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I have two Sonos systems: 

Two old Play 5 speakers with the old S1 controller - all working fine. I can access all the music on the local HDD of my Windows 11 PC. Never had an issue.

A newer system comprising 3 pairs of speakers and a sound bar. All working fine using the newer S2 controller - except…… I cannot access the music on my hard drive - the same files on the same HDD that the old S1 controller has no problems accessing.

The controller recognizes the library (safter a lot mucking around creating new local users, sharing folders, using the network path option etc etc) but refuses to list the albums or tracks. See screen shots below. 

 

When I click on “Update Music Library Now” the usual message pops up:

I click on Yes, and the "Indexing...” message pops up and disappears with a second. 

When I check the library for albums, artists etc, I get the dreaded “No selections are available”. Nothing. Zero. Zilch.

 

I have read all the posts in various forums about this, but there does not seem to be a definitive solution, nor any response from Sonos. I can only conclude, as others have done already, that Sonos don’t want users listening to their own music libraries. Instead, they want us to “stream” everything. If true, very cynical of Sonos, and it spoils an otherwise very good product.

My work around at the moment is to use the Plex server, which works fine. But it should not be necessary.

 

Does anyone have recent experiences and a solution? Is Sonos addressing the problem? My setup could not be simpler. A local HDD with all my music on it that works fine with S1, but not S2. And it used to work on S2 up until a couple of years ago. Nothing has changed except the various ‘updates’ to S2.

Best wishes to all.

If you have followed the Sonos support articles and it isn't working then a call to Sonos support will let them look at internal error messages we users can't see.

In S2, Sonos has changed the way that their new app accesses audio from shared libraries on the local network. The previous S2 App supported SMBv1 and HTTP protocols for file sharing, but these have known vulnerabilities and are no longer used by Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon etc. and all these companies, including Sonos, have now shifted to using SMBv2 (or higher) file sharing.  You may need to upgrade your shares… see these links depending on how you share your library tracks…

For MacOS users, see this thread.

For Windows users, see this thread.

Sonos sent out notices both in the S2 app, and in email, about these changes. They also updated the FAQ to reflect the update. While they have stated that the local library system continues to be worked on, I do not expect them to resume use of HTTP or SMB v1, so if your computer uses them, I’d recommend re-adding your share, as is indicated in the controller, where it says ‘We’ve made security changes to supported libraries. You may need to re-add your library”.

If you’re having trouble finding this area in your controller, open the S2 controller, click on the gear icon at the upper right of the screen, then the word ‘Manage’ under it. Next, click on ‘Music Library’, and the page to enter/modify your local library will come up.

If you continue to have issues, I would recommend that you call Sonos Support to discuss it.

Note that it may be challenging, depending on your NAS, to use both SMB v1 (now unsecured) for S1 and higher versions of SMB for S2. You may need to check with the manufacturer of your NAS. 

Thanks Bruce,

Yes, I had done all the steps listed in that thread but sadly, it didn’t work. Also, I don’t have a NAS. I use a local HDD on my laptop but set the Sonos controller to access it via its network path, as per instructions. I think I need to set aside a day and call Sonos support, as suggested.

Cheers

Since the method of music access is different on S2 than it is with S1, you may need to, I’d agree. 

I have my music library working on both S1 and S2 systems, without issue. I see a few potential issues for you:

  1. Have you tried the change permission option? 
  2. Your computer name is 14 characters long, NETBIOS has a 15 character limit (though I don’t recall if the terminating null is included), unsure if this will cause a problem for S2.
  3. If you open Explorer, go to Network, can you see your Sonos devices there? If not, those devices likely cannot see your PC over the network either.
  4. Take a peek at the xml logs at C:\programdata\SonosV2,_Inc\runtime - there might be some clues in there.

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