Sonos S1 has suddenly lost my music "The computer [name] cannot be found" whilst in use
Out of the blue my Sonos S1 controller has lost my music.
Nothing changed, the computer hadn’t been changed in any way, no settings changed, no software installed, I simply chose a different album to play and it’s all gone.
I tried adding the music folders again and still get the “computer cannot be found” error despite it being the computer that’s running the Sonos app!
I’ve had a look on the forum and there’s lots about people making changes then losing their music but I haven’t found one like mine where nothing changed, it was running then it simply lost everything.
I uninstalled and reinstalled the Sonos S1 app, rebooted the router and the Sonos Bridge, checked the firewall settings before I uninstalled it and it set the firewall settings again for the fresh install so I know that’s not the problem.
Windows 10 hasn’t updated, so I can see no reason at all for this to have happened.
I’d appreciate any help I can get with this before I chuck the lot on eBay and get blue tooth speakers instead, thanking my lucky stars I didn’t spend more money on upgrading my Sonos kit!
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Are you running the S1 app on the same PC that contains your music?
If not: if something changed with your WiFi it could be considered “public” by Windows, and it needs to be marked “private” by Windows in order for other devices to see it.
If same PC: we’ll need some more information about your network configuration. What devices, how they are connected, etc. Also what firewall is on the file-hosting PC.
Yes. Sonos S1 is running on the same PC that my music is plugged into.
Absolutely nothing has changed, I just wanted to play a different album and now I can’t play anything other than streaming services which eliminates any WiFi issues.
I submitted a diagnostic report: 1691941597
From other posts on this forum this is far from an isolated incident, loads of people are having the same problem. Nothing changes yet Sonos loses all your music and refuses to recognise the computer it’s actually running on!
Device name DESKTOP-N09MSUH Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4310M CPU @ 2.70GHz 2.70 GHz Installed RAM 16.0 GB System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Edition Windows 10 Pro Version 21H1 Installed on 29/05/2020 OS build 19043.1165 Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3530.0
Network is and always has been set to private.
The firewall wasn’t changed and was correctly set-up again by the Sonos app itself when I reinstalled it.
All the Sonos devices (Play:1, 3, 5 & bridge) were plugged in and connected. Sonos didn’t lose their connections. I’m running the S1 controller because neither the Play:5s nor bridge are compatible with S2.
Nothing changed with the WiFi. I work from home and all my Google Drive and One Drive connections, Teams etc. remain logged in.
@MDN2020,
Perhaps see if these Support links help you to resolve the issue:
“ same PC that my music is plugged into” leads me to think we’re dealing with an NAS of some type, which certainly might have had an OS update to it that turned off SMB v1 and NTML v1.
Where, precisely, is your music stored?
@Ken_Griffiths
Thanks chap but I tried those:
https://support.sonos.com/s/article/813 - I already did that, despite the fact that nothing had changed and nothing had changed, all the settings were exactly as they should have been and still are.
I have no idea what’s going on. If I’d changed something, I could try to reset it or something but I rebooted the PC, reinstalled Sonos S1 and it did exactly the same thing.
It will happily play any of the streams from Amazon Music, Spotify, Mixcloud, Soundcloud, internet radio etc. but it point blank refuses to play my music, most of which is FLAC, far superior sound quality to streaming services, which is why I got Sonos kit in the first place rather than bluetooth.
@Airgetlam
OK. That went way over my head but you clearly know more about the drivers and hardware than I do, so keep asking baffling questions and we might get somewhere
Is that something that could have happened without me doing anything to allow it to happen? If windows updates, it does it in the wee small hours, not the middle of my working day.
My music is on an external SSD - I had a hard disc drive in my old Mac fail on me when I was in the midst of reorganising, so everything but my music was on external drives. After that, I got an external SSD as they’re far more robust and I can take my tunes with me if I’m away - which hasn’t happened since Jan-20, so it’s been plugged into the same USB 3.0 port for 21 months.
All my client files are backed up to Google Drive, One Drive and a MicroSD card, with a 256Gb SSD as the PC memory - after learning a harsh lesson when that HDD failed, everything is solid state.
No worries, I agree if we all keep talking, we’ll get to an understanding.
NAS drives frequently (as do many other electronic devices) update themselves without significant notification to you. I’ve had the case where my Western Digital “MyCloud” device updated itself, and wiped out the settings I’d done in order to have it work with Sonos...and had my TV once do a similar reset, again without my express knowedge/consent.
But if this is merely an SSD, seen as a named drive on your windows machine, and not, say, a “Buffalo/Western Digital/Synology/other manufacturer of NAS equipment”, it’s unlikely to be that issue. Which is unfortunate, as it certainly shows all the hallmarks of that particular issue, and might be an easy fix.
Where your client files exist, if I understand what you mean by “client” doesn’t make any difference. We’re worried only about the Sonos.exe and the location of the music files that the Sonos speakers are trying to get access to. As long as they’re on the SSD, and not in the One drive, we should be able to figure this out.
I feel your pain with HDD failure, too. It’s one of those things I’m fairly, but not enough, careful with. The more SSDs I can have (although they’re also susceptible to failure, just not as much) , the better. There’s a lot of pain when data is lost.
@Airgetlam
I don’t know if this has any bearing on it but I can still play music stored on my phone’s 128Gb MicroSD (Galaxy S7) through the S1 app.
@Airgetlam
I also tried accessing the Music folder on the PC’s internal SSD, as it’s the default option in the Sonos app, but it still returned the same error message that it couldn’t find the PC.
Unfortunately, no, there’s no real relationship. In that particular use case, Sonos is using the Galaxy as an NAS, and accessing the music that way. Just gives us confirmation that the Sonos software is working, but not much as to why the speaker is not able to ‘see’ the music on your SSD. Hopefully, a Sonos rep will be along to look at your diagnostic, and give us more data about exactly why it’s failing. We just need some patience :)
@Airgetlam
By “client files” I’m talking about actual clients - I’m an independent Asset Management consultant (physical assets, not financial assets) - so they’re in the cloud as I cannot have them affected by a PC crash/dying.
@Airgetlam
Thanks for that.
I haven’t had any issues up until now, but this is about as bad an issue as you can get, so haven’t had to seek support before.
I wondered how to get Sonos to take a look. Seems I just have to wait til they pick this up.
Indeed you will, although I’d expect not longer than 24 hours. I think (not 100% sure) that most of the forum moderators are in the EU, so it may be past the end of their day at this point, in which case they’ll catch it in the morning.
I think there’s other moderators that have ability to moderate only, just don’t have access to diagnostics, who work more around the clock, so we’re not inundated by spam posts in the forum. :)
Hi @MDN2020
Welcome to the Sonos Community!
Your Sonos speaker is attempting to resolve the IP address of your computer and is failing to do so.
I recommend you reboot your router, then reboot the computer, then reboot the Sonos system.
Try updating the music library again, and if it doesn’t work then I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team directly, who will assist you.
@Corry P
Thanks for the information. Hopefully that will work.
Any idea why this happened?
I’ll have to try this out later as I can’t reboot my PC in the middle of my working day but my concern is this happened without any changes being made at all, just selecting a different album, so will this now happen every time I select a different album or song? That’s clearly not a desirable outcome.
Hi @MDN2020
At a guess, I would say either the computer isn’t responding to a NetBIOS query, or the router isn’t passing the query along to the computer. Rebooting everything should help.
It has nothing to do with your selection of music (other that it being from the Music Library) - the issue is actually first happening when the Sonos device currently associated with your controller app (Office) attempts to mount the network path to your music folder prior to scanning it. You only see the error when attempting to play from the Music Library, when it tries again to mount the path and fails. This time, however, it reports the issue to you. Once the issue is cleared, if one track plays they all will (assuming the format is supported, of course).
As to why this has happened, it could be a memory leak or similar issue in the router software, Windows software, or our own Linux kernel. It could even be the result of a supernova in a distant part of the universe. No, really:
@Corry P
Awesome response
I’m so glad I asked.
Fingers crossed the series of reboots works and there are no more glitches or significant cosmic events...
@Corry P
Well… I didn’t do all the rebooting as I had a rather busy weekend, so used my Mixcloud/ Soundcloud/ Spotify/ Amazon etc. playlists, until this morning.
As I’d connected and used different speakers over the weekend and rebooted the router - which I’d tried last week to no effect - I thought I’d have one last try at getting it to see my own music library.
It worked. So it stopped for no apparent reason and it’s started working again for no apparent reason.
This does not leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling that it’s going to remain that way, as I have no idea why it stopped working or why it started again, but it’s OK for now and, as a wise man once said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” so I’m going to leave it alone.
Perhaps the volcano erupting in the Canary Isles fixed it vs. a cosmic event?
Hi @MDN2020
Volcanos are known for it
I’m glad to hear you’ve got it working again. At a guess, maybe you didn’t turn off the router for long enough last time? It sounds weird to say so, I know, but the capacitors found in power supplies for electronic equipment can actually hold enough charge to keep some of the internal components powered for many seconds after the mains power is removed.
@Corry P
My PC was in sleep mode over the weekend, not off, so I’m not sure any of it would have fully powered down - I don’t use “restart” for exactly the reason you mentioned, I shutdown, make a coffee, then start-up.
I used my mobile to access the playlists over the weekend.
At least it’s back up and running, for now...
Hi @MDN2020
Ironically, Windows 10 works the other way round - Shutdown actually hibernates the PC after closing applications (saves the memory state and turns off, only to reload the memory state later to improve boot times), whereas Restart will make the PC close down the Windows session and restart the next from scratch. So, on a Windows 10 PC, Shutdown only resets the hardware, whereas Restart resets the Operating System.
Sleep mode does none of this, of course.
@Corry P
It’s done it again. All I did was press play.
Diagnostics are here: 1788140190
There has to be a better solution than me having to reboot everything as this would appear to be an issue that’s going to keep on happening, i.e. Sonos need to come up with a solution.
Hi @MDN2020
Thanks for sharing another diagnostic. In fact, I’m going to share part of this one back to you:
As you can see, the speakers are unable to find DESKTOP-N09MSUH on the network. While I appreciate that this must be annoying for you, the fix is not going to be with us. Which is to say, there is no option or configuration on the Sonos system to make a PC on the network respond when it doesn’t “want” to, or doesn’t broadcast it’s presence the way it should.
One possibility is that the log messages I would normally see reporting a DNS highjack performed by your ISP TalkTalk have been erased to make room for further messaging. If this is the case, just clicking on this link once will fix the issue permanently: http://www.talktalk.co.uk/optout
If this doesn’t help, and if you have a second computer in the house, I recommend testing having the music library stored on that other computer instead. If the issue still arises, then it’s likely something is wrong with your network. A router replacement may be needed, or just some settings adjusted (though I can’t think which settings). Or, it could be third-party software that the two computers share. If the second computer works without issue, then it’s again clear where the issue lies.
@Corry P
As I had washing to hang out (I’m soooo Rock n’ Roll) I thought I’d try turning the router off and back on when I’d finished… normal service has been resumed.
I’ve also followed the link and opted out of the TalkTalk error replacement service, so we’ll see how it goes.
I’m still baffled as to why this has happened. I’ve had the same set-up for several years having bought the PC in 2018 and already had. TalkTalk although the current router was part of an upgrade in 2019 but that’s still over 2 years ago. The Play:5s are more recent, Dec-19, but still a long time ago.
I did take the precaution of creating a new Windows Recovery drive yesterday, whilst everything was working, so I can revert back to whatever the settings were that worked.
Note that manufacturers of routers (and frankly, many other devices) tend to update the software without notifying you. So while you may have owned that router for years, the chances that it has been running the same software all the time is slim, albeit not zero. It’s entirely possible that they pushed an update that ‘broke’ the way the Sonos was using for connection. Something I’ve dealt with on my Netgear router, my Vizio TV, and my WD MyCloud NAS at various times….
