I used to be able to play music i have stored on my phone and suddenly "this device" option has completly disapered as an option under any tab on the app.
I updated by phone and the app, i check permissions, all the file locrion stored on my phone are under music, nothing has changed from when i could play from my phone to now when i cant.
This is very frusting as there are some songs i have that arent availiable on streaming services.
How do i fix it?
Best answer by Airgetlam
View originalActually, from what I can tell that is not true. Sonos made a business decision that they did not wish to allocate the resources to continue to offer the functionality. There is absolutely nowhere that I have ever heard where Google said that Sonos could not access local files. It does seem that Google made a decision that would result in more work for Sonos and Sonos then made the business decision to not allocate development resources. So no, Google did not force anything, Sonos made the decision that they made.
I am not saying that things did not change for Sonos due to Google making changes, nevertheless, other companies are still able to access local files on Android so clearly it is still possible. I think you need to be accurate here, but I do take your point that Sonos did not do this without some rationale. Just not a compelling rationale in my mind.
I don’t see this distinction as really that relevant to be honest. Sonos didn’t make a change to their system breaking the feature, Google did. Whether it was technically impossible or technically possible with some unknown level of effort, doesn’t really matter. You’re concluding that Sonos isn’t making a rational decision here based on assumptions that happen to favor the conclusion you had before you knew anything about the situation. How much development resources are required to code and test the change? What is the likely hood that Google will change how this works again in the near future? How many customers are using the feature, and unlikely to use the other solutions Sonos offers to play your own audio tracks? Will new customers care about this feature at all since4 current Sonos speakers offer bluetooth functionality, making this feature practically obsolete?
Even if Sonos shared all this information with the public, which they would never do, many will still blame Sonos, saying this should restore the feature at any cost, even if puts the company out of business just because the feature existed when they bought it.
We will have to agree to disagree. You essentially are soft calling me out for being concerned about something that had the potential to significantly affect me. I might point out that in a related parallel, you probably have little empathy for my position because the decision made by Sonos probably doesn’t affect you.
Sonos absolutely did make a change to their system. They could easily have left the functionality as it already existed. Sonos could have left it until it was broken, assuming that it was going to break, which we do not know when that would happen. It might have been quite some time, maybe never for all we know. Correct me if I am wrong, but I did not read anything that suggested the problem was guaranteed to happen. In any case, I don’t think you or I know exactly how things would have panned out. Clearly the developer of Hi Fi Cast is able to access local files stored on an Android phone and send the stream to the Sonos rendering engine. It doesn’t seem like a stretch to suggest if that single developer could pull it off, chances are Sonos with their development team could have kept up.
Plain and simple, it is very likely that this is simply Sonos firing back as best they can at Google for being bullies, and I get the urge. I am not apologizing for, or minimizing the corporate behaviour of Google. However, Sonos owes more to their customers who paid for the feature in good faith. It is not relevant if only 3% of the Sonos user base cares about the feature, I don’t give a rats ass about voice assistants and you don’t hear me complaining that I paid to have that feature imbedded in my products.
This is about respect for the customer, you only make a move such as this when you have to. Until Sonos publicly tells us that it was too large a financial burden for them to support this feature, I remain skeptical and would prefer some evidence. That is my opinion as a paying customer and I am entitled to it. I spent a significant amount of money on my Sonos system, and I was likely to continue being a customer of theirs for years to come, I still might be, but I absolutely am allowed to not agree with their decision. You do, no problem, that is also your right. We can agree to disagree. Fair enough.
Actually, from what I can tell that is not true. Sonos made a business decision that they did not wish to allocate the resources to continue to offer the functionality. There is absolutely nowhere that I have ever heard where Google said that Sonos could not access local files. It does seem that Google made a decision that would result in more work for Sonos and Sonos then made the business decision to not allocate development resources. So no, Google did not force anything, Sonos made the decision that they made.
I am not saying that things did not change for Sonos due to Google making changes, nevertheless, other companies are still able to access local files on Android so clearly it is still possible. I think you need to be accurate here, but I do take your point that Sonos did not do this without some rationale. Just not a compelling rationale in my mind.
No, actually it is true. In the original statement from Sonos, they state quite clearly - “this feature will no longer be compatible with newer versions of the Android operating system.” No “business decision”, no refusal to “allocate resources”, simply the fact that future versions of Android are incompatible with this feature, and last time I checked, a certain alphabet company is in charge of Android.
And again, unless you are comparing “other companies” who need to access files from outside the OS, you are comparing apples to oranges. Sonos devices do not stream from a phone or tablet. The app is a controller, not a media streamer, and therefore is subject to security rules that a local streamer is not.
Actually, from what I can tell that is not true. Sonos made a business decision that they did not wish to allocate the resources to continue to offer the functionality. There is absolutely nowhere that I have ever heard where Google said that Sonos could not access local files. It does seem that Google made a decision that would result in more work for Sonos and Sonos then made the business decision to not allocate development resources. So no, Google did not force anything, Sonos made the decision that they made.
I am not saying that things did not change for Sonos due to Google making changes, nevertheless, other companies are still able to access local files on Android so clearly it is still possible. I think you need to be accurate here, but I do take your point that Sonos did not do this without some rationale. Just not a compelling rationale in my mind.
No, actually it is true. In the original statement from Sonos, they state quite clearly - “ this feature will no longer be compatible with newer versions of the Android operating system.” No “business decision”, no refusal to “allocate resources”, simply the fact that future versions of Android are incompatible with this feature, and last time I checked, a certain alphabet company is in charge of Android.
And again, unless you are comparing “other companies” who need to access files from outside the OS, you are comparing apples to oranges. Sonos devices do not stream from a phone or tablet. The app is a controller, not a media streamer, and therefore is subject to security rules that a local streamer is not.
I will admit that I do not possess any significant knowledge about the distinction between Sonos as a controller software device versus a media server, such as Hi Fi Cast. I have no grounds on which I could push back against your assertion that there is a difference. Hopefully in time I may learn more about the distinction and how it may have played into this decision.
I will; however, still push back respectfully against your other assertions though. For one, I think you may be interpreting the statement made by Sonos as more complete than I believe it to be. Saying the feature will no longer be compatible with future versions of Android is vague. How far in the future? As well, that statement does not say whether or not Sonos could still author their software to support the feature, that remains a vague area in my opinion.
You also stated that Sonos was not making a financial decision about the viability of maintaining this functionality. I remember reading that Sonos did allude to the financial aspect of future support for this feature as being a factor in their decision.
I do want to make it clear, that my purpose here in so publicly protesting and questioning Sonos over this decision is not meant to make a judgment about the company in any quasi moral sense, rather I am hoping that if Sonos can indeed provide this feature, that they seriously consider the optics of removing an excellent feature of their product. Or at least, make a very clear and public statement that they have absolute evidence that the feature would have broken for sure, and that there was no viable, and reasonable way that Sonos could have prevented that outcome via their development skills. For me, it feels like Sonos provided just enough information for customers to conclude that this was all Google’s fault and that Sonos could not prevent the impact to their customers. Perhaps those things are true, I have no knowledge that they aren’t. I am simply asking for more clarity from Sonos.
I am also not at all aligning with Google. Again, I do not have enough knowledge to hold an opinion of which corporate entity holds the business moral high ground, if that even exists in this situation. I could absolutely believe that Google is engaging in behaviour that could be viewed as bullying. I am not an apologist for any such behaviour. I deeply enjoy my Sonos products and I want nothing more than for Sonos to continue to develop such amazing, feature rich, quality audio lifestyle products. I am thankful for the quality and customer service that Sonos has demonstrated, despite my protest about this particular feature removal. No disrespect is intended towards Sonos, in fact, quite the opposite. I respect Sonos so much that I feel the company would welcome and support such robust scrutiny from their customers.
Unless somebody can actually demonstrate that playing local files from my Pixel 7 Pro doesn’t work with Sonos, I call * on this decision. A company can benefit financially from “business” decisions without direct financial payment. If you know that streaming services will make porting to your products in a more straight forward way if you tacitly support their business model, well that is a huge advantage.
In my case I have a Sonos system consisting of an Arc two Sub 2,s, two Fives and Two Moves. That was my audio system that used to support my local files stored on my phone. I ripped many albums that I owned on compact disc to Flac files and stored them on my phone. I used to be able to stream them to my Sonos system. Now I can’t. It is * straight up that this feature was too difficult to support. It is about maintaining marketability with streaming services. Of that I am sure.
*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*
Personally, I have no use for music stored on my phone/pad/computer. I don’t want them wasting time fussing with music. As I prepare files that will be stored on the NAS they will be stored temporarily on my computer, but I never play from the computer. There are a few tracks on my iPad that were loaded from the factory. I’ll use these occasionally to test issues brought up on this Community.
I can see some utility in keeping a copy of some music files on a phone/pad that can be played offsite to various devices via Bluetooth or Airplay 2. I’ve never found streaming via Bluetooth or Airplay 2 to be very reliable.
+1
Hi Bruce,
Thank you for your help, my orginal search must not have been worded correctly as i didnt see those articles.
Reading through them, this seems like a mega money grab decision on sonos end. I think ill need to looks in to an alternate speaker system and try to have my money refunded for these.
Poor business decision to take away a perfectly good feature and then make you buy a whole new item to continue to use
Sonos want you to upgrade to Bluetooth with their new Era speakers. You know, that years old flakey technology that they now promote as cutting edge!
I've attached an extract of an email from Sonos, the response to a query about their faltering support for "owned" music. Nowhere does it say that they are unable to support Android "This device" playback. Basically, they just can't be bothered. The bit about the unreliability of "This device" playback is embarrassing and laughable given their decision to embrace Bluetooth!
+1
In another topic iBroadcast was mentioned, that has a free option that allows you to play your uploaded music.
Free if you want 128kbps quality music!
Not my view at all. A smartphone is an excellent, virtually perfect streaming device. In my case when I had to move to a Pixel as LG exited the phone business, I kept my G8X ThinQ as a streaming device. Why not? It has excellent wifi capability, a nice screen and additional internal storage capacity.
I have albums that you cannot get on any streaming platform, and you have streaming platforms that secure and then lose parts of their collection on an ongoing basis so just because a service has what you want today, there is no guarantee they will tomorrow, or that the price will remain affordable for you. How about if your ISP goes down for any reason? You would be very thankful to have local files. What if your bandwidth was capped or data transmissions capped? For many people, the Internet and by extension streaming services are not equitable, and now Sonos has decided to simply acquiescence any power to the streaming services.
So if you actually want to take advantage of true wireless freedom as a music lover, Sonos will only support streaming services. I think it would be entirely possible for Sonos to make sure that they stayed in the loop with the major phone players, keeping abreast of any minor changes to how local files are made accessible to their software. I am guessing here, but rather than pay any developers on their team to keep up with whatever changes phone companies make via OS updates that effect local file access, they would rather put all the resources into staying in-step with streaming services.
No argument about that as a common sense approach to minimize staff and maximize profit, I get how capitalism works, but Sonos has not provided any proof that for them to keep up with accessing local files on your phone, is actually no longer viable. They simply imply that it might be a problem. Had Sonos told me they were considering crippling the capability of their platform in this manner I would not have dumped thousands of dollars so readily into their products. Yes I am indeed rather bitter about this.
Until Sonos demonstrates why they could not continue to support local file access for Android and iOS. It is not enough to say it may be a problem for them, that is part of the cost of doing business, and I do not imagine it is a significant cost. I freely admit that I may be wrong, but sorry Sonos, you don’t get to make such an impactful decision without telling those clients who’s money you have already taken exactly why you made the decision. And vague allusions as to the impact of supporting this crucial feature on their bottom line is woefully inadequate. Prove to those of us who have sunk our money into your products that it is not viable.
I may as well simply sell of my Sonos gear now. I did not purchase it simply to enrich streaming services, I wanted choice, I paid for choice.
Did Google say that Android local files cannot be made available to Sonos? Where was this stated? I freely admit that I may have missed it.
MG1214 wrote:
Actually, from what I can tell that is not true. Sonos made a business decision that they did not wish to allocate the resources to continue to offer the functionality. There is absolutely nowhere that I have ever heard where Google said that Sonos could not access local files. It does seem that Google made a decision that would result in more work for Sonos and Sonos then made the business decision to not allocate development resources. So no, Google did not force anything, Sonos made the decision that they made.
I am not saying that things did not change for Sonos due to Google making changes, nevertheless, other companies are still able to access local files on Android so clearly it is still possible. I think you need to be accurate here, but I do take your point that Sonos did not do this without some rationale. Just not a compelling rationale in my mind.
There is a fundamental difference here.
Sonos is making a remote access request, BubbleUPnp a local access request - A big difference. Remember the Sonos app is basically a remote control and is not responsible for playing your music*
My guess is that security on Android is being tightened up to prevent easy access to files stored on your phone, Whether or not there will be a way in the future to make such remote calls I have no idea, but one thing is for sure is that it would require work on Sonos part, both on the phone app and the speaker code and if security is one of the reasons for change then this will not be easy.
*note I suspect that when you install the Sonos App it also includes some software that helps the communication between the Speaker and your phone and this is the software that Sonos states is “limiting Sonos Player and controller software advancement for quite a while now”
And yet Sonos hasn’t removed the capability to play from a local hard drive, or an NAS, only mobile devices as dictated by those who control those operating systems.
Why would I want to have a bulky computer or laptop to access local files? For years now I have been able to simply use a smartphone, and Sonos happily supported this. Cal me cynical, but I do not believe that Sonos could not continue this functionality, I think that they didn’t want to.
My guess is that security on Android is being tightened up to prevent easy access to files stored on your phone, Whether or not there will be a way in the future to make such remote calls I have no idea, but one thing is for sure is that it would require work on Sonos part, both on the phone app and the speaker code and if security is one of the reasons for change then this will not be easy.
I would be very surprised to see a reason for playing audio from the android file system to be reversed. For one thing, it looks as though Sonos is fully embracing bluetooth functionality with their speakers going forward. While not exactly the same, it eliminates most of the need to access android files while providing the ability to play audio that isn’t in the file system. The only really difference is the range of WiFi vs bluetooth.
*note I suspect that when you install the Sonos App it also includes some software that helps the communication between the Speaker and your phone and this is the software that Sonos states is “limiting Sonos Player and controller software advancement for quite a while now”
Other than the initial command, I don’t really think so. Can’t really verify that now, but an easy test would be to initiate playback, then shut down the Sonos app. As @jgatie said, what happens to the music?
+22
Maybe something like an SMB server app for your phone?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.webrox.landrive&hl=en_US&gl=US
Ralpfocus wrote:
*note I suspect that when you install the Sonos App it also includes some software that helps the communication between the Speaker and your phone and this is the software that Sonos states is “limiting Sonos Player and controller software advancement for quite a while now”
Other than the initial command, I don’t really think so. Can’t really verify that now, but an easy test would be to initiate playback, then shut down the Sonos app. As @jgatie said, what happens to the music?
Agreed if you swipe off the Sonos Controller then the music doesn’t stop, sadly this does not prove that Sonos does not create a background (HTTP?) process. My rational for this thought is a) that Sonos apparently state that this feature is holding the Controller software back, b) i am sure that I have seen on these forums that the PC version of the controller spawns a background process for accessing files on a PC and c) why would android run by default a background HTTP server so that the outside world could connect to your phone without you knowing
Whatever I agree the decision is not going to be reversed. If I can keep my S1 system on its current version before I get an update to Android 14 i will see what happens then.
Or, the phone could just be powered off, or leave the WiFi signal… ;)
@jgatie I assure you, after you initiate playback, you can turn the phone completely off, smash it with a hammer, throw it in a fish tank, run it over with a steamroller, and the music keeps playing. There are no background processes going on, the Sonos devices stream from the source all by themselves, the app is merely a controller.
I agree totally; in every case you can turn the controller off once the stream has started except in the very special situation where you are using the “On this mobile Device”. Which is the case under discussion here. I also agree that the “normal” controller has no part to play in the ongoing stream.
I am simply speculating that the controller on Android has some additional code associated with playback of music stored on the phone itself, possible as a set of subroutines or a linked spawned process. This extra software might be some form of cut down HTTP server that the Sonos device communicates with. But even in this case it is still the Sonos device that is managing the process, whatever is running on the phone is only responding to the Sonos device.
As said earlier
My rational for this thought is a) that Sonos apparently state that this feature is holding the Controller software back, b) i am sure that I have seen on these forums that the PC version of the controller spawns a background process for accessing files on a PC and c) why would android run by default a background HTTP server so that the outside world could connect to your phone without you knowing
Plus on Android you can swipe off the Sonos App and the music keeps going playing as you would expect - however if you then force stop the Sonos app then after approx 30 seconds the stream stops and if you are looking at a controller on another device you get a message along the lines of “Unable to play '4th Of July' - the connection to phone name was lost.”
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