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Question

Personal music library features removed in the new May 7 2024 app version

The new “improved” app version seemed to wreck all of the features that made a personal music library on Sonos usable. Two major problems:

  1. There is no way to search your own personal music library anymore
  2. Browsing your personal music library is extremely painful if you have thousands of albums. We used to be able to zoom in by first letter. Now if you want something beginning with a “T”, you have to scroll through hundreds of screens worth from “A”.

Has anyone found a workaround for these?

I know Sonos has been optimizing for streaming services these days. But completely abandoning support for your own hosted music library was not what I expected.

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108 replies

J

I was so content with Sonos, now after years of giving these speakers as gifts I am thinking of scaping everything to the garbage…..Now I will have to surch for another product that integrates my library.

L

Thank you very much @THAinSD - your suggestion of using my PC's IP instead of its name resolved my issue.

 

Once I went to the Desktop Controller software on my PC and re-added my music folder on my PC back to the 'Music Library Settings' menu option using the IP instead of PC name, the Desktop Controller software added my collection back to where both the software and my Android app can play my music collection again.

 

Thanks again @THAinSD - you saved a lot of frustration that had built up in me this morning!

 

Others that are having this same issue of the local music library being gone in the updated app, check the Desktop Controller software to see if you just need to re-add your folder link back.

L

Well done Sonos, what a great idea. Delete all of your customers personal music folders & then expect everyone to stay loyal to you. Really? Sounds like the best way to lose all of those loyal customers that’s made you so popular.

T
Userlevel 2

Sonus seems to have now completely deleted my music library. When I try to add my Music folder, it just comes up with an error message. Any ideas? I’m on a laptop running windows…

See my post right above yours on this thread.  It explains how I was able to work around the error message when adding the music library folder back.  Looks like it worked for someone else too.  

schmidt281
Userlevel 1
Badge

Absolutely unacceptable.  I too enjoy listening to my own music.  Some of it is not available via streaming services.  I’ll be watching for Sonos to provide a solution to what they wrecked.  If not I’ll be looking for an alternate solution even if I need to abandon the Sonos products.  While I’m not crazy about losing all of the $ i have invested in Sonos I’d rather find an alternative product so I can go back to enjoying my own music.  Any suggestions on an alternative would be appreciated.  I want from loving Sonos to Sonos sucks.

Carpe Diem
S
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

The old Sonos app wasn't the best looking thing but this new downgraded upgrade literally looks like a 5th grader designed it in his first computer class.

 

Functionality for the app isn't a priority for sonos. The only thing that Sonos is prioritizing here is how can they force their customers to use for pay streaming music services. That's the bottom line. Yes the app is terrible because they want the app to be terrible. Yes the app is making it harder or even impossible to play your own music. But that's exactly what they want it to do. They designed this app to prevent people from playing their own music and to send them to paid streaming music services that give them Kickbacks for sending sonos customers there.

 

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Sonos executives are getting some kind of profit from the Sonosphone app that people are using as an alternative to sonos's garbage.

 

They get money from us when we buy products that we expect to work as advertised. They get money from paid music streaming services for directing sonos customers to paid music streaming services. And they get money from the various workarounds needed because of Sonos'terrible development. Sonos executives are 100% making money off of this catastrophe for Sonos users.

 

To quote their live agents, "Working as intended." 

T
Badge

I am another who wants to stream my personal music library. I have got round this for now by installing BubbleUPnP on my Android tablet along with it's license app that removes adds and limitations in the free version (to be fair I had purchased this sometime ago for other reasons and had stopped using it so I don't know its current cost). This allows me to pick up my music library from my DNLA enabled NAS and "cast" it directly to my Beam. I can play the whole song library and shuffle it exactly as before. I expect there are other apps that can do this but my solution works. I hope this helps. 

M
Userlevel 1
Badge +1

The new “improved” app version seemed to wreck all of the features that made a personal music library on Sonos usable. Two major problems:

  1. There is no way to search your own personal music library anymore
  2. Browsing your personal music library is extremely painful if you have thousands of albums. We used to be able to zoom in by first letter. Now if you want something beginning with a “T”, you have to scroll through hundreds of screens worth from “A”.

Has anyone found a workaround for these?

I know Sonos has been optimizing for streaming services these days. But completely abandoning support for your own hosted music library was not what I expected.

Totally cannot believe what I am witnessing the Sonos Team do to their longest serving, most loyal customers - this is completely outrageous!!! Most of us with our own personal music libraries have been there from the early days, spent a fortune on their equipment & are now being treated like scum - I am unable to even see my music library, let alone play it 🤯

 It was only a few weeks ago that Sonos sent an email stating “Upcoming change to HTTP and SMB1 stored music playback”. In this there was no mention that local music libraries were going to be de-supported…!!!

Sonos Team please can you update us in the same manor to explain what the hell is going on in support of local music libraries?!!! Thank you.

L

The new “improved” app version seemed to wreck all of the features that made a personal music library on Sonos usable. Two major problems:

  1. There is no way to search your own personal music library anymore
  2. Browsing your personal music library is extremely painful if you have thousands of albums. We used to be able to zoom in by first letter. Now if you want something beginning with a “T”, you have to scroll through hundreds of screens worth from “A”.

Has anyone found a workaround for these?

I know Sonos has been optimizing for streaming services these days. But completely abandoning support for your own hosted music library was not what I expected.

Totally cannot believe what I am witnessing the Sonos Team do to their longest serving, most loyal customers - this is completely outrageous!!! Most of us with our own personal music libraries have been there from the early days, spent a fortune on their equipment & are now being treated like scum - I am unable to even see my music library, let alone play it 🤯

 It was only a few weeks ago that Sonos sent an email stating “Upcoming change to HTTP and SMB1 stored music playback”. In this there was no mention that local music libraries were going to be de-supported…!!!

Sonos Team please can you update us in the same manor to explain what the hell is going on in support of local music libraries?!!! Thank you.

If your music library has disappeared from the Desktop Controller software and mobile app, check out the response from @THAinSD earlier in the thread that may help you out. It worked for me to get my library back to use on the updated app.

D

Absolutely awful from Sonos - they had better fix this and fast.  Was already hacked off that they removed compatibility with my earlier gen amps.  They have gone from my favourite tech to something I could never recommend.

U
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Does anyone have an idea if and when Sonus will repair their app or desktop controller to allow one to add one’s music library?  Or will they,,.?  I feel as though we’re being kept completely in the dark about this.

S
Userlevel 3
Badge +2

New version of the app removed library functioning completely. So I sideloaded the old version. Now I can't index my music library because the app tells me it has to update to do that. But the update doesn't allow that functionality.

Sonos help page says use the Windows app as a workaround. Bit presumptuous that I have a windows system, Sonos.

Unacceptable. 

S
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

Does anyone have an idea if and when Sonus will repair their app or desktop controller to allow one to add one’s music library?  Or will they,,.?  I feel as though we’re being kept completely in the dark about this.

IIt seems pretty clear that the Sonos executives are delaying any sort of fix for this problem that they intentionally caused so that as many Sonos customers as possible will be forced into for pay music streaming services.

 

When you are getting a cut from all of the workarounds being tossed out for this downgraded upgrade issue it makes Financial sense for them to not fix the problem that they caused on purpose.

P

Sonos say they are going to release a fix, but why on earth would they not have tested or prototyped the  app prior to its release?  Because they knew darned well that this would happen!  My thought is that they’re testing the waters to see how much push back they get from customers not being able to access their local iTunes library. Streaming is lucrative and can mean big $$$ for them! Sadly, this is disgustingly typical from large corporations. If there’s no fix to this I’m out!  I have spent literally thousands on Sonos products going back to the early 2000’s — now I’m hugely disillusioned!

jgatie

Sonos say they are going to release a fix, but why on earth would they not have tested or prototyped the  app prior to its release?  Because they knew darned well that this would happen!  My thought is that they’re testing the waters to see how much push back they get from customers not being able to access their local iTunes library. Streaming is lucrative and can mean big $$$ for them! Sadly, this is disgustingly typical from large corporations. If there’s no fix to this I’m out!  I have spent literally thousands on Sonos products going back to the early 2000’s — now I’m hugely disillusioned!

 

Besides their own Sonos Radio subscriptions, Sonos makes no money off other streaming services.  See below for Sonos’ schedule for fixes (bold applies to local libraries):

Coming soon

  • Continued improvements to navigation for visually-impaired customers: mid-June
  • Adding to queue and playing next: early June
  • Sleep timer: mid-June
  • Local music library search and playback: mid-June
  • Update WiFi settings: mid-June
  • Snooze alarms: TBD
U
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

I’m thinking of ditching my four Sonos Play:1 speakers.  What is the best replacement for them, one which would allow me to listen to my Music Library (on my PC) as well as allow me to stream from music services and radio stations?

 

S
Userlevel 3
Badge +2

Sonos say they are going to release a fix, but why on earth would they not have tested or prototyped the  app prior to its release?  Because they knew darned well that this would happen!  My thought is that they’re testing the waters to see how much push back they get from customers not being able to access their local iTunes library. Streaming is lucrative and can mean big $$$ for them! Sadly, this is disgustingly typical from large corporations. If there’s no fix to this I’m out!  I have spent literally thousands on Sonos products going back to the early 2000’s — now I’m hugely disillusioned!

 

Besides their own Sonos Radio subscriptions, Sonos makes no money off other streaming services.  See below for Sonos’ schedule for fixes (bold applies to local libraries):

Coming soon

  • Continued improvements to navigation for visually-impaired customers: mid-June
  • Adding to queue and playing next: early June
  • Sleep timer: mid-June
  • Local music library search and playback: mid-June
  • Update WiFi settings: mid-June
  • Snooze alarms: TBD

Wait, you can't change WiFi settings on the new app? Bwhahaha

Edit: oh wait, I can't update them in the old app now either.....my word.

jgatie

Wait, you can't change WiFi settings on the new app? Bwhahaha

Edit: oh wait, I can't update them in the old app now either.....my word.

 

I’m glad you got so much amusement from my post.  Hopefully I helped the person I was actually replying to.

S
Userlevel 3
Badge +2

Wait, you can't change WiFi settings on the new app? Bwhahaha

Edit: oh wait, I can't update them in the old app now either.....my word.

 

I’m glad you got so much amusement from my post.  Hopefully I helped the person I was actually replying to.

Oh no, don't get me wrong, it was a useful post. I just didn't realise something as fundamental as updating WiFi settings was a missing feature, that's all. No offence meant. 

S
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

Sonos say they are going to release a fix, but why on earth would they not have tested or prototyped the  app prior to its release?  Because they knew darned well that this would happen!  My thought is that they’re testing the waters to see how much push back they get from customers not being able to access their local iTunes library. Streaming is lucrative and can mean big $$$ for them! Sadly, this is disgustingly typical from large corporations. If there’s no fix to this I’m out!  I have spent literally thousands on Sonos products going back to the early 2000’s — now I’m hugely disillusioned!

 

Besides their own Sonos Radio subscriptions, Sonos makes no money off other streaming services.  See below for Sonos’ schedule for fixes (bold applies to local libraries):

Coming soon

  • Continued improvements to navigation for visually-impaired customers: mid-June
  • Adding to queue and playing next: early June
  • Sleep timer: mid-June
  • Local music library search and playback: mid-June
  • Update WiFi settings: mid-June
  • Snooze alarms: TBD

If you really believe that Sonos Executives aren't benefiting financially from forcing Sonos customers to for pay music streaming sites you might just be gullible.

 

It's hard to take those people at their word after this debacle. This was an intentional downgraded upgrade design from the beginning to force customers away from their own owned music libraries and two subscription service options.

 

But believe whatever you want. I'm sure this app is really 100% perfect to you. Whatevs. 

R

I had an excellent experience with Sonos tech support today, which I was not expecting based on all the chatter.  I use Sonos Controller for PC to access my music library, and the Sonos App for Android on my mobile device. Recently my music library vanished from Controller. The technician was able help make some changes in my network settings to get Controller to see and use the music library.  These changes will come in a future upgrade, but if you cannot wait then you can ask them to assist.  Regarding the Android App, I was able to downgrade using APKMirror (as explained somewhere else here in the community)  and I turned off auto updates on my device so it does not keep upgrading.  All better.

U
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

>>  I had an excellent experience with Sonos tech support today, which I was not expecting based on all the chatter.  I use Sonos Controller for PC to access my music library, and the Sonos App for Android on my mobile device. Recently my music library vanished from Controller. The technician was able help make some changes in my network settings to get Controller to see and use the music library.  These changes will come in a future upgrade, but if you cannot wait then you can ask them to assist.

 

Do you recall which ones?  Was it easy?  It’s not easy calling in.  The last time I tried I could not screen share with the tech perso, for some reason.

R

So sorry, I don’t.  I would hate to give you bad guesses and mess you up.

U
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Why does or will it take Sonus one whole month (at least) to fix what one wasn’t broken  (adding the Music Library to one’s Sonos system)?  Can’t they just ditch the new Sonus “improvements” as a whole lot and go back to what they had before?  It might be simpler than trying to “fix” what is, decidedly, broken and works so badly.

N
Userlevel 2
Badge +3

New version of the app removed library functioning completely. So I sideloaded the old version. Now I can't index my music library because the app tells me it has to update to do that. But the update doesn't allow that functionality.

Sonos help page says use the Windows app as a workaround. Bit presumptuous that I have a windows system, Sonos.

Unacceptable. 

Question on this - the Windows desktop controller now doesn’t allow music library functions (indexing etc); so when you mention Windows app, is there a Windows Store app they’re referring to?

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