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PLEASE add an option to Shuffle the Songs in Apple Music Library. This exists for Spotify, it exists for our local music library, it should be able to exist for Apple Music.

 

Here are the “workarounds” and why they are bad:

  • “Just shuffle play in the Apple Music app and airplay to your sonos!” - Then we miss out on Lossless quality, which is reduced over airplay. Plus it’s much better to keep things within the Sonos ecosystem and limit the number of different apps we need to do simple things.
  • “Just start playing any song in your library, and then enable shuffle” - This does not work. The queue will be empty.
  • “Just use the My Station feature in Apple Music” - this is not the same as shuffling an entire library. It’s just some playlist that an algorithm creates, so you can hear familiar songs over and over.

Hi @mowgli-san 

Thank you - I've marked this thread as a feature request and it will be seen by the relevant teams for consideration. Keep the ideas coming!

Edit: no longer a feature request.


Sorry @Corry P but this is not a feature request, its a regression in the new app.

Desktop app still shows the buttons. The new app is not correctly handling the tags on the Apple Songs list.

https://github.com/amp64/sonosbugtracker/issues/12


 I’m confused.  Which Apple Music library music are you referring to that cannot be shuffled.  This is a playlist I created that I was able to shuffle.  This was with the iPhone 15.

 


Hi @controlav 

That may well be the case, but as there’s no ticket open for this, and as I do not know if it is intended that it will come back or not, I have marked it as a feature request. If it doesn’t qualify, at least someone will know that it is missing.

 

Hi @mowgli-san 

@MoPac makes a good point - are you referring to music that has been uploaded to Apple Music, or Apple Music’s own main library?


Per the bug tracker I linked, the specific regression is:

  • For example on Apple Music / Library / Songs no Play/Shuffle buttons, can only play them one at a time.

@MoPac not a playlist, click on Songs to see all the songs in one’s library. No option to Shuffle. Same goes for the inability to shuffle an Artist (like we can with Spotify or local library) though maybe that would have to be a separate feature request? 

 


@Corry P hopefully my above screenshots help, but to clarify, the Apple Music Library consists of the entirety of my songs - songs that have been saved from Apple Music streaming, and local files that Apple Music has matched or uploaded.

Within Sonos, it would go Apple Music > Library > Songs. No option to shuffle all, we can only play an individual song (out of a list of thousands). Compare this to to Spotify > Your Library > Songs, or Music Library (local) > Songs and you’ll see shuffle options.


 I see what you are talking about now.  I’ve never used the Songs category in Apple Music.  I exclusively use Apple Music for Dolby Atmos ( Apple misnomer Spacial Audio ).

 I have not fiddled with iTunes on my Windows PC in years.  All my local music is served with MinimServer, Squeezebox Server, MPD on Bryston BDP-2 or indexed either by BlueSound or Sonos.  iTunes just didn’t cut it.  No FLAC support etc.


Hi @mowgli-san 

Thanks - at least we now know why @MoPac didn’t see the same.

I’ve reported it - if it get’s identified as a bug, I’ll add the tracker to this topic and remove the feature request tag.

Thanks again for flagging!


Hi @mowgli-san 

Thanks again for flagging this behaviour. We’ve created a ticket for it, but please be aware this issue is on Apple to resolve - we will let them know, but it may have more sway coming from a paying customer like yourself.

I’ve removed the feature request tag from the thread as @controlav is correct.


Hi @mowgli-san 

Thanks again for flagging this behaviour. We’ve created a ticket for it, but please be aware this issue is on Apple to resolve - we will let them know, but it may have more sway coming from a paying customer like yourself.

I’ve removed the feature request tag from the thread as @controlav is correct.

 

Why is it on Apple to fix? It works in the Desktop app, and it works in my app. Apple are tagging the collection in the correct manner, but the new app doesn’t handle the tags correctly for some reason.


@Corry P I’m also confused why it would be on Apple to fix this. In Apple Music apps (whether iOS, or Mac OS desktop), you can of course Shuffle all the Songs in the library section. (You can also go to an Artist page, and click “Play” to shuffle songs by them). It is within the SONOS app that all of these features are missing.

 

As for what @controlav mentioned about it working in the sonos desktop app - this doesn’t even work for me there. The shuffle button exists there, but when I click it, I get “Please wait” and spinning for a 10+ seconds, and then “An error occurred while adding to the queue. (1002)”.

So, broken all around.


Hi @controlav & @mowgli-san 

Why is it on Apple to fix? It works in the Desktop app, and it works in my app. Apple are tagging the collection in the correct manner, but the new app doesn’t handle the tags correctly for some reason.

@Corry P I’m also confused why it would be on Apple to fix this. In Apple Music apps (whether iOS, or Mac OS desktop), you can of course Shuffle all the Songs in the library section. (You can also go to an Artist page, and click “Play” to shuffle songs by them). It is within the SONOS app that all of these features are missing.

It’s on them to fix because they are responsible for maintaining their integration into our API - it’s how we’re able to support 100’s of services. You’ll notice that the landing pages for different services in the Sonos app look different from each other? That’s because different services set them up differently. They are requested to keep things fairly similar, of course, to preserve an amount of consistency for app UI usage.

As for what @controlav mentioned about it working in the sonos desktop app - this doesn’t even work for me there. The shuffle button exists there, but when I click it, I get “Please wait” and spinning for a 10+ seconds, and then “An error occurred while adding to the queue. (1002)”.

So, broken all around.

That sounds like a separate issue. Please try removing Apple Music from your Sonos system, then add it again.

Remove a music service account from Sonos

Add a music service to Sonos

It may also help to reboot your router too - please switch it off for at least 30 seconds.

Are you sure it said error 1002? That usually refers to a lost connection to a Music Library source, not to a music service.

I hope this helps.

 


Hi @controlav & @mowgli-san 

Why is it on Apple to fix? It works in the Desktop app, and it works in my app. Apple are tagging the collection in the correct manner, but the new app doesn’t handle the tags correctly for some reason.

It’s on them to fix because they are responsible for maintaining their integration into our API - it’s how we’re able to support 100’s of services. You’ll notice that the landing pages for different services in the Sonos app look different from each other? That’s because different services set them up differently. They are requested to keep things fairly similar, of course, to preserve an amount of consistency for app UI usage.

Here is the XML segment that Apple return for the “songs” container:

canPlay is clearly set to true. Which is why the Desktop app (and my app) shows the Play and Shuffle buttons at the top of the list.


Hi @controlav 

I’m told they are using the wrong container type. That’s about all I know about it.


Interesting, for Amazon / Artist / Top Songs, all apps show play/shuffle, and its XML is this:

The Amazon XML has canEnumerate as true, which is missing from Apple’s response. However, the SAMPI spec says it defaults to true anyway, so my speculation as to the cause is this:

The new app treats a missing canEnumerate as false, but it should treat it as true.

I don’t see anything wrong with the container type that might affect this.

 


Hi @controlav 

Services were required to rewrite their integrations - I know this because at least one did not have the resources to do so and is now no longer available. Are you sure, therefore, that you are even looking at the right xml file? The new app may be requesting a different xml file - this is speculation on my part and I don’t actually know one way or the other.


Hi @controlav 

Services were required to rewrite their integrations - I know this because at least one did not have the resources to do so and is now no longer available. Are you sure, therefore, that you are even looking at the right xml file? The new app may be requesting a different xml file - this is speculation on my part and I don’t actually know one way or the other.

Oh interesting, I was not aware of that Corry. I knew that the mobile app no longer calls the services directly but uses the Sonos cloud service as a proxy (which is one reason it’s a lot slower), so obviously I can’t see the SMAPI XML on the other side. However I can look at the traffic that the cloud proxy returns to the app, and that is my next step. Sounds like a fun weekend project. Thanks.


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