via many troubleshooting attempts by myself.  I have recieved some follow up emails from support, and they have asked me to schedule an appointment with the “escalation support team”.  If I have any success I’ll report back here.  
Frankly at this point I am of the strong opinion that Sonos has made some changes to the desktop controller software which is causing the perf.issues.  It appears to me that the controller is no longer persistently caching anything locally.  Sonos keeps concluding that it’s a “network issue”.  However when I give them remote access to my machine and ask them to point out what configuration or network issue is specifically causing the problem I have yet to get a definitive answer.  Anyway…like you, I have a considerable investment in Sonos gear and it has been bullet proof up to this point, So I’m very much hoping to finding a fix.  BTW…my iPad & iPhone Sonos software are also not showing any library album artwork…or loading a few  but, very…very slowly.

R
Userlevel 2

same problem here

 I have 5 players at home, all about 10 years old. Over last few months, my S1 controller sporadically sees some of the players, but not all. The solution to reconnect missing players suggested by the Sonos App doesn’t work, at least not for me.

Seems to me that a recent S1 Controller “update” has messed the thing up. Would be great if Sonos could give users an option to install an older version of the Sonos app. 

Sonos team ? 

 

D

Sort of same problem here:

Was using S1 app fine with various Gen 1 and 2 Sonos products, and as of 2 weeks, I now cannot use any product whatsoever with S1. And with S2, Bridge and Connect:Amp are incompatible. For obvious reasons, it is not an option for me to use both S1 and S2 apps.

Suggestions? Txs! 

Airgetlam

I would certainly recommend that you call Sonos Support directly to discuss it.

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and network.

Bruce
S

What a pain in the ass!

Have been using my S1 system for 7 years now, minor problems but the occasional reboot fixes it. Now after pulling my hair out for two days wondering why in heavens name my hard wired network equipment won’t connect to the network,  through process of elimination I find the Sonos hub is flooding the network with traffic. Unplug the controller, problem solved. WTFF!  Plug it back in - Boom - hardwired network devices all fall on their face.  Like I need this shit.  Time is money and Sonos can’t afford to pay me to spend an afternoon unplugging, rebooting, reloading, etc. a system that was working just fine a week ago.  Sorry Sonos but I’ve had enough.  

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