Search the community for this issue. There are many posts about this issue. One of the fixes is changing your SMB protocol from SMB v1 to SMB v2 or 3. Sonos dropped support  for SMB vb1 earlier this year, which falls in line with what other manufacturers are doing.

Sharing a music folder is not really anything to do with Sonos as many Apps can use a shared folder over a network. It can be shared in a variety of ways but for PC’s running Windows 10/11 or MAC PC’s above a certain version, they now automatically use SMBv2 or higher sharing protocol by default… which is what most Apps (including the new Sonos App) use these days. There is then a case (for security reasons) to add a PC user to the share and to give them ‘read-only’ privileges as the minimum level of access needed for the share… Sonos doesn’t write to the share so that higher level of access is not required, although it perhaps wouldn’t matter too much if that write permission was included. 

Once it’s setup, it’s then a case of adding the network UNC path leading to the share in the Sonos App and adding in the user credentials alongside - that’s the username and password for the assigned user that you added to the shared folder - it’s the same credentials as used by the user when logging onto the PC.

Some things to be aware of…

You do need to state either the PC netbios name, or the PC’s IP address, in the path to the library share within the new Sonos App. I would always recommend adding the shared folder via the (mobile) Sonos App, just so that there’s no mistake made in trying to (wrongly) setup an HTTP share, as those type of shares are no longer supported by Sonos aswell. A HTTP share is not possible via the new Sonos App.

Note a netbios name for the PC should not be longer than 15 characters and should not include these:

period (.)
backslash (\)
forward slash (/)
colon (:)
asterisk (*)
question mark (?)
quotation mark (“)
less than sign (<)
greater than sign (>)
vertical bar (|)

Note too that PC Hostnames are used by DNS Servers for name resolution on the Internet and on the LAN and for that avoid using these characters in the PC Name too…

comma (,)
tilde (~)
colon (:)
exclamation point (!)
at sign (@)
number sign (#)
dollar sign ($)
percent (%)
caret (^)
ampersand (&)
apostrophe (‘)
period (.)
parentheses (())
braces ({})
underscore (_)
white space (blank)

So just to be sure things will work, I suggest the PC name does not include any of these characters, although some of the PC Hostname characters may work over the LAN as part of the Netbios name.

So a working example might be something like //MY-SERVER/MUSIC 

Where MUSIC is the name of the shared folder.

If using the IP address instead, like this (example only): //192.168.1.120/MUSIC …then I would make the IP address static (usually in the routers DHCP reservation table, but there are other methods to do that too).

Remember that the username and password assigned for access to the shared library folder needs to be a user on the PC that has read-only (ideally) permission on the MUSIC share - check the folder properties on the PC to see which user(s) and what permission they may have to access the share and its sub folders and files.

There are some other things to be aware of too…

• The network security mode for a PC must be set to ‘Private’ and not the default ‘Public’ setting.
• On a Mac, the Sonos app can only share folders on external drives formatted using the Mac OS Extended (or HFS+) file system. If the external drive is formatted in FAT32, NTFS, or ExFAT, Sonos will not be able to add a shared music folder from the drive.

As I say this is very little to do with Sonos, but these are now the type of network shared folders that Sonos use. SMBv2 (or higher) is key.

@stevie56 

Here’s a Sonos support link that may assist to get you started…

https://support.sonos.com/en-gb/article/add-your-music-library-to-sonos

ken

thanks for speedy reply

tried all this to no avail I gave up last month after few months trying to sort this !!, stream radio stations mostly now, my era speakers I bought few years ago does do bluetooth ,so sorted out that issue.plus sorted sonos play 1 speakers that couldn't do this ..

1 question…. if sonos are always trying to be apple…. as refined and luxury products….

don't you think they should get their updates and software  sorted first before RELEASING ???

thanks ken

You could always give the Sonos Support Staff a call - they perhaps might be able to able to assist you, or identify where your ‘folder sharing issues’ may lie.

If you do want to go that route, then here is a link to give them a call:

https://support.sonos.com/s/contact