Well, I did a 30-minute web chat, and was told to call the tech support phone number.  I waited on hold for 45 minutes, and was told this is a known issue and Sonos is working with Apple on a fix.  No ETA.  Frustrating, but at least it seems like it’s documented as a known issue.

I’m experiencing the same issue. Come on, Sonos…this has been going on for too long

15.5 is out.  Doesn’t address the Apple Music “improperly encoded” issue.  Crap. 

Confirming.  First thing I tried out, and nope, issue still exists.

If you use the “My Music” to shuffle your music it seems to work, but that doesn’t solve the playlist issue. 

This is unacceptable. Sonos clearly claims to support Apple Music and I have a huge investment in both Apple Music and Sonos. This became a problem recently. MOST or nearly most of my music library now gives this error.  

I have the same issue. I am using a workaround from above to use airplay. 

I updated to version 15.5 a day ago (06-22-2023) and I am am the same issues with encoded issues. Hopefully this is corrected soon. Wondering if there is a way to down grade to previous versions to avoid the error's message?

yawn this is getting really embarrassing - please sonos get this issue sorted been months and months now

I am having the same issue. Random songs or batches of songs here and there in my VERY extensive Apple Music library. I cannot go through the entire library and delete and reload these songs. It’s simply too much work.

Has Sonos said anything about this yet, it is a big issue?

Just adding in- I have been experiencing this issue for a very long time. Appears to happen with “Matched” songs (I originally manually added to iTunes as MP3s).

I have a very large Apple Music Library I’ve been building over 20 years so this is crippling my Sonos experience- super disappointing. 

Sonos version 15.5

Staff have mentioned this earlier in this thread… see below link:

I would perhaps submit a diagnostic report when you experience the issue and note its reference number and then get in touch with Sonos Support. 

I use an Apple Music subscription with Sonos too and have s local library of 25k tracks (mostly AAC 320 encoded, with DRM removed) and am not currently seeing this issue, so it’s probably best that you contact Support as suggested.

What happens if you ‘delete’ the local copy of the ‘matched’ song, and then download a fresh copy from Apple? Just as a test….I’m curious, not making a guarantee .

It works except I have thousands of songs and you don’t know which ones have the problem because they give you a quick warning then skip. If you delete and add again it fixes it. 
hiw can you tell which ones are not coded correctly?

Just select them all and remove them and download the copies from the cloud overnight in the iTunes App… I did it with 25,000+ tracks, albeit that was some years ago with an iTunes Match annual subscription back then …and it took me a couple of days (mostly waiting for it to complete)… but it literally takes minutes to sort within iTunes.

Indeed…it’s an Apple problem, dating back to when they ‘matched’ your own files and downloaded a DRM version. Must be 5 or 6 years ago (maybe more?) when I essentially had to delete my entire ‘matched’ library, and force Apple to download ‘fresh, DRM free’ copies….of music I had ripped myself from various CDs. I remember being somewhat annoyed that Apple thought a DRM version replacing my locally ripped version was preferable. 

Can’t  really point the finger at Sonos on this one, unfortunately. Apple doesn’t share their DRM key used by Apple Music with a ‘third party vendor’ such as Sonos. It’s tedious, but @Ken_Griffiths has the right way to do it, annoying/frustrating as it is.

It is totally a Sonos S2 app issue. I bought Sonos because of it’s integration with Apple Music and my library of 16,000+ songs.  This needs to be addressed and fixed asap.
 I can play the “wrongly coded” songs air playing to the Sonos system speakers from Apple Music.  I can play them on Apple Music directly on my computer, iPad and phone. In my case, I first noticed this issue on a purchased album in my library from iTunes called B.J. Thomas the Living room sessions.  I purchased it maybe 5 years ago and It is no longer available thru Apple Music, so I don’t have the luxury of deleting it and re-downloading it again.  It is stored in iCloud.  It played fine on the S2 app previously, so somewhere along the line, one of the Sonos updates has screwed this up, or failed to address something that recently changed with Apple Music.  Apple Music still plays those songs thru my Apple Music app, and airplays them to Sonos speakers without an issue, but I want to use the Sonos S2 app as I did before.  
I wonder if there is a way to go back as many Sonos updates as possible to see if any of these wrongly encoded songs will play again.  

@Flashback,

I don’t believe this is anything recent as this Sonos support document below has been around for some time and mentions the issue with Apple and DRM …

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/missing-tracks-or-albums-in-sonos-music-library

…and I think it’s that old now, that the Apple link mentioned is no longer valid, but once-upon-a-time it pointed users to an Apple support document for using an iTunes Match subscription to remove the DRM from tracks.

The title of this thread is “Unable to play song, the song is not encoded correctly since update 15.2”.  That is when I believe my issue popped up.  Some posters in this thread lumped in with an older DRM issue, which possibly also gave a “song doesn’t play because it is wrongly encoded” message, but this is a new issue.  The S2 app played all these now “wrongly encoded songs” perfectly from when I bought the system 2 years ago until fairly recently.  

Numerous random song in my apple library that I either bought from apple or transferred to my library from owned CD’s wont play on my Sonos Ones, Roam or Fives using the S2 app. However, every single one of these songs will play from the Sonos S2 app to my Sonos Play 1’s and Sonos Play 3. Sonos, go figure! 

Here is my experience. I am on 15.5 and just experienced (or at least noticed) this issue. Got the improperly encoded issue today for the first time with songs in Apple Music. I even got the error with the songs when playing directly (not through a playlist). For example, any song on Adele’s 21 album gave the error. We normally use my wife’s Apple account to use her playlists, but I tried switching to my Apple account and the songs from 21 played fine. Then I switched back to my wife’s Apple account and the songs work. Not sure if that’s a solution for others but thought I’d share in case it helps someone else. 

I’m having the same error.   Songs aren’t encoded correctly.   Just started happening and it is very frustrating.   Apple Music/iTunes March user and it seems like some but not all of my iTunes Match songs are no longer working.   Can’t make sense as to why some play and other don’t.   There are some albums where certain songs play and others don’t and they all have the same properties.   This is very strange.   Sonos please get to the bottom of this!

This is now occurring for me with SiriusXM streams

Same problem here. Half my playlist tracks won’t play due to this error. If I add an old non-airplay device into the group it works fine. Needs a fix asap.