Apart from the listed problems with music libraries, sleep,alarm, wifi channel options missing and Rova issues, I’ve noticed another, forgetting Sonos systems.
This is when i leave my home system and go to work which we have Sonos, when i opened my app with the old app, this would seamlessly connect to the work system, then when i get home seamlessly connect to my home system and so on.
Now the new app requires me to ‘join new system’ every time i go to work and come home. It doesn’t remember or seamlessly change between the 2 systems. I also tried this when going to my parents home and brothers who have Sonos. I am on their local networks and the same issue. I have to join their system, then i get home and have to join my system.
Too many bugs on the new app, and Sonos should allow us to download the old app until they sort out all the problems. Im sure once the bugs are ironed out, this new app will be a better experience. I have noticed when it is working, it is quicker on connection when opening the app.
Poor testing by Sonos, i expected better from a brand like this.
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For iPhone users, I installed SonoPhone from the App Store to control Sonos. My Sonos devices were immediately found. My music library came up in seconds and I was able to select and play music. I also tried Apple Music with no issue. Finally, the Sonos app on my Mac synced with it. It costs $2.99. The privacy policy seemed acceptable to me. I’m still looking at alternative products to Sonos as a permanent solution. Sonos’ ego has the company lost.
(For those considering alternative players, I have 23 Sonos devices and a music library in excess of 1,000 albums. SonoPhoneq just worked for me - no drama!)
Amazing and quick, SonoPhone is software done right! I hope they have a PC version I would pay for that even!
this new app is total garbage … im really pissed off with sonos .
ive got 4 zones of sonos and now its just a total ball ache to use my system.
i want it back as it was !!!!
I’m suffering like the rest of everyone and an Android user. If the Apple app works, hopefully someone will come up with an Android app controller and I’ll get my packed NAS drive playing again!
As a producer of such a fantastic sound system it’s hard to believe the way Sonos are handling this issue. Surely, effecting 95% of its customers can’t make business sense?
I’m suffering like the rest of everyone and an Android user. If the Apple app works, hopefully someone will come up with an Android app controller and I’ll get my packed NAS drive playing again!
As a producer of such a fantastic sound system it’s hard to believe the way Sonos are handling this issue. Surely, effecting 95% of its customers can’t make business sense?
My guess is that its less than 95% that are complaining. I think that the problem for Sonos is that the changes have impacted long time customers and more advanced customers with proper multi room setups. The new app is probably OK for single speaker customers with limited requirements and expectations.
I am having real issues since the new update - songs just stop / drop out halfway through, app randomly switches to another speaker. The layout is also not user friendly. Really disappointing and performance is so poor I don’t even want to bother opening the app. It was fine before, no idea why Sonos thought they needed to radically change it. If it ain’t broke…
As an add-on to my post regarding the SonoPhone app for iPhones, the only issue I have found with it so far is you can’t drill down to the folder level in your music library. For instance, I have the same albums in MP3 and Hi-Def folders. If I select an album that’s in both folders I get duplicate songs in the playlist. I could fix it by removing the duplicate MP3 versions, but until I select my permanent solution to this badness I will accept the limitation. The only reason I kept the MP3 versions was my lack of trust when Sonos started supporting Hi-Def. I should have known trust would become an issue! lol!
It is clear that this update has been a disaster and has caused more harm than good. Is there any solution in sight. Unlike most of the people on this chain I’m not a wizard at Sonos and actually have to hire someone, at significant expense, to correct the damage that has occurred to my system. Is there a way to purge this demon from my system and go back to the previous situation prior to the update?
It is clear that this update has been a disaster and has caused more harm than good. Is there any solution in sight. Unlike most of the people on this chain I’m not a wizard at Sonos and actually have to hire someone, at significant expense, to correct the damage that has occurred to my system. Is there a way to purge this demon from my system and go back to the previous situation prior to the update?
There isn’t a way to purge the update.
They have released a timeline to have things like queue management and wifi settings back in the app by mid to late June. There should be an update on May 21 as well.
you shouldn’t need to hire someone for this, the updates will just flow (hopefully)
But if you find yourself without access to your music library that might be an issue for you.
Hard to turn the music off! I play rain sounds all night as I sleep…..when I wake up and hit the PAUSE button, nothing. I have to fiddle around with changing speakers back and forth, closing the app and re-opening it...eventually, 5-10 minutes later the music just stops for no discernable action I took. Seems to be an extreme delay in getting the music to stop.
If you perhaps still have the Sonos S2 (gold) .apk installer for an Android controller device you maybe able to resolve this by going to ‘settings/system/networks’ and adding the Works WiFi credentials to the Home Sonos setup and then take one, or more, of the works speakers and add it to the Home system. Then simply take it back to work, where both speaker and new Sonos App should then work for you.
Alternatively, you may have to wait until the new Sonos App caters for adding additional networks, or additional Sonos Households to an existing system/controller App, which perhaps may take a while, some months, I suspect, that’s assuming Sonos has those features on their roadmap for this new App.
Good luck with that - I downgraded back to the old version yesterday via APKpure, but overnight the new version installed itself again! I’ve turned off my entire Sonos system now, it’s been rendered useless by the new app. That’s 10 speakers, wasted. Well done Sonos. Thank god I have a Roam which I can still use as a Bluetooth speaker from my phone!!
If you are using Android, you need to go to the Play Store and trun off Auto App Upgrades
How to Turn off Automatic App Updates on an Android Phone
Open the Play Store.
Tap your profile image at the top.
Select Settings.
Tap Network preferences.
Tap Auto-update apps.
Tap Don't auto-update apps.
Tap Done or OK to disable automatic app installations.
The real solution is new management at Sonos. That starts at the shareholder/Board level or legal actions against them. Regardless of what happens, including a software fix by late June, I won’t purchase new products from them and am actively researching competitors’ products. I have 23 Sonos devices, so I have been significantly injured. This mess seems to be motivated by greed - support for new products without regard for its existing customer base.
Sonos always had buggy software and weird issues, but I had been a fan of the brand regardless, to the point where I now have 11 speakers in my house, rendered completely useless by this new p.o.s. upgrade. The fact that Sonos deployed this obviously untested release in production is absolutely shocking. I’ve been working for software companies my whole life and this is the kind brand destroying crap that should get some heads rolling big time. Looking at alternatives at this point. Does anyone have recommendations for another brand that offers similar features (when they work) without the clownish software release management?
We went through this several years ago. It all started when SONOS stopped supporting music that had been downloaded into Apple Music - you could no longer play through SONOS speakers music accumulated over years and located in Apple Music. It was claimed they didn’t want to have to keep up with changes Apple made to its music software. In fact, VERY shortly thereafter SONOS released its own paid music radio service. How coincidental! The SONOS app is now what I call “larded down” with functions and has become lethargic and slow to load. I reached out to SONOS a few yeas ago and was offered to replace most of my older S1 SONOS speakers with new ones at a 30% discount. There was no promise that this would fix any of the problems (I was having app issues with both S1 and S2 speakers). The old old app worked just fine. New and complicated is NOT always better. It think is was Buckminster Fuller who said “ON/OFF and VOLUME UP/DOWN, that’s all you need” when asked about what the user interface should look like on early CD players.
I note that the Sonos app appears to have been removed from the Apple App Store for MacOS.
I’ll accept this as a positive sign, that along with the incredible on-hold times for Support (+ 1 hr) they fully realize the DUMPSTER FIRE they created and are actively working to fix it.
I still see it in my Apple Apps Store. In fact, it just did an update.
Another bug: every time I open my SONOS app it defaults to my TV Soundbar and is often hard to get it to use another speaker. It keeps wanting to go back to the soundbar.
I stand corrected, you download it from the Sonos website. I’m referring to MacOS (not iOS). It had been such a long time. I just did the in-app updates. But, the good news as I’ve found is that the MacOS app that is available for download from Sonos is the 79.0-5229470 release and it works. All my URLs and such were pulled in from the cache in my Sonos speakers. So I’m just gonna take that as a win for the day and leave it alone.
Now, the iOS app is a dumpster fire and Sonos likely realizes this, with the long on-hold times (in excess of an hour) with what I presume are irate and frustrated customers.
So, hopefully this all gets fixed soon -- but what a mess. We don’t know if this was a release that was pressured to get out from internal politics or just incompetent R&D (or both)… and we probably won’t know. But I hope it’s all fixed like really soon.
Unless you cached the prior release of the iOS app, there is no way to downgrade this dumpster fire update 80.x.
I’m suffering like the rest of everyone and an Android user. If the Apple app works, hopefully someone will come up with an Android app controller and I’ll get my packed NAS drive playing again!
As a producer of such a fantastic sound system it’s hard to believe the way Sonos are handling this issue. Surely, effecting 95% of its customers can’t make business sense?
My guess is that its less than 95% that are complaining. I think that the problem for Sonos is that the changes have impacted long time customers and more advanced customers with proper multi room setups. The new app is probably OK for single speaker customers with limited requirements and expectations.
I’m a long-time Mac Sonos user that has two pair of Play 1 speakers, a pair in the den and a pair in the living room. My music is all on my Mac. No streaming. I think I’m in that “limited requirements and expectations” category. But the new app has rendered the speakers useless and the new controller on the Mac will not access the Mac’s Music Library file. Even the Sonos Chat Support Tech confirmed that and current announcements admit that local library access will be restored by mid-June. So their updated app is NOT functioning for even the most basic of customers.
As for complaining, I’ve sent my email to CEO Patrick Spencer - polite but firm. More should do the same.
Just my 2¢, your results may vary.
Radley, I experiened the same problem. But I, I found that the older download for MacOS is still present on the Sonos download site. I uninstalled my controller on MacOS (Monterey, here) and reinstalled the controller Sonos_79.0-52294.dmg from Sonos and it brought back all my settings and the TuneIn (old style TuneIn, not this new JUNK they introduced) so I’m able to navigate from there. Not iOS, the iOS app is a complete mess….. this is a dumpster fire and I hope Sonos learns a powerful lesson from this.
I stand corrected, you download it from the Sonos website. I’m referring to MacOS (not iOS). It had been such a long time. I just did the in-app updates. But, the good news as I’ve found is that the MacOS app that is available for download from Sonos is the 79.0-5229470 release and it works. All my URLs and such were pulled in from the cache in my Sonos speakers. So I’m just gonna take that as a win for the day and leave it alone.
Now, the iOS app is a dumpster fire and Sonos likely realizes this, with the long on-hold times (in excess of an hour) with what I presume are irate and frustrated customers.
So, hopefully this all gets fixed soon -- but what a mess. We don’t know if this was a release that was pressured to get out from internal politics or just incompetent R&D (or both)… and we probably won’t know. But I hope it’s all fixed like really soon.
Unless you cached the prior release of the iOS app, there is no way to downgrade this dumpster fire update 80.x.
You lucked out, I downloaded the update to my Mac and now Sonos will no longer access my Music Library file. However, you reference a different number than I downloaded; I downloaded Sonos_79.0-52294.dmg (no “470” at the end of the one I got) which once downloaded shows up in About My System as Sonos Controller for Mac, Version: 16.2, Sonos OS: S2.
I now own 4 Sonos bricks.
Radley, I experiened the same problem. But I, I found that the older download for MacOS is still present on the Sonos download site. I uninstalled my controller on MacOS (Monterey, here) and reinstalled the controller Sonos_79.0-52294.dmg from Sonos and it brought back all my settings and the TuneIn (old style TuneIn, not this new JUNK they introduced) so I’m able to navigate from there. Not iOS, the iOS app is a complete mess….. this is a dumpster fire and I hope Sonos learns a powerful lesson from this.
I’m wondering if my Mac using macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 makes a difference?
I’m wondering if my Mac using macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 makes a difference?
I uninstalled the controller Sonos app on MacOS prior to re-installing it from the DMG I downloaded from Sonos.com. Maybe give that a try?
I see what you’re referring to. The About shows the “version” as 16.2, but the “build” is 79052294.
I would think that Sonoma would make a difference, as it’s the same DMG downloaded from the site.
Try uninstalling it then reinstall the DMG and see if that will pick up some content or settings from your existing speakers?
I’m wondering if my Mac using macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 makes a difference?
I uninstalled the controller Sonos app on MacOS prior to re-installing it from the DMG I downloaded from Sonos.com. Maybe give that a try?
I see what you’re referring to. The About shows the “version” as 16.2, but the “build” is 79052294.
I would think that Sonoma would make a difference, as it’s the same DMG downloaded from the site.
Try uninstalling it then reinstall the DMG and see if that will pick up some content or settings from your existing speakers?
Great minds follow the same path. I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled several times and while Sonos will show a few songs in the queue, when I try to play a song that is shown there’s an error message that says “access to //iMac/Music denied”. When I open “Manage Music Library Settings” I get:
So while there may be some songs showing, Sonos isn’t accessing the Mac Music Library to play them. Go figure.
Regarding other system possibilities, I have done research on Bluesound. They are affiliated with NAD products, a very respected name in audiophile stereo products. Their recent software release was well received. Their speakers are considered to be accurate speakers - think audiophile in quality. I haven’t heard them yet, but based on the reviews because they are flat accurate speakers they may not have the boost in bass and mid-range that you find in Sonos speakers. I have 23 Sonos devices spread around my home, but I also have a high-end stereo system. Sonos fills the house with music, but they don’t compare to my audiophile system. For instance, if you play an old record through Sonos you don’t hear the album’s scratches that are obvious on an audiophile system. Funny, but in this example, people would often prefer the Sonos sound. Ultimately, it comes down to preference. Bluesound systems appear to be somewhat more expensive, but not outrageous as much of the audiophile equipment tends to be compared to Sonos type products. Sonos was first in the whole-home solution. But, based on my initial research, in addition to NAD, there appears to be many reputable music companies in the market now (Yamaha for one). The Bluesound system doesn’t appear to be proprietary either, so other manufacturers speakers will work in the system. If this is where they’re headed it’s great news for customers. Anyway, check it out. I‘ve just starting my research as a result of the latest Sonos fiasco.
I’m suffering like the rest of everyone and an Android user. If the Apple app works, hopefully someone will come up with an Android app controller and I’ll get my packed NAS drive playing again!
As a producer of such a fantastic sound system it’s hard to believe the way Sonos are handling this issue. Surely, effecting 95% of its customers can’t make business sense?
My guess is that its less than 95% that are complaining. I think that the problem for Sonos is that the changes have impacted long time customers and more advanced customers with proper multi room setups. The new app is probably OK for single speaker customers with limited requirements and expectations.
Yeah, nah. Having read through pages of problems it's a pretty widespread chrous of condemnation.
I've got more than one speaker, and have some local files, been a user for 15 years - it's hard to deny this release is a catastrophic mess.
An international company this size with this much reach pushing this broken app out? Crazy treatment of their customer base.
