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the Music Library “fix”


I, like every other Sonos user, lost access to my beloved local music library curated from my personal “hard copy” musical collection and playlists when the new app was released.  However, I was a lot better of that most because I had an old iPad with the “old” S2 app which was still able to play from my library.  Every time it offered to update I refused point blank for that very reason.

Today however it appears that a device update has rendered the old app useless because it is now no longer able to control my Sonos speakers.  I consider this an almost underhand and sneaky way to “force” me to use an app which no longer serves the purpose I originally intended it for and renders my expensive speakers a lot less attractive than they were.

A fix for this was hinted at being available “mid June” but still no sign.

 

PLEASE, PLEASE, when will this be fixed?  And if the answer really is never, please come clean so I can attempt to offload my speakers on to someone who doesn’t need it want the facility I bought them for in the first place!

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https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/add-your-music-library-to-sonos

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This workaround (which I’ve been using successfully since the app update a few months ago) stopped working today. Seems to correlate to some new update. I keep my music in the local SSD of a Mac Mini, and run the app there. The Music folder is shared and i added that as the library using the workaround of pretending it’s a network drive. I Googled the issue and tried all the suggestions I could find - remove and re-add the share, remove and re-add the library, update the Mac app, nothing works. It shows the library and the playlists in the Mac app, but when you select a playlist it says “unable to browse music,” after spinning the wheel for a while. Help! 

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Thanks @jgatie. I’m aware that the library can be managed through Windows or MacOS, but my issue is I cannot access it from a mobile device ( iPad or phone). When I’m out on my decking with a Roam or Move, it’s a tad unwieldy to go back inside to fire up a computer just to select or change the music.

if I could index etc in Windows and select it from my phone it would be a start , but all I get is a brief message to the effect that “ Something went wrong”!   We really need a full fix.

This does not work!! The “Manage” option in the Windows App/Web version is not existing anywhere since the update and as many other stated, the iOS app does not allow this either. Even if you have a NAS with SMB 2 or 3 you won’t be able to access your library as Sonos does not let you “manage” it.

Updates expected “June” are lies, the website Q&A and help function still cover the old apps. So are useless.

You wonder what they are working on or if they purposely wanted to “pxxx” off their long term customer base. At this point I am seriously debating to get rid of my whole system (5 Play 3’s, 2 Sonos Roam 2, 1 Move) and never buy from Sonos again as they basically “bricked”/defeatured my products that I paid for.

Updates expected “June” are lies, the website Q&A and help function still cover the old apps. So are useless.

Sonos announced the slippage for searching/indexing/adding libraries - see this link for up-to-date information on the Sonos App feature updates:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/the-new-sonos-app-and-future-feature-updates

 

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@JAB73 - thanks for pointing me to this, I had missed it.   I sincerely hope they mean this July as following the “surreptitious“ update of the software on my speakers the only (mobile) access to my music has been removed despite me not updating the app that previously allowed it😕

@JAB73 - thanks for pointing me to this, I had missed it.   I sincerely hope they mean this July as following the “surreptitious“ update of the software on my speakers the only (mobile) access to my music has been removed despite me not updating the app that previously allowed it😕

Rumours are the update might be next week, but like everything, we shall have to wait and see what happens.

@JAB73 - thanks for pointing me to this, I had missed it.   I sincerely hope they mean this July as following the “surreptitious“ update of the software on my speakers the only (mobile) access to my music has been removed despite me not updating the app that previously allowed it😕

 

I’m perhaps fortunate as the new Sonos App is working well for me and my own setup. In some cases meanwhile, there’s still the ability to use Alexa/SVC/Other voice control, AirPlay, Bluetooth, line-in, Direct Control (Spotify/Amazon) etc. or other Apps like Soro, HiFi-Cast, SonoPad, MusicStreamer, Plex/PlexAmp or Emby, BubbleUPnP and ‘Roon’ to play to the Sonos speakers anyway - so some are perhaps not confined to using just the Sonos App, which is not an audio player anyway, it’s just a ‘remote’  … I’m not complaining at all myself, as there’s always been so much choice and the Sonos speakers have always sounded great to me anyway.

If the new App isn’t working with a Sonos setup, then (if practicable) it maybe best to reproduce the issue(s) seen and immediately submit a Sonos system diagnostic report from within the Sonos App, note it’s reference and then contact/chat with Sonos Support Staff via this LINK and see what the Staff can perhaps suggest to resolve the matter.

Well. Something got updated. I see the „Manage“ now, but of course… nothing else works ie 

app shows all my „services“ but selecting anything (Pandora, TuneIn, Sonos Radio, etc) and then hit the Play arrow and NOTHING plays. Literally nothing. A dead app!!! Hitting physical play button one gets the usual orange (‚shoulder shrug, I don’t know why I can play things“) lights. 
I rebooted the router, I unplugged and replugged in the individual speakers,… bricks. From bad to worse. Thank you for nothing Sonos team!

Well. Something got updated. I see the „Manage“ now, but of course… nothing else works ie 

app shows all my „services“ but selecting anything (Pandora, TuneIn, Sonos Radio, etc) and then hit the Play arrow and NOTHING plays. Literally nothing. A dead app!!! Hitting physical play button one gets the usual orange (‚shoulder shrug, I don’t know why I can play things“) lights. 
I rebooted the router, I unplugged and replugged in the individual speakers,… bricks. From bad to worse. Thank you for nothing Sonos team!

Maybe give Sonos Support a call - here’s the link to get in touch. Just to also add, the App seems to be okay here, so maybe there’s something about your network setup it doesn’t like. Incompatibilities can sometimes happen with any software, I guess.

https://support.sonos.com/s/contact

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I have been aware of this problem for a while, it shocking that they haven’t fixed it yet.

I have been able to use the old app on my PC to get around the problem, so far OK.

I have had to rebuild my PC and have installed the old app again. For some reason when I scan my Music Library it installs it OK but now I have an individual ‘ALBUM’ entries for each track.

Have I missed a selection in settings somewhere that I have forgotten about?

On a second subject the old app gives me my album art but the new app doesn’t; is this another problem with the new app or is the a selection in the new app to show this album art?

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Why pulled the working app off???????

Build a new one behind the screens !

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Why pulled the working app off???????

Build a new one behind the screens !

Not sure what you mean? I had to start from scratch with the PC, complete rebuild of windows, so obviously the app went. I have reloaded the OLD app on the PC and it is fine except for the problem I mentioned above “my Music Library it installs it OK but now I have an individual ‘ALBUM’ entries for each track” The ALBUM selection on the ‘Select a Music Source’

 

You can see that instead of ONE entry for the album it has nine listed, i.e. each song. This is not how it was before I rebuilt the PC and downloaded the old app again.

I’ve got this exact same problem that started either this week or last week. And this is a while after the upgrade to the latest version that killed music library.

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Same problem. After jumping through all the hoops in the Sonos instructions about re-adding the local music library yesterday, I felt a glimmer of hope. Then I saw what's mentioned above; when searching "albums" it shows every track as a single album.  Maddening.

And when I click on some albums, instead of opening the tracks, I get a" No selections are available" message.

And no imported playlists ! None! That was a feature I used all the time In THE GOOD OLD DAYS WHEN SONOS USED TO WORK. What gives? I hardly know what to think about what Sonos game plan might be, but I am not having charitable thoughts at present.

 

 

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I’ve re-added my Sonos library to the (Android in my case) app following the update on July 22.  In fact I’ve re-added it several times.  “Music Library” shows occasionally in my Sources, but when I go into it and click any option, e.g. Artists, Albums, Folders, etc. it only ever shows “Something went wrong”.  This is just poor.

I’m livid that my Sonos systems are still unable to access and use the same music it did on the old controller app from my Mac. This is utterly ridiculous that still in late July their “fix” doesn’t. I’ve made whole folders shared, I’ve “Managed” in the Sonos app with the latest update and my reward is still the same garbage: Unable to add the shared folder to your Music Library (913). Funny! The old app that I can’t use anymore still could and my Music app has no trouble either, but I’m still cut off from my library of thousands of songs on my Sonos speakers for MONTHS. Call for service support and have a 40 minute wait that I don’t have time for. Utterly botched rollout, Sonos. Utterly botched patch or fix too months later!

 

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Hi @kcjohn00 and @marner, you may have tried all these steps tho’ perhaps not. If you are curious, here is an explanation of what happened to local libraries over the past three months …

… and here is a tutorial of how to add your local library using the Windows desktop client …

 

Fingers crossed the above helps!

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Latest update (80.0.06-release+2-240717) for Android seems to have removed the ability to see/manage/use the Music library at all.  I see no reference to it in any menu, folder, etc.  I was able to basically use it after the disaster of version 80 coming out but this supposive fix in this release:

Added setup, configuration, and search for local Music Library

instead made it worse.

I am giving Sonos until the end of August and then am selling all of my stuff if this is not fixed by then.  It’s essentially useless to me now.

 

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Latest update (80.0.06-release+2-240717) for Android seems to have removed the ability to see/manage/use the Music library at all.  I see no reference to it in any menu, folder, etc.  I was able to basically use it after the disaster of version 80 coming out but this supposed fix in this release:

Hi @mfs2112, double-check that you are signed into the mobile app. Somewhat counter-intuitively, that is required to setup (and use!) your local library.

You should find local library setup as follows …

  • From the mobile app home screen, tap the [gear icon]
  • Next to “Your System” tap Manage
  • Under “Manage” tap Music Library

… there you’ll see any folders already shared and you can Add Shared Folder.

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Why pulled the working app off???????

Build a new one behind the screens !

Not sure what you mean? I had to start from scratch with the PC, complete rebuild of windows, so obviously the app went. I have reloaded the OLD app on the PC and it is fine except for the problem I mentioned above “my Music Library it installs it OK but now I have an individual ‘ALBUM’ entries for each track” The ALBUM selection on the ‘Select a Music Source’

 

You can see that instead of ONE entry for the album it has nine listed, i.e. each song. This is not how it was before I rebuilt the PC and downloaded the old app again.

I’m seeing this too. It’s caused by “Artist” metadata. You’ll see a duplicate entry for each *unique* “Artist” in the album.

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Latest update (80.0.06-release+2-240717) for Android seems to have removed the ability to see/manage/use the Music library at all.  I see no reference to it in any menu, folder, etc.  I was able to basically use it after the disaster of version 80 coming out but this supposed fix in this release:

Hi @mfs2112, double-check that you are signed into the mobile app. Somewhat counter-intuitively, that is required to setup (and use!) your local library.

You should find local library setup as follows …

  • From the mobile app home screen, tap the [gear icon]
  • Next to “Your System” tap Manage
  • Under “Manage” tap Music Library

… there you’ll see any folders already shared and you can Add Shared Folder.

 

I was logged in.  Apparently it took about 15 minutes for the ‘Music Library’ option to show up. 

So I got the share re-connect and it it seems to be working.  It’s going to be a long couple of months if each update is going to cause us to re-do something.  They should have thrown version 80 and the trash until it was ready for general usage.  Now we have to wait months to get functionality we had for years back. :(

 

 

Hi @kcjohn00 and @marner, you may have tried all these steps tho’ perhaps not. If you are curious, here is an explanation of what happened to local libraries over the past three months …

… and here is a tutorial of how to add your local library using the Windows desktop client …

 

Fingers crossed the above helps!

Thank you for sharing. I’m on Mac OS so the Windows NAS drive isn’t usable for me, but the first link just is explaining that we’re more advanced and can’t just use the Music Folder button because of them stopping support for http: music links? I’m unclear here what my fix is, or if you’re sharing that with a “913” they’re saying my remote speaker won’t pull music from my desktop Mac any longer by design choice? Hope that’s not the correct read!

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Thank you for sharing. I’m on Mac OS so the Windows NAS drive isn’t usable for me, but the first link just is explaining that we’re more advanced and can’t just use the Music Folder button because of them stopping support for http: music links? I’m unclear here what my fix is, or if you’re sharing that with a “913” they’re saying my remote speaker won’t pull music from my desktop Mac any longer by design choice? Hope that’s not the correct read!

Hi @kcjohn00, the key takeaway is the old (pre-April 2024) mechanisms that permitted click-click-super-easy access to your local library music are no longer supported. The only supported mechanism is to use the native file sharing built into MacOS to share a directory over your network (at which point that shared directory looks the same as if it were on a NAS) and then add that Music Folder in Sonos.

Here is a Sonos article that outlines the process on a Mac …

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/share-your-macos-music-folder-with-sonos

So it is a bit more work than it was a few months ago, but plenty of users are successful in accessing their local library music from a Mac.

Why pulled the working app off???????

Build a new one behind the screens !

Not sure what you mean? I had to start from scratch with the PC, complete rebuild of windows, so obviously the app went. I have reloaded the OLD app on the PC and it is fine except for the problem I mentioned above “my Music Library it installs it OK but now I have an individual ‘ALBUM’ entries for each track” The ALBUM selection on the ‘Select a Music Source’

 

You can see that instead of ONE entry for the album it has nine listed, i.e. each song. This is not how it was before I rebuilt the PC and downloaded the old app again.

I’m seeing this too. It’s caused by “Artist” metadata. You’ll see a duplicate entry for each *unique* “Artist” in the album.

In the Albums view if Artist and Album Artist are different, then there is an entry for each unique pair. If Artist and Album Artist are the same, then there is only one entry in the Album list..

I will not edit my metadata, I’ll wait until the library processing is better polished.

 

 

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