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Sonos and Mac OS 10.15 Catalina


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Tried using Sonos with Golden Master of Catalina and its a no go. When I add my music library on an external drive it does so normally but NO songs in the folder are recognized. Wonder if it has to do with Music being the new app for music instead of iTunes?I was able to see music added if it was on the internal drive of the machine.
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Best answer by Ryan S 17 December 2019, 19:01

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I cannot get ANYTHING to play either from my cell phone app or my desktop. How does one go about fixing THIS problem? Apple Music or Bugs.net... or any music service.
Hi. All music is on my NAS, including the downloads of all music I have from Apple Music. With Catalina I had similar issues to some of the writers here, but succeeded in pointing Music to the right subfolder on my NAS and have all copies of songs moved there. Only one issue left (besides the xlms playlist issue...): sonos does not see or read all the downloaded apple music songs as they are in M4P format which Sonos apparently cannot read... what now? Anyone has the same issue?
thx in advance for any input.
Way back, many years ago (yes, my tongue is slightly in my cheek), Apple included DRM in all their files, which meant that Sonos couldn't read them. at some point (3 or 4 years ago?), Apple stopped doing that, but it didn't automatically change the files if you'd already downloaded them. I had a certain number of them in my library.

What you probably need to do is delete your local files, and then download fresh copies from Apple. The fresh copies will not have DRM in them (unless the artist has demanded it, there are still some that I think have DRM associated with them, but not many).

Try that, and see if it works.
Just upgraded to Catalina; such a mistake. I find that if I move an album to my iMac's root drive (where System lives), Sonos is able to find it. Unfortunately my Music library is on a different HD drive connected to the iMac. Apple's Music app (formerly iTunes) has no trouble finding the music but despite futzing with permissions for the directories and drive and recommended changes to Security settings, I have not found the trick that would enable the Sonos App to recognize my album/song files.
Way back, many years ago (yes, my tongue is slightly in my cheek), Apple included DRM in all their files, which meant that Sonos couldn't read them. at some point (3 or 4 years ago?), Apple stopped doing that, but it didn't automatically change the files if you'd already downloaded them. I had a certain number of them in my library.

What you probably need to do is delete your local files, and then download fresh copies from Apple. The fresh copies will not have DRM in them (unless the artist has demanded it, there are still some that I think have DRM associated with them, but not many).

Try that, and see if it works.


Thanks Bruce! All songs bought on iTunes are not an issue, however I subscribed to Apple Music a couple of months ago, and all songs I have downloaded from there are M4P and protected. So the copies are fresh but not readable by Sonos if I want to play them from my NAS...
If they’re Apple Music songs, can’t you just add Apple Music to Sonos, and have Sonos reach out to Apple’s servers to play the files, rather than trying to play the local files?

I think the issue is that you haven’t “purchased” those songs, but instead have access as long as your subscription exists. When you play via iTunes (or Music), the app goes out and checks your subscription status from Apple, and allows playback. I think if you add your credentials to the Sonos app, it will be able to check the subscription status, and allow you to play that music from the cloud, at the least. I’m honestly not sure how that would work for downloaded files.
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This was helpful. Granting full disk access to SonosLibraryServer and to Sonos.app restored the visibility of my music library within Sonos.

Now we’ll wait and see if Sonos comes up with a solution for imported playlists.

Thanks.

If they’re Apple Music songs, can’t you just add Apple Music to Sonos, and have Sonos reach out to Apple’s servers to play the files, rather than trying to play the local files?

I think the issue is that you haven’t “purchased” those songs, but instead have access as long as your subscription exists. When you play via iTunes (or Music), the app goes out and checks your subscription status from Apple, and allows playback. I think if you add your credentials to the Sonos app, it will be able to check the subscription status, and allow you to play that music from the cloud, at the least. I’m honestly not sure how that would work for downloaded files.

 

I do indeed have the credential for Apple Music in my Sonos.

Well, yes to what you say with the following limitations:

  • Sonos times out and gives a 1002 error when I want to shuffle all my music via Apple Music… Just because I have many songs… whereas when they are on my NAS library Sonos can shuffle the full library.
  • Apple Music on Sonos therefore has to be played through playlists of approx less than 500 songs. Ah wait (just being a bit sarcastic...), when you make a playlist now in Music, because of the dropped support for XML files you can’t see them in Sonos, so would have to make Sonos playlists just for playing my music on Sonos. When I then take my iPod on holidays to play on our Bose bluetooth speaker, I can’t use Sonos and hence not the playlists I had to create on Sonos. It can of course all be done by duplicating the work in creating playlists both on Sonos and on Apple Music, but I really have better things to do than doing everything twice.
  • By the way, did not have that problem when Sonos supported reading music directly from the iPod. I would download all music automatically to the iPod, and even the protected files from Apple Music would be readable by Sonos. The same files on the NAS or not readable by Sonos…

Sonos does need to do some serious work on these issues. For some obscure reason before Catalina, I had my iTunes library on the NAS, including all downloaded songs from Apple Music, and Sonos could read all the songs from the NAS, including Apple Music downloads...

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This was helpful. Granting full disk access to SonosLibraryServer and to Sonos.app restored the visibility of my music library within Sonos.

Now we’ll wait and see if Sonos comes up with a solution for imported playlists.

Thanks.

After granting access I had full access to my music library and my imported playlists. If your xml file isn't there perhaps you can recover it from a pre Catalibackup?

Just a quick note as I previous complained about being unable to use my Sonos Play:1 with my on-disk albums under Catalina (iMac 2017). Turns out that this is a problem specific to the external HD I was using. I moved the same Music library to another HD (both SSD by the way) and the Sonos app found all my albums. Music again sounds great.

(previous gripe below)

Just upgraded to Catalina; such a mistake. I find that if I move an album to my iMac's root drive (where System lives), Sonos is able to find it. Unfortunately my Music library is on a different HD drive connected to the iMac. Apple's Music app (formerly iTunes) has no trouble finding the music but despite futzing with permissions for the directories and drive and recommended changes to Security settings, I have not found the trick that would enable the Sonos App to recognize my album/song files.


  • Sonos times out and gives a 1002 error when I want to shuffle all my music via Apple Music… Just because I have many songs… whereas when they are on my NAS library Sonos can shuffle the full library.
  • Apple Music on Sonos therefore has to be played through playlists of approx less than 500 songs. Ah wait (just being a bit sarcastic...), when you make a playlist now in Music, because of the dropped support for XML files you can’t see them in Sonos, so would have to make Sonos playlists just for playing my music on Sonos. When I then take my iPod on holidays to play on our Bose bluetooth speaker, I can’t use Sonos and hence not the playlists I had to create on Sonos. It can of course all be done by duplicating the work in creating playlists both on Sonos and on Apple Music, but I really have better things to do than doing everything twice.
  • By the way, did not have that problem when Sonos supported reading music directly from the iPod. I would download all music automatically to the iPod, and even the protected files from Apple Music would be readable by Sonos. The same files on the NAS or not readable by Sonos…

Sonos does need to do some serious work on these issues. For some obscure reason before Catalina, I had my iTunes library on the NAS, including all downloaded songs from Apple Music, and Sonos could read all the songs from the NAS, including Apple Music downloads...

 

A 1002 error is an odd error in this circumstance. Based on the data in the error codes FAQ, that indicates a failure of a device to update properly, and you’re just playing music, not updating the software.

As to your anger about the other issues, I don’t think there’s anything I can do to assist. What I would certainly recommend is that you should contact Sonos Support directly to discuss it. I’m not sure there’s a whole lot that can be done by this community.

I suggest the phone folks, they have more tools available because they're on the phone with you, but they are only available Monday through Friday during business hours. Both the Twitter and Facebook support folks are available 24/7.

I wish you the best of luck.


  • Sonos times out and gives a 1002 error when I want to shuffle all my music via Apple Music… Just because I have many songs… whereas when they are on my NAS library Sonos can shuffle the full library.
  • Apple Music on Sonos therefore has to be played through playlists of approx less than 500 songs. Ah wait (just being a bit sarcastic...), when you make a playlist now in Music, because of the dropped support for XML files you can’t see them in Sonos, so would have to make Sonos playlists just for playing my music on Sonos. When I then take my iPod on holidays to play on our Bose bluetooth speaker, I can’t use Sonos and hence not the playlists I had to create on Sonos. It can of course all be done by duplicating the work in creating playlists both on Sonos and on Apple Music, but I really have better things to do than doing everything twice.
  • By the way, did not have that problem when Sonos supported reading music directly from the iPod. I would download all music automatically to the iPod, and even the protected files from Apple Music would be readable by Sonos. The same files on the NAS or not readable by Sonos…

Sonos does need to do some serious work on these issues. For some obscure reason before Catalina, I had my iTunes library on the NAS, including all downloaded songs from Apple Music, and Sonos could read all the songs from the NAS, including Apple Music downloads...

 

A 1002 error is an odd error in this circumstance. Based on the data in the error codes FAQ, that indicates a failure of a device to update properly, and you’re just playing music, not updating the software.

As to your anger about the other issues, I don’t think there’s anything I can do to assist. What I would certainly recommend is that you should contact Sonos Support directly to discuss it. I’m not sure there’s a whole lot that can be done by this community.

I suggest the phone folks, they have more tools available because they're on the phone with you, but they are only available Monday through Friday during business hours. Both the Twitter and Facebook support folks are available 24/7.

I wish you the best of luck.

 

Thanks again Bruce for taking the time to try to help.

The 1002 error is not only for update. A search on this site also gives the following:

“Error 1001 / Error 1002

These error messages occur when Sonos tries to add or connect to your music share, but the computer or NAS drive takes too long to respond. This can happen when the computer or NAS is having trouble maintaining a reliable connection to the network.

The most common causes of these errors are detailed above under “Common Issues and Solutions.” If you see this error, check your computer or NAS and make sure that it’s powered on and awake. If the computer is on WiFi, make sure it has a strong wireless connection to the router.”

Basically taking too long to connect to Apple Music and read the library of songs. There are quite many people having the same issue if you google it.

I’ll now wait for Sonos to update their application in the hope it solves the issues that have appeared with Catalina. If I find the time I will call Sonos to share the issues indeed. If any resolution I’ll post it here.

Thanks.

As someone alluded to early in this thread, there are some subtleties regarding accessing albums/songs through Sonos under Catalina for some systems. Having succeeded in accessing my albums after moving the music to another HD (discussed below), I thought I’d move it back to the HD where I couldn’t access the music. Sure enough, copying to another HD and back again did the trick. Now I can access my music on from the same directory structure under Catalina as I could under the previous version of MacOS.

However that and a file clean-up process caused me to lose all the Metadata associated with Apple’s Music-formerly-iTunes app (which I hope and assume will someday be readable by Sonos again). Drat.

The solution to that I found on MacRumors involves locating the latest iTunes library file (iTunes Library.itl), moving it to the Users/[user/Music] location and renaming it “Music Library”. The suggestion was to remove or hide the Users/[user]/Music/Music directory/directories. Then open the Music App with the Option key pressed. You are asked to identify a library and you select this newly renamed “Music Library” file. That cause the Music app to create a new Music directory (Users/[user]/Music/Music) and place within in it the Music Library file you created under the name Music Library.musiclibrary. Anyway, this worked for me. All metadata (smart folders, etc.) was recovered and works fine under the Music app. And, of course ( ;) ) Sonos still finds the music also.

 

(previous update to my original gripe)

Just a quick note as I previous complained about being unable to use my Sonos Play:1 with my on-disk albums under Catalina (iMac 2017). Turns out that this is a problem specific to the external HD I was using. I moved the same Music library to another HD (both SSD by the way) and the Sonos app found all my albums. Music again sounds great.

 

(previous gripe below)

Just upgraded to Catalina; such a mistake. I find that if I move an album to my iMac's root drive (where System lives), Sonos is able to find it. Unfortunately my Music library is on a different HD drive connected to the iMac. Apple's Music app (formerly iTunes) has no trouble finding the music but despite futzing with permissions for the directories and drive and recommended changes to Security settings, I have not found the trick that would enable the Sonos App to recognize my album/song files.

Since Catalina no longer supports XML files, I noticed that my Sonos Imported Playlists no longer update with any changes in the Music App. I went to Music > File > Library > Export Library to manually export an XML file for my library and replaced the current (and defunct) iTunes Library.xml file with it. Updating my Sonos Music library now reflects the new changes to my (formerly iTunes) Music Library and everything is there.

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Thx kjwan. So you will periodically export a new XML file when your music library changes?

What is the file path where you store the XML file? In the same folder where your music files are located?

Thx.

I actually just did it for the first time just now. I came here initially because I wanted to see why my updates didn’t seem to reflect the changes I made. When I read that the new Apple Music App didn’t support XML files (and thus wasn’t updating the existing iTunes Library.xml file), I tried the File > Library > Export Library option. It worked!

I imagine, until Sonos figures out a seemless fix for Catalina, I will just use this technique to manually update the file so Sonos can sync with it. Yes, I put the updated XML file in the same place (actually, replace the existing) as the original iTunes Library.xml file. Since the new Apple Music App no longer uses needs it, replacing it shouldn’t matter… and it doesn’t.

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I use external drive via Thunderbolt cable - same issue.  SONOS does not find my artists, music.  I subscribe to Apple Music and it finds it.  Did the entire remove SONOS via Ccleaner and reinstalled SONOS.  Added file share disk permission via security - privacy and nothing.  My question is do I need to connect to existing system when setting up SONOS or use phone and set up as new?  Thanks in advance.

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@thecult03, just to confirm, do you have Full Disk Access permissions set for the SonosLibraryServer as well as for the Sonos app in the Privacy tab of the Mac’s Security & Privacy section within System Preferences? 

We’ve seen external drives with this trouble that needed the above setting configured, but after that, they should index fine. Yes, connect to an existing system (a new system would only cause more problems, it wouldn’t fix anything), and you’ll want to add it using the computer.

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The SonosLibraryServer is no longer present.  It was set up but then when I used CCleaner to uninstall SONOS and install I only have Sonos app.

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The SonosLibraryServer is no longer present.  It was set up but then when I used CCleaner to uninstall SONOS and install I only have Sonos app.

It should show up again after you try to set up a music share using the Mac. You might need to just point to a location on the main hard drive with some music instead of the external drive, just to get that SonosLibraryServer to show up. You can remove that share after the external is back up.

So, if you have saved the iTunes folder somewhere before you upgraded to Catalina, then you’re OK. Just copy that iTunes folder to a NAS on the same network. If you don’t have one, buy one if it’s that important to play iTunes playlists on Sonos before they fix this issue. Then all you do is add the location of the iTunes folder within Sonos. 

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You need to inform your online support people that the app does not work with Catalina.  I purchased a Sonos system and they were great about helping me set it up.  Support guy told me about the app for mac and then we hung up.  He said it would work with Catalina?  This thread has been active for two weeks now, when will Sonos fix the issue?

I tried the recommended steps, but they failed:

  1. CCleaner uninstall
  2. Remove Sonos/Library from Full File access.
  3. Reboot
  4. New install of Sonos
  5. Add Library as option 2, external file
  6. Add Sonos/Library to Full File access.
  7. Restart Sonos app, wait a few minutes. 
  8. Nothing under Music Library Artists, Songs, etc.
  9. Removed that library and added option 1, “My Music Library”.
  10. Nothing.

Then I tried the alternative method of exporting Library.xml from “Music” app, and added the destination folder to Sonos. Right away, Sonos started adding files. Not progressing very quickly now, but it’s something.

Hard to believe Sonos, as a major software company, had no early developers access to early OS releases. 

FWIW, I have similar issues but am now able to access all my iTunes based music BUT I have most on an external HD. The Sonos app shows the files under “folders” as it always has but now just says “no selections are available”. No error codes or anything about “unable to access” the drive.

Just thought this might be helpful for SONOS’ troubleshooting and hopefully correcting the issue under Catalina.

Catalina has been a nightmare. My Sonos speakers are now useless [if I want to play my own iTunes songs/albums/music] unless I ‘buy into’ the monthly cost of Apple music. That’s just the tip of the iceberg with Catalina. I have now turned off all ‘auto updates’. My Fujitsu ScanSnap is also useless - I needed to buy a compatible scanner now that Apple upgraded from 32 to 64 bit hardware. Fujitsu was nice enough to offer a $200 off coupon. I sure do hope Sonos finds a workaround so I can play my songs/albums. Beyond frustrating AND costly! I only there was a button to uninstall Catalina!