I can’t say exactly when this started, but recently, I’ve noticed that the Sonos App no longer shows album cover art when listening to Sirius XM channels. When listening to Classic Vinyl, for example, the app shows a graphic for the channel, but it’s static and doesn’t change with the song. Artist and song name change as expected.
The SiriusXM app, on the other hand does display the album art.
Anyone else seeing this?
Yes, same thing as well. I’m assuming this happened when Sirius updated their app a while back. I haven’t been able to find a solution.
Might be worth contacting SiriusXM, so they are aware, and can fix their servers.
I’m not getting the live channel information when growing the All Live channels menu. Just shows the channel, but not the artist or song info. WTF?
Have you contacted SiriusXM?
Yes, same here. At the same time as I lost artwork, I also lost the ability to browse channels by category (rock, pop, classical, etc.). Now I can only look at a list of channels in number order. ☹️
I have had the same problem for over two months. Do not believe this is a Sirius problem, because if you select a Sirius Channel that is music only, no DJ, the album art is displayed (Deep Tracks, Real Jazz, Watercolors). Would appreciate the Sonos team addressing this problem.
Curious as to your logic about this being an issue with Sonos. How do they address this?
I am suspicious that SiriusXM made some underlying changes to their API that have affected Sonos. The good news is that the ability to browse channels by genre is back, in fact there are a lot more capabilities in that regard now than there were before. I think Sonos still has to do some work in the app to receive and display album artwork on a consistent basis. I don’t have enough information to explain why it works sometimes but not all the time.
I tried playing the same channel first in the SiriusXM app, then on the Sonos app, and they weren’t displaying the same thing:
Sonos has a single API called SMAPI (Sonos Music Application Programming Interface) that all streamers use, including SiriusXM. Sonos doesn’t make or maintain individual use cases for each streaming company.
Sonos displays whatever information is sent to them by the SiriusXM servers.
I am suspicious that SiriusXM made some underlying changes to their API that have affected Sonos. The good news is that the ability to browse channels by genre is back, in fact there are a lot more capabilities in that regard now than there were before. I think Sonos still has to do some work in the app to receive and display album artwork on a consistent basis. I don’t have enough information to explain why it works sometimes but not all the time.
I tried playing the same channel first in the SiriusXM app, then on the Sonos app, and they weren’t displaying the same thing:
Sonos doesn’t use the SiriusXM API. It’s SiriusXM who used the Sonos API, and it is SiriusXM who determines what is displayed via that API. See the following:
My guess is that SiriusXM within their own apps and devices has added capability to send and display two image files: album art and station art. The station art is simultaneously displayed, but in a much smaller form.
The Sonos API seems to lack this capability so we sometimes see album art, but usually just station art. So solution could be on SiriusXM side (consistently send album art) or Sonos side (update API to work as the SiriusXM app does).
As an end user the blame game isn’t helpful to me. It would be nice if the appropriate technical folks on both sides could meet and resolve.
I agree with your assessment, although it would strike me as odd to get Sonos engineering involved. SiriusXM has the docs, should know what the API requires, and needs to make the changes on their side to send the appropriate data. Sonos engineers certainly wouldn’t have access to SiriusXM servers to assist.
But the real question is, does SiriusXM know about this issue? They certainly don’t maintain any official presence here in this forum to see what’s being complained about. I have no idea if they have any unofficial presence here.
Yes, I've experienced the same issue too.
As an end user the blame game isn’t helpful to me. It would be nice if the appropriate technical folks on both sides could meet and resolve.
Well, this is a community forum, so users are naturally going to tell you the best way to get the issue resolved, which is talking to Sirius XM in the case. It’s not about blame,
Users generally don’t know what sort of communication takes place between Sonos and music service providers. It may be that Sonos has communicated this to Sirius XM, and Sirius is addressing the issue, perhaps further down the list. Or it could be that Sirius doesn’t see it as an issue and believes it’s working as designed. We just don’t know. The Sonos moderators/support folks are not going to share info on those sort of communications.
It’s understandable that Sonos doesn’t want to communicate on Sirius XM’s behalf or perhaps appear to be throwing a partner ‘under the bus’ for situations like this, so they remain quiet.
But the real question is, does SiriusXM know about this issue? They certainly don’t maintain any official presence here in this forum to see what’s being complained about. I have no idea if they have any unofficial presence here.
I would guess that Sonos has a channel of communication with SiriusXM, but that likely doesn’t carry as much weight, in terms of priority, as hearing complaints directly customers. After all, if Sonos is taking all the blame for the issue, SiriusXM isn’t going to lose customers over it.
I reported the issue to SiriusXM about a week ago. Never received a reply or inquiry.
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