Latest Sonos App - Do not Upgrade

Have tried all the available third party apps for iOS and the clear winner is SonoPhone.

Will be using that until Sonos get their act together or I move on to a different system. This update has ruined my whole experience and I am so angry - leaving poor (accurate) reviews wherever I can...

Absolutely, I want to back out of this update, it’s noy

complete.

Another issue I've come across is trying to play a radio station from my previous played list. I get random " something went wrong" error message

Well, my Android app auto-updated again to version 80. I guess I am stuck using the Windows Desktop Controller when I want to search my NAS. 

Go to play store settings and toggle "don't auto update apps"

Found it. Thank you!

I sure hope Sonos has been reading these posts because it appears that they are only going to lose business after this latest version of the app. I’ve lost my music services & when I try to add them back keeps telling me I don’t have an internet connection. Now how can that be possible if I’m able to connect to Sonos. Like others I’ve invested in their products & have had Sonos for many years. I have had trouble in the past with the old app not recognizing my phone & found a solution after much swearing but now they have really out done themselves with this new app. I’m in agreement with others-hire a professional software company- before you lose everything. 

This is not the first time an app update went badly. The amazing part is that when it caused an uproar the didnt pull it from the apple or play store. Instead they continue to let others fall into the trap.

I’ve reverted to my pc which still supports search on NAS.  Fortunately it doesn’t update automatically.  Makes the mobile app redundant though.

Make sure you leave a review of the new app in the App Store, will be helpful to other users. 

Just a Note to add. Don’t bother calling Support I waited an Hour and still no answer.. I wonder why?

After reading various threads I uninstall the new app and installed the old one from Apkmirror. This worked.

Since I have updated the app it can’t find me system any longer. Tried everything such as reboot of router etc. The old version running on my iPad runs fine but the new release of the app is not good and I recommend not to upgrade until there will be a fix 

After upgrading my Sonos Windows app this morning, I found that I can no longer access my music library. After waiting on hold for over an hour, I was told this feature was removed. 

Removed!!!!

If you, like me, use your music library, and want this feature restored, please contact the Sonos CEO, Patrick Spense, at ceo@sonos.com and let him (his office) know your feelings.

This feature removal basically made the system unusable for me. I use it only for my music library, and have Amazon Echos in each room to listen to streaming services and whatnot. I have lots of music in my music library that isn’t available or uploadable to music services.

This is a terrible move on Sonos’ part. Terrible.

I’m not researching Plex to determine if it will help me get Sonos to access to my music library again. 

This is a case study in why businesses can fail, changing the product overnight without informing anyone.

I just want to play my music on my speaker.

The broke the Windows app today (5/15/2024) so it doesn’t allow access to your music library either. They told me that this is an intentional removal of the feature that allows users to access their own music libraries.

I tried rolling back to old version, installed but none of my settings or music apoeared. It told me the old version will no longer control the system, that's a coincidence as the new one doesn't either. What an incompetent bunch Sonos are. 

So the windows app on the pc has lost connection to the NAS and has no function left to allow addition of a music service.  I

The option to access in in the IPad app under your services has also disappeared.  Totally useless.  A deliberate dumbing down to force streaming.  One wonders if they get some sort of revenue of kickback from that.  
I wrote to the CEO and unsurprisingly got no response to that either.  
Hopefully someone out there might create an alternative process/app to connect NAS and Sonos hardware which is independent to the company.

Hi all,

I received this email from Sonos on 5/15/2024.

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Thank you for reaching out to share your feedback about the new Sonos app. I understand you rely on being able to play folders from a local library and search your local library via the Sonos app.

I know you are disappointed that these features are not available, and I want to assure you that your feedback has been heard loud and clear. We are committed to providing our users with the best possible experience, and we are working tirelessly to reinstate some important features in the app in the coming weeks.

The ability to play and search music from a local library is planned for next month. You can reference this article for additional details on upcoming updates. In the meantime, a couple workarounds to play local music are to use AirPlay (iOS devices) or via the Sonos web app.

Thank you for your engagement and for being part of the Sonos community.Best regards,

Sonos Customer Experience

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The article referenced can be found here: https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/the-new-sonos-app-and-future-feature-updates

It looks like Sonos is planning on restoring the ability to access your local music library in June 2024.

In the meantime, I am using Plex (https://www.plex.tv/) to integrate my Sonos system with my music library. Setting it up took several hours. To save you some time, here are the steps:

READ ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE YOU START!

1. Go to Plex.tv and create a FREE account.
2. Download and install the Plexamp and the Plex Media Server on your PC or Mac. (If have a Windows 11 PC). The Plex Media Service is a service that runs in the background. All the configuration is done in the Plexamp software.
3. Launch the Plexamp software, log in to your account, and configure the software settings. Directions for this are on the configuration screens and in the Plex help. But here are some important things you must configure to work with Sonos
   1. Remote Access - This must be set up and must work. See Router Firewall settings below if this doesn’t work at first.
      1. Enable Remote Access
      2. Put in the STATIC IP ADDRESS of your computer or file server.
      3. Set your port: I manually set my port to 32400.
   2. Libraries - Set up a Music library that points to your music folder on your machine. NOTE: If you can’t browse/navigate to the folder with your music, use the Windows Explorer to find the folder, then copy it and paste it into the blank field in Plexamp.
4. Router/Firewall - If Plexamp Remote Access fails (Red X on the right of the  IP config line), you’ll need to add a firewall port forwarding rule to your Router to allow Plex to access your music library. This varies depending on your router. I used Microsoft Copilot/Bing to help me with this and it gave me the exact instructions when I asked it “How do I configure Plex remote access with my XXXXX router. 
5. Router - If your music library device (PC or file server) doesn’t have a STATIC IP ADDRESS, you should configure it to have one on your router BEFORE trying to set this up. Use Copilot or ChatGPT4 if you need instructions for your router.
6. On the Sonos app, ADD the Plex service and log in.
7. Using Plexamp, configure other features as desired. There are a lot of settings to enhance your experience. 
   1. Set up some playlists - these will become visible on Sonos under the Plex Service.
8. Amazon Alexa. If you have Alexa, add the Plex skill to Alexa and you can access your local music via Alexa (finally) which is awesome. And (drumroll) you can even use Alexa Routines custom commands to do some pretty cool stuff. Alexa could NOT access my Sonos music library via the Sonos skill after Amazon started charging for a music subscription, so this is awesome! “Alexa, ask Plex to play the XXX playlist”. I can’t get it to do multi-speaker yet, but maybe someday. Or create a routine to play a song from your music library (via Plex) when you come home, should go to bed, etc. Sonos could never do anything like this.

NOTE: Sonos favorites doesn’t work with Plex. It will allow you to “favorite” a Plex playlist, but it won’t let you play it from the IOS app.

So far, all the features I need can be achieved using a FREE Plex account. But I am exploring other Plex features that are behind the paywall and may get a PlexPass subscription. 

I hope this helps some of you and saves you some time! 

Meanwhile, I look forward to Sonos making good on their promise in June. And in the meantime, I’ve made a new “friend”, called Plex. 

So sick and tired of Sonos taking functionality away from users of their software. Hardware is great, software not. This behavior has been repeated over and over. Pretty sure this is the end of my Sonos journey. As soon as my speakers die or Sonos does another S1/S2 debacle, I'll be moving on to another system.

I have the same basic concern as many here - if I can’t access my lcal music librar on NAS, there is abslutely no point in me having Sonos speakers. Fortunately, so far, I can.

My Android phone seems to have pdated he app automatically, to the black logo version. It’s been giving me grief for a couple of days finding the library, but after going in and out a couple of times, it did.

My Windows app then (tonight0 started insisting on updating, and giving me absolutely no choices other than update, or don’t use speakers. Having seen ths thread I certainly didn’t want to update, but eventually, let it proceed,as I wasn’t getting any chice. It updated …. from 16.0 to 16.2.

Phew!

Everything on the NAS is still available … for now.

My iPad Pro seems to have updated too (black Logo) and that is still working, accessing the NAS content.

So remarks about Sonos having removed that functionality and adding it back in next month confuse me a bit. It seems either, they already have, or maybe they’ve fixed something in the versions that I got, which were all in last few hours.

Nonetheless, this whole business has left me, as a pretty recent buyer of my first Sonos products (Beam 2 for TV and a couple of ERA 100s for music in another room) ver nervous indeed about buying any more. The irony of that is that I’ve spent most of the day working out my next purchase, which was going to be a couple of ERA 300s for the main TV, a Sub Mini for the ERA 100 group, and two Move 2s (for a stereo pair) in my home office. Needless to say, all that is on hold now. 

I also demo’s B&W 705s, a Bluesound Node X and a Cambridge Amp, only two days ago, but had deided to go the Sonos route. Now, I’m re-evaluating that decision in the light of even the suggestion that Sonos might just decide to pull support for using my local library on my NAS, because that is 100% of how I access music. I do not have any music streaming accounts, and don’t want any.

Which is making me think my best route is to repurpose the ERA 100s as rear speakers for the TV and Beam 2, and stay tte hell away from Sonos for every other room. Those B&Ws were good, as were the  703s. And KEF LS50 ii’s.

And that, Sonos, is the risk in messing users about. It makes people like me seriously questio whether to get any deeper in than I already am. Or to cut and run.

Since the new app, I have been using the Sonos Windows Desktop Controller to access music on my NAS drive. Now, I am being prompted to update the Desktop Controller and I am afraid to do it. Sad that I have to be wary about installing a software update.

Aside from all the other issues everyone has been mentioning, has anyone else also been having issue with the volume controller? I have a 10 speaker set up and it always worked perfectly fine in the last app… the master control would move all the speaker volumes up and down together or you could control them individually. However, now the master control does not move all the speaker volumes so I therefore have to open and move them all up and down separately every single time I want to adjust sound for both home theatre and music playing. On top of this huge annoyance half the time I move the volume controls and nothing happens at all… I then have to completely close the app and reopen it again just to get it to work. It’s the seemingly small things like this that are just so frustrating because really.. what is an expensive speaker set up if you cannot control the volume of the speakers? It’s just so ridiculous. I’m also finding it so crazy that when you play a song by an artist you can no longer open the album or playlist that said music is playing from. I used to do this all the time. And not being able to create or add songs to my playlists is also pretty incredible… and not in a good way!  It’s almost like we are being pranked by Sonos like this app is just a big joke and someone is going to contact us all with a very late April fools announcement! It’s just such a head scratcher that a company could be so great at hardware but release software so bloody poor and unfinished - it totally boggles the mind! 

I did, DONT DO IT...