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NAS Library vanished: Suspect latest software update - Need Tier II Help

Have a case number - ******** - Had to bail after an hour of running through what I’d said and done ten times… Opened my iPhone app on Monday to play tunes. It forced a software update. When the update finished my library vanished. Updated on my Win10 PC. Same result. NAS is a Buffalo LS441D. No issues until this point. Have rebooted the NAS, router, etc. etc. etc. Same result; library tries to build but dies about five minutes into the process. “Music Files Not Available” error. Horsecrap: The NAS is happy and up and has had zero config/update changes in the last six months.

 

On the initial hour long call, tried the turn SMB on/off on the NAS. No joy. NAS share permissions are set R/W across the drive and Sonos login credentials are for the admin level.

 

Hoping somebody at Tier II level reads this and can assist, else I’ve got two Fives, a Connect, and two Roams that just became worthless bricks.

 

Moderator Note: Removed case number

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14 replies

buzz

When you say “vanished” does this mean that the drive or library share is no longer listed on the library setup? Is there an error message?

Airgetlam

Sonos support, of any level, doesn’t live here in this forum. This is a community forum, and sometimes the forum moderators may step in, but if you want to talk to anyone, your best bet is to call Sonos Support to discuss it. 

Bruce
Airgetlam

If, however, you want assistance from the community, it might be helpful to know which version of the OS from Sonos you’re running, and which SMB versions are being allowed by the NAS. Just turning SMB on and off isn’t likely, as you’ve found, to be much help.

Note that your windows OS uses a completely different method of connection to your NAS than Sonos does, there would be zero relationship between being able to see the files in Windows as compared to Sonos being able to read the files.

Bruce
DGR1
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

OP - there are a number of us with the same issue - NAS solutions that have worked for a long time and are now experiencing problems with indexing. It only affects some NAS users, and appears to be related to SMB.

Here’s an example…

Some users who can fix the SMB version of their NAS can work round the problem. I unfortunately don’t have this feature on my WD MyBookLive.

I see the same behaviour as you - indexing works fine for a few minutes, then throws an error. Pointing to a subfolder to reduce the index time does work for me - I can easily index a single folder containing just one album - but anything too big fails. All songs that have been indexed can be played with no problems.

Sonos has acknowledged the issue in the thread I linked above. It first appeared a while ago. No fix yet.

As you have what appears to be a high-spec NAS, I imagine you may have SMB selection options that can help.

Corry P
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @Othurone 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

I’m not sure how much I can help - we are aware of an issue that can affect indexing on NAS drives using SMBv2/3 and are investigating, but we don’t have an ETA for a resolution.

For what it’s worth, your system is reporting error 13 - access denied. As this only happens after 5 minutes of indexing, it’s clearly erroneous.

We understand that restricting your NAS drive to SMBv1 only can help, though this does come with some local security concerns.

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
O

@DGR1 and @Corry P - Thanks for the info, which tends to confirm what I’m thinking. Starting to think I’m going to be stuck until Sonos can get a patch issued for finicky NAS units. Sadly, my Buffalo, while a larger/robust unit, is older and at the control panel level my SMB options are binary. Either SMB1 or 2 with no further granularity. [Unless I dive into the CLI via SSH and see if there are things I can tweak as root in a conf file.] I really cannot easily drop back to just SMB1, as a couple of months ago I had to enable 2 to keep my Plex installation happy. [I’d go with SMB1 as my home net is decently locked down.]

 I hope Sonos can figure it out and patch the software. I’ll leave my case open with them but clearly this is beyond anything a Tier-I support person is going to be able to handle. 

buzz

One player will take charge of the indexing process. It’s speculation on my part, but there is some indication that there is a timeout or memory use issue in the indexing player. If I’m correct, a potential workaround is to partition the library differently. Rather than one large library, perhaps //share/music, break the library setup into more shares. Declare //share/music/jazz, //share/music/pop, //share/music/classical, etc. Up to 16 segments can be defined. In many cases this will not require any change in the actual library, just a change in the music library setup. As far as the user is concerned, only the library’s Folders view will be impacted.

While the indexer is processing a segment, this scheme will require less memory and there is less risk of a timeout.

 I’m sure that there are other components in this drama, such as the character of your metadata (Artist, Track Title, Composer, file name, etc.) My own metadata, particularly the file names is short. Editing your metadata may not be practical — requiring lots of work. Large SONOS playlists tie up player memory and could squeeze out the indexer. As a quickie trial, I added 10000 new tracks with short metadata to my library and had no trouble indexing. I then added these tracks to an empty Queue and saved the Queue as a Playlist — adding this large new Playlist to my existing Playlists. There were no issues. I then added this Playlist to the Queue six times, for a total of 60000 tracks in the Queue. Again there were no issues.

melvimbe

Is this an issue on the Sonos side?  I mean if the timeout message is coming from the NAS rather than Sonos, what can Sonos firmware due to resolve the error that is occurring on the NAS.  Possible that Sonos needs to do something that confirms indexing is still occurring, don’t timeout or what have you, but it sounds more like the NAS firmware needs to be adjusted.  

Also, if you are using Plex, why not use Plex to playback your local library?

Danny
DGR1
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

FWIW, as a temporary measure I am having a play with both the iBroadcast and YouTube Music services. Both allow free upload and playback of your library on Sonos.

YouTube Music doesn’t appear to handle compilations at all, so my artist list is flooded!

iBroadcast does handle compilations and is impressing me so far 😀

Depending of the size of music library involved and internet upload speed, it doesn’t take too long to get everything into the cloud.

O

@melvimbe - Had not realized Plex could be added as a service to the Sonos app. Shall give that a try because I just got the library to rebuild by taking the NAS back down to SMB1-only. But doing that basically shuts down my ability to have my Plex server behave properly. Back to checking that new pathway now...thanks!

melvimbe

@melvimbe - Had not realized Plex could be added as a service to the Sonos app. Shall give that a try because I just got the library to rebuild by taking the NAS back down to SMB1-only. But doing that basically shuts down my ability to have my Plex server behave properly. Back to checking that new pathway now...thanks!

 

Are you using the free plex or the paid version? It’s been awhile since I set it up, but I believe you’ll need to paid version.  Paid allows access outside your local network, and technically, Sonos speaker is accessing the Plex cloud server and then retrieving from your local files...rather than just getting from your local files.  I could be wrong about that,   I ended up getting the paid version so I could access music at work or on the road.

Danny
106rallye
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

This does not seem to mention the paid version: https://support.plex.tv/articles/218237558-requirements-for-using-plex-for-sonos/

O

@melvimbe - Had not realized Plex could be added as a service to the Sonos app. Shall give that a try because I just got the library to rebuild by taking the NAS back down to SMB1-only. But doing that basically shuts down my ability to have my Plex server behave properly. Back to checking that new pathway now...thanks!

 

Are you using the free plex or the paid version? It’s been awhile since I set it up, but I believe you’ll need to paid version.  Paid allows access outside your local network, and technically, Sonos speaker is accessing the Plex cloud server and then retrieving from your local files...rather than just getting from your local files.  I could be wrong about that,   I ended up getting the paid version so I could access music at work or on the road.

Yeah, I’ve had paid for a while cuz that’s the only way to get a tolerable app (PlexAmp) on the iPhone to feed my other pure Bluetooth speakers plus stream into my car while I’m driving.

 

Quick test earlier looks like Sonos can see the Plex library, so once I get time to actually test it with the speakers live this may be a workaround. Though the true test will be to see if Plex behaves via the Sonos app *after* I flip the NAS back to SMB2.

 

This is interesting from an academic standpoint and my inner geek 20 years ago woulda been more into it. Current old geek has tons of other stuff to do, and really thinks that for what I’ve put into Gen1 / 2 product since 2014 Sonos could ensure the stuff plays well with SMBx stacks no matter what flavor or vintage. [Now get off my lawn...]

O

Hi @Othurone 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

I’m not sure how much I can help - we are aware of an issue that can affect indexing on NAS drives using SMBv2/3 and are investigating, but we don’t have an ETA for a resolution.

For what it’s worth, your system is reporting error 13 - access denied. As this only happens after 5 minutes of indexing, it’s clearly erroneous.

We understand that restricting your NAS drive to SMBv1 only can help, though this does come with some local security concerns.

I hope this helps.

Corry - Looks like we can close out this topic. Lots of good feedback from several folks; much appreciated.

 

After flipping back to SMB1 on my NAS I got the library to build. I’ve flipped back to SMB2 and for the moment the Sonos app is seeing and playing properly. I have a gut feeling that being back on SMB2 the next time I add music I’ll very possibly see another library crash when it is scanned. But the workaround of running through the Plex service will be an adequate fallback until/if we see app updates that more properly stabilize SMBn for the NAS units that seem to be affected.

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