songs searched on plex are grayed out and cant be selected

I have the same issue, have been trouble shooting it for over a week now, the whole time blaming plex.

Plex media server is working fine, if i manually browse my music via the plex source on the sonos app, i can see my songs ok and play them ok, but when the songs are found via the search function, all ‘songs’ results under Plex are greyed out.

Searching for albums is ok and i can select songs from their albums, it’s just when the same songs are found in the search as ‘songs’.

I also have my music collection connected to my sonos app as my music library and the same songs which plex greys out, show as ok and can play ok.

Also, seaching for songs often created an error under Plex and the sonos app shows a red warning sign next to plex and a message saying “an error occurred with Plex. Try again later.

I have a static IP address and plex reports as access as “Fully accessible outside your network”, so no issues on the Plex side and all songs can be searched and played just find via the PlexAmp app on the same phone.

I have the same issue, please notify when resolved

Same issue here.

I’m having the same issue as well. 
 

Plex search and play works with SonoPhone FYI if you own the app. Probably also the desktop app (I haven’t tried it yet)
 

Please prioritize this issue. Since the "upgrade" last May, I have not been able to use Subsonic integration any more, so I switched to Plex. Now Plex is broken. This is the only way left to access self hosted files other than actually sharing the folder which I don't think is working that great either.

It's getting very hard to keep convincing myself to stay with this ecosystem.

Any updates?

Can you let your customer support team know about this? I recently contacted them because I was having this problem, and they clearly are not aware that it’s a known issue. It would have saved a lot of my time and theirs troubleshooting my network, plex, app settings, etc.

Hi ​@Sotiris C. ! I just got off a chat with support about this, and they told me they could find no issue currently being tracked, even though I referred them to this thread. This is troubling!
 

Also, during my conversation with the support rep, we tried reproducing this on another device of mine, an iPad. Since i don’t use that very often, it happened to have an older version of the app. It worked fine on the older version, and after I updated to the current release, it was broken just like my phone. Clearly, there has been a regression in a recent release of the app.

Please do whatever you can to ensure this issue is being tracked and prioritized. This makes me basically unable to use Sonos to access my local music library. 

**UPDATE ** 03/02/25 - I’ve managed to get this escalated to Level 2 Engineers within Sonos, this is what’s happened.

Just spent 1.5 hours on the phone to sonos support regarding this issue. The guy went through every troubleshooting idea possible. Changing network settings, restarting all devices etc. Double checking everything in Plex is setup correctly.

We tried the Sonos PC Software, I searched for ‘BAD’ by MJ, the software found it instantly and is super fast and played the song instantly. Tech support said this software is still running the backend software which the old sonos app ran on, hence why its so good.

Same test was done on the sonos web player. Searched for the same MJ track, search was very slow to be found across all music services. After clicking on the track found in plex, it would take over 1 minute to play, very slow and buggy. The web player uses the new backend which the new app uses, hence why its rubbish.

Same MJ track was searched on my phone, track was not found but it found other songs with the word BAD in and they were all greyed out. Artists and albums with the word BAD which were found in plex can be selected.

Diagnostics of all these tests were sent to Sonos so their level 2 engineers can cross reference the diagnostics reports to see why the app is so crap and broken compared to the old code which the PC software runs on.

A screen recording video of the app showing plex songs all greyed out which i captured was also submitted to their engineers to see.

I also showed him this thread where others have having the same issue, this was added to the report so their engineers know others are suffering.

They’ll contact me in a few days once they analysed everything. I’ll report back their findings/solution…...if there is one!?!

I did mention, I hardly ever use my Sonos system anymore because the app is so broken and i would never recommend them to friends and family due to this crap app. It’s mind boggling that they’re still trying to fix the app instead of scrapping it and sticking with what they know works.

How to get the message to the new CEO to scrap this new app? :)

Wow - this is amazing. You are my hero!! This gives me hope it may work again. I’d love to know how you managed to get through the scripted support rep wall, I was unable to get anything except the promise that they would report the bug.

**UPDATE 06/02/2025** I got a response from their engineers, very disappointing!!

They basically said “we’ve studied your concern and to fix it, check your plex is able to be connected from outside your network and check network connections” despite me telling them this was OK and i pay for a static IP address to ensure Plex is always accessible and i spent 2 hours on the phone to Sonos support who tested my network, changed my DNS, rest my devices, took loads of diag logs etc... 

I did send a sarcastic reply and now have a telephone called with the engineer on Monday morning.

He absolutely DID NOT study my complaint as it was very in-depth and no sane person would send a reply like that if he had read it.

If he did read my case and that was he genuine answer then we are in trouble if that’s a level 2 engineer at Sonos. He basically said “turn it off and back on again”.

Oh ffs. 

Everyone reading this who has this issue, please reply stating if they're using Android or iOS and which country they're located in please.

Android, USA
I’ve also tried on an iPad (ios), same issue

Also note that when I tested the iPad, it had an older version of the sonos app (not from before “the upgrade” from last May, but before January 2025). It worked on that version. After I updated it to current release, it no longer worked.

Android, England. Girlfriend uses iPhone 15 Pro and has the same issue.

Yes, that explains why the Sonos software for windows PC works 100% perfectly and is a million times faster than the android/iOS app because it's code is the same as the old app.

Sonos web player is buggy and broken because that uses the new code the new app uses.

The old code/app really was perfect.

It is so clear this is a regression in the app. It worked before an update, then it didn’t. It happens to everyone.

I don’t understand why it’s like pulling teeth to even get them to acknowledge a UX bug instead of making us all dance like idiots with reinstalling everything each time we try to get support. This will probably take someone 10 minutes to fix once someone in engineering actually knows/acknowledges there’s an issue.

100%! The CEO lost his job because of this app, the share price plummeted because of the broken app.

When the customers have done the investigative work for them and found another bug in the broken app, they treat you like tech novices and blames something else other than the broken app.

They said they're doing everything to get the new app to the same level as the old app but when you try and help them they act ignorant and drag their heels.

I will never recommend this companies products to anyone!

Ok, I started trying old versions from apkmirror until I found when it broke.

80.12.04 works

80.14.06 broken

Might help them narrow down what changed.

Hey, thank you for this

I've just tried 80.12.04 and although tracks are no longer greyed out, they're unable to play, it just says “Something went wrong!”

Could you try if that version plays the songs which are no longer greyed out please?

I've tried different versions 80.11.33, 80.05.07, 80.01.08, 80.00.03, all behave the same as 80.12.04.

I guess not being greyed out is progress. I'll feedback this information when I speak to them on Monday.

Note, the older versions I tried allow me to select songs via browsing artists and albums, just not directly from track searching, same as the latest version.

Same here. The Netherlands, iPhone 15 Pro.

Also have to go through a couple of "something went wrong”-s too.

Here's a screen recording for reference purposes in case Sonos engineers read this thread.

Screen Recording

NeilMc1983 wrote:

D661 wrote:

Ok, I started trying old versions from apkmirror until I found when it broke.

80.12.04 works

80.14.06 broken

Might help them narrow down what changed.

Hey, thank you for this

 

I've just tried 80.12.04 and although tracks are no longer greyed out, they're unable to play, it just says “Something went wrong!”

 

Could you try if that version plays the songs which are no longer greyed out please?

 

I've tried different versions 80.11.33, 80.05.07, 80.01.08, 80.00.03, all behave the same as 80.12.04.

 

I guess not being greyed out is progress. I'll feedback this information when I speak to them on Monday.

 

Note, the older versions I tried allow me to select songs via browsing artists and albums, just not directly from track searching, same as the latest version.

 

 

I get the “something sent wrong” error too. I assumed it was likely due to the mismatch between app and firmware versions. I didn't try playing songs other than via Plex search.

Does anyone know if the Sonos search function has ever worked with Plex?

I only started using Plex through Sonos the other week so I've never seen it working.

Interesting to know if this is a new issue or has it always been broke?