It all depends on your meta data.

If you set the Album Artist to be something like "Various Artists" in the meta data for all tracks in the album, then it works.

However if you have the "Part of a compilation album" tag set Yes, then this is completely ignored. Which is irritating to say the least.

I have no idea if Sonos are working on it though. 

I have all my library compilation albums ‘album Artist’ tagged as ‘Various Artists’ - Anyhow, the one issue I see is that 100 albums only appear in ‘Artists/Various Artists’ folder, whereas I have 300+ albums - So more than 200 albums are not showing, but they are still indexed and I am able to search via the App and find them - but presumably the Artist Albums limit of 100, are hindering their display when I browse the library via the Artists branch.

Hi @Editor 

Thanks for your post!

Although this issue seems to be resolved for the majority of users, there are still some like yourself reporting this issue, so we are still investigating, yes.

I hope this helps.

This continues to vex me no end.  iTunes handles it no problem.  Old SONOS App worked properly.  The new App continues to frustrate, disappoint, and anger.  If album is a compilation it should show up as a single album.  Songs and artists should index properly.  Arg.

Have you tried switching the grouping method as mentioned in my post (link below) in this earlier thread?…

https://en.community.sonos.com/product-updates/update-on-the-sonos-app-from-patrick-spence-6900501/index39.html?postid=16820109#post16820109

@Corry P When are Sonos going to add the local library advanced indexing options to the new app? Or will they just vanish leaving all this to luck and chance when the desktop controllers are retired? 

Hi @Ian_S 

What exactly do you mean by “advanced indexing options”?

@Corry P 

The Group Albums Using box is where you choose between no grouping, iTunes compilations tag or Album Artists so the ‘Various Artists’ thing works. 

Hi @Ian_S 

Thanks! I guess it has been a while since I last saw that screen!

Scheduling would be a good thing to add too - this is on the to-do list already, but there is no time-scale for it as yet.

My assumption would be that those additional settings will be added before we depreciate the Desktop apps, but I have not actually heard anything to that effect with these settings specifically.

I will see what I can find out for you.

The Sonos Windows app has a setting for the Music Library which is “Group Albums using...” with

one or two alternatives. I can’t see this option in the iOS app on my iPad. Am I missing something, or is this a feature to be added to the iOS app ? If so, when ?

Hi ​@am577 

Please see my reply immediately above yours.

Thanks. Could you explain what you meant by the phrase “before we depreciate the Desktop apps” ?

I mainly use the app on an iPad, but have installed the Sonos app on a Windows PC and an Android phone, but the iPad is definitely my preferred platform. Do you expect Sonos to continue supporting and fixing the iPad app ? What do most Sonos customers use ?

Hi ​@am577 

The Desktop Controllers (as we call the Sonos app for Windows and macOS) used to have all the functions the other apps have, but as far more people were using mobile apps, we decided to remove most system configuration options from the Desktop Controllers some years ago due to the significant amount of work it took to keep 4 versions of the app running (especially when very few people were using 2 of them).

We have recently been working on the Web App to replace Desktop Controllers - this controller never needs a software update, and can also be used with platforms like Linux and ChromeOS without any additional engineering workload needed. We are aware, however, that some people who have performance issues with the new mobile apps find that the Desktop Controllers are very useful in working around these. We will not, therefore, depreciate (remove from availability) the Desktop Controllers in favour of the Web App until the mobile app reaches feature parity, and until those who are having issues with it cease to need the Desktop Controllers to work around these issues.

Yes - we will continue to support the iPad (iOS, really) app for the foreseeable future. Most customers use either the iOS app or the Android app - although there are more Android users out there in total, I think the majority of Sonos owners are iOS users (I don’t have figures to back this up, so I suppose it could be that iOS users are just more likely to ask for help rather than Google the issue, as compared to Android users).

I hope this helps.

Thanks, Corry, that was helpful.

AM

still happening here also.  if it helps, here are some notes:(16.4.2 controller on Mac)

GROUP ALBUMS using:

iTunes compilations:   compilation albums are not 'split up', but there are no songs under them. "No selections are available".

Album artists: the albums are split up into duplicates, one for each song.

I have tried putting 'Various Artists" into the Album Artist field, it makes no difference. 

Even without anything in Album artist field, iTunes/music still considers them as 'various artists'

Additional note: when playing with the above setting (music library settings), I'll often get a pop-up saying “<mount point> is no longer available. Device may not be powered on, etc....”   although the controller does see it, as it must be getting the album names & artwork off the NAS.  I can also see it in my finder and at command level. 

takes a restart to get Sonos to see the drive again..

Dan Wills 

Hi ​@Dan.Wills 

With the behaviour you are reporting, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports - if it is to be fixed, it will first need to be investigated and documented.

The “no longer available” error may be occurring if your NAS is not responding in a timely manner - a reboot of it may help, but please also make sure that it uses an ethernet connection to the network.

I hope this helps.

thanks Corry.

After reading a lot of posts that said this is fixed, I decide to rebuild for the heck of it. 

re-copied my library to the NAS (Apple Music, nee iTunes), hard reboot of all hardware, re-indexed.

and… it’s all working perfectly. don't understand, as nothing was changed. Go figure….

my compilation settings:

GROUP ALBUMS using Album Artists, and all songs/albums setting for compilation albums have “various artists” in the ALBUM ARTIST field.

another question: reading problem posts, I learn new bits of information such as plans to deprecate/replace the Mac/PC controller with app/web.  is there an email list, RSS feed, blog - any sort of information source where we can get a heads-up regarding upcoming changes? Some of these are very impactful, and being surprised is never a good thing.

thanks

Dan Wills 

Hi ​@Dan.Wills 

We make announcements here on the Community whenever there are large changes, and the main Sonos.com webpage will do so too. In addition, we sometimes send notifications to appear as pop-ups in the apps, or send messages that can be found at the top of the User menu (after tapping on the User icon in the top right corner). We also sometimes send out emails.

There are not any RSS feeds or email lists, however, through which you would be actively notified. You may find our Trello board of use, however.

I hope this helps.

The fragmented compilation album persists.  I have updated to 16.4.2.  Earlier versions of the controller used to recognize the indexing from iTunes as “part of a compilation.”  Now, it appears that the controller is looking only at the “artist” or “album artist” field (the latter is often blank in iTunes), rather than the “part of a compilation” checkbox.  Is there any further update on when this might be corrected?  Thank you.

 The Album Artist tag needs to be filled in.  For a compilation it’s usually Various Artists.

It did not used to be this way and it seems like Sonos was working on a fix.  Just wanting to find out where that stands.  

 Maybe they will fix whatever is wrong.  I am not sure how that would exactly work because all my tags have Album Artist filled in.  How would they determine that the album is a compilation?  If the old app did your indexing correctly then there must be a way to do that without The Album Artist tag.  Got my head spinning.

In iTunes there is a box that is checked for part of a compilation.  Sonos used to recognize that and doesn’t. 

Moderator edit: edited at author’s request

 Got it.  Now I understand.  I have not used iTunes.

Some folk have suggested that this problem may be due to the latest Sonos firmware rather than the Sonos app. However, although I am experiencing the same issue (i.e. compilation albums now displaying as separate songs) when using the Sonos app, this does not happen when I view the albums using the Synology ‘DS Audio’ app (my library is on a Synology NAS).
   I wondered whether this might be if some interest, being that the Synology app displays all albums correctly while the Sonos app doesn’t, regardless of the Sonos firmware?

    Surely this would suggest the issue is with the app rather than the firmware?.