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Why is the new Sonos App crap?


How does the app keep getting worse and worse over time. It's too bad, I've had some of my Sonos speakers for around 10 years now. Even on a brand new phone the current app is not user friendly, missing functionality that it used to have. And removed the playlists I had. So disappointing given how great the whole experience used to be. The new update is much worse, missing basic functionality now,  So irritated. 

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268 replies

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Went out to my garage on the weekend and listened to my old Play 5 on the old S1 app.

What a pleasure it was - no problems or lag whatsoever and the queue works beautifully.

Sonos as it was intended. Bliss!

 

 

Does this App works with S2. Or is it possible to find a third party App that works ?

Userlevel 7
Badge +15

Went out to my garage on the weekend and listened to my old Play 5 on the old S1 app.

What a pleasure it was - no problems or lag whatsoever and the queue works beautifully.

Sonos as it was intended. Bliss!

 

 

Does this App works with S2. Or is it possible to find a third party App that works ?

Sonophone and Sonopad are the most frequently recommended on here. 

Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Why? Why would you release such a terrible update? I cannot put into words how much this sucks. This is making me regret the thousands of dollars I spent on your products. What the hell were you thinking?

Fix this or just roll back to the old version. Terrible, awful, confusing, discombobulated nightmare.

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Why? Why would you release such a terrible update? I cannot put into words how much this sucks. This is making me regret the thousands of dollars I spent on your products. What the hell were you thinking?

Fix this or just roll back to the old version. Terrible, awful, confusing, discombobulated nightmare.

You`re totally right ! ! …….. I have been using Sonos for approx. 12-14 years now. The controller is now below zero. …….. 👎👎👎…….So sad.

Can't agree more with this thread. New app is completely awful. My sonos system worked pretty well before, now it's just an embarrassment when I have guests. I've been really quick to praise and recommend sonos before but this has completely lost my trust on the whole thing.

Why is the Sonos app so terrible?  I have 15 speakers around our house not used because the app is so horrible and unreliable.   I’ll never buy another speaker from Sonos all because the app is so useless 

Userlevel 7
Badge +15

Why is the Sonos app so terrible?  I have 15 speakers around our house not used because the app is so horrible and unreliable.   I’ll never buy another speaker from Sonos all because the app is so useless 

What’s wrong?

So many people register to moan, and only 10% ask for help with any issues… I’m also looking at you @Grealis.

Why is the Sonos app so terrible?  I have 15 speakers around our house not used because the app is so horrible and unreliable.   I’ll never buy another speaker from Sonos all because the app is so useless 

What’s wrong?

So many people register to moan, and only 10% ask for help with any issues… I’m also looking at you @Grealis.

Turn it up, or down, or on, or off. The f@@### thing doesn't do anything. Two minutes later it'll do something random. I'll moan mate. Because it used to work. Now it doesn't do. I'm an IT guy. This new app update is diatribe.

Why is the Sonos app so terrible?  I have 15 speakers around our house not used because the app is so horrible and unreliable.   I’ll never buy another speaker from Sonos all because the app is so useless 

What’s wrong?

So many people register to moan, and only 10% ask for help with any issues… I’m also looking at you @Grealis.

Im looking at you rhonny for something useful pal

Why is the Sonos app so terrible?  I have 15 speakers around our house not used because the app is so horrible and unreliable.   I’ll never buy another speaker from Sonos all because the app is so useless 

What’s wrong?

So many people register to moan, and only 10% ask for help with any issues… I’m also looking at you @Grealis.

Just managed to turn it off. Took 15mins. Was going outside with baseball bat. It's poor Rhonny, this stuff was great before. Now it is hassle.

Really dont know who is charge of the software team. But heads need to roll... Software is crap unresponsive, slow as hell. Not finding my equipment. How can you deliver this software in production without proper testing... Or is it cost saving on the testing team... and shifted to the end users to have this experience?

The old software was stable(but clunky old feeling) but this masterpiece they have developed may return to hell and stay there.

 

This exactly! It’s as if they are iteratively releasing code to make it worser and worser. It’s mind boggling how they could consistently make things worse with every release. As you said, who’s developing the code and who’s QCing the code, and who the f is releasing the code?! Is there some new workaround they need to deal with and they aren’t telling us about? Like literally every Sonos user, nothing is connecting. It’s a complete dumpster fire. Every speaker is a paper weight at this point, and I don’t print anything! 

My Sonos sub that I bought 4 years ago dies and I was offered a replacement sub for 30% off. I didn’t like the offer and wrote the CEO from the link provided. I told him what I thought. A day later a customer service person called me and agreed that the sub should last longer than 3 years. They gave me a new one.

L story short, my sub is  a year old. My soundbar is 4 years old. My play one surround speakers are about 3. Everything sounds great when it works . When it doesn’t , i have this stupid unresponsive app. I’ve had enough. Make me an offer. I’m going to get a Bose system. I can’t stand Sonos non support. They aren’t there when I need them.  I’m done.

 

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

I am absolutely shocked at how ignorant a company can be to its customers preferences! Ive been Using Sonos for about 10 years and was always the biggest fan, recommending it to friends and family. But for about 2 years now i am experiencing constant problems. Bad functionality of the speakers, with speakers randomly stop playing music but the app shows it is playing. In addition to that the app is really terrible as soon as you start playing via airplay2. The new app … well its not getting better. Here is an Idea Sonos, please keep focus on reliability, functionality and quality. Keep the app as easy and clean, its too much! We need our System, our Playlists and a search. Thats it

Right!

I had enough!! I need to air my ongoing frustration with this company. Sonos is continually sabotaging my enjoyment of music.

I have built a music library on an external hard drive featuring hundreds of CDs.  When searching for any song/artist/albums in windows there never is any issues at all! NEVER!

When looking for the same song/artist/album on Sonos,  in the majority of times there are some kind of problems like:

  • showing no result and song/artist/albums cannot be located.  Even though they exist and play fine on none Sonos speakers.
    •  Even worse. Sometimes the song/artist/albums I am looking for is only showing on my Amazon account but there you cannot skip or FF (only three time allowed!)  I find this infuriating as I have paid about £3000 (for the system and CDs) and instead of playing it, Sonos redirects me to a third party vendor who insist on charging for “bonus features” like plying the title song of an album I searched for. Just a recap: I paid for Sonos, the CDs, the Prime membership and now I should pay for bonus features if wanting to ply the song I like.  And this happens when I am searching for items  specifically in ”MY MUSIC LIBRARY” as I do not like streaming and avoid it if possible
  • The perennial issue of being “ unable to play song ” message showing for no good reason.
  • System updates are forced when wanting to ply music.
  • Often the first song of an album are completely omitted, as if not existing, and does not show if trying to look them up in Sonos. Yet, any other applications have no issues at all locating and plying those.
  • Other times the first track’s title is missing and replaced with “track 1” but the source folder shows everything correctly.
  • Sonos lets me play ONE song from my hard drive via Sonos speakers using the Windows “ply with..” options but multiple selections or folders do not have this option,
  • Have you seen the current options offered in setting?  All sub settings leads to the same dialog window with the same option. Pointless!

I did try their support on many occasions over the past 10+ years.  It takes up loads of time and no significant improvements were ever achieved. To be fair the “ unable to play song ” issue has improved since the last fix attempt about 15 month ago.  The guy was genuinely great and it only took about 90 minutes and a remote access to my PC to achieve this.

I am rarely listening to music at home and about 8 out of 10 times there are some kinds of issues plying the songs I want using Sonos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  WHY?????????????

All of the above are, of course, on top of all the control issues following the last update you guys are talking about here.

And yes, I did read the CEO’s well-mannered email to us all the other night.

Frankly I lost hope with Sonos which is a shame as the speakers and the original idea was great.

Userlevel 7
Badge +15

Right!

I had enough!! I need to air my ongoing frustration with this company. Sonos is continually sabotaging my enjoyment of music.

I have built a music library on an external hard drive featuring hundreds of CDs.  When searching for any song/artist/albums in windows there never is any issues at all! NEVER!

When looking for the same song/artist/album on Sonos,  in the majority of times there are some kind of problems like:

  • showing no result and song/artist/albums cannot be located.  Even though they exist and play fine on none Sonos speakers.
    •  Even worse. Sometimes the song/artist/albums I am looking for is only showing on my Amazon account but there you cannot skip or FF (only three time allowed!)  I find this infuriating as I have paid about £3000 (for the system and CDs) and instead of playing it, Sonos redirects me to a third party vendor who insist on charging for “bonus features” like plying the title song of an album I searched for. Just a recap: I paid for Sonos, the CDs, the Prime membership and now I should pay for bonus features if wanting to ply the song I like.  And this happens when I am searching for items  specifically in ”MY MUSIC LIBRARY” as I do not like streaming and avoid it if possible
  • The perennial issue of being “ unable to play song ” message showing for no good reason.
  • System updates are forced when wanting to ply music.
  • Often the first song of an album are completely omitted, as if not existing, and does not show if trying to look them up in Sonos. Yet, any other applications have no issues at all locating and plying those.
  • Other times the first track’s title is missing and replaced with “track 1” but the source folder shows everything correctly.
  • Sonos lets me play ONE song from my hard drive via Sonos speakers using the Windows “ply with..” options but multiple selections or folders do not have this option,
  • Have you seen the current options offered in setting?  All sub settings leads to the same dialog window with the same option. Pointless!

I did try their support on many occasions over the past 10+ years.  It takes up loads of time and no significant improvements were ever achieved. To be fair the “ unable to play song ” issue has improved since the last fix attempt about 15 month ago.  The guy was genuinely great and it only took about 90 minutes and a remote access to my PC to achieve this.

I am rarely listening to music at home and about 8 out of 10 times there are some kinds of issues plying the songs I want using Sonos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  WHY?????????????

All of the above are, of course, on top of all the control issues following the last update you guys are talking about here.

And yes, I did read the CEO’s well-mannered email to us all the other night.

Frankly I lost hope with Sonos which is a shame as the speakers and the original idea was great.

You say the updates are forced. Are you resisting them or have you updated the app and your firmware recently? If not, you might find certain things resolved (for instance there were certain music library improvements towards the end of July).

Also, what’s the issue with your Sub settings? (I have Sub on/off, Sub level, and phase control.)

By the way Sonos NEVER redirects to a third party vendor to charge for options? What’s that you’re seeing..??

Seems each new attempt at fixing this rubbish software is worse than the last.  Volume faders worse, connectivity worse, crashes more frequent, interrupted music streams more common etc etc.  What a let down this system has been.  Very heavily invested or I’d be out of here.

Seems each new attempt at fixing this rubbish software is worse than the last.  Volume faders worse, connectivity worse, crashes more frequent, interrupted music streams more common etc etc.  What a let down this system has been.  Very heavily invested or I’d be out of here.

I don’t know why we each may be seeing different things - I’ve no issues with individual, or group, volume controls and can’t recall the new App crashing. If music is interrupted, then that’s not App related, as the App is merely a ‘remote’… you should be able to play the audio from it and completely close the App (or even power off the mobile device) and the music should continue. Some have suggested it could be the firmware, but I’m not seeing the audio interruptions here, so my thoughts are to perhaps try powering off everything router/speakers etc. and bring them back online in this order…

  • Router
  • Wired speakers (if relevant)
  • Wireless speakers (one at a time)

Leave each speaker settle and connect before moving onto the next etc. and see if that might improve things for you. If the problem persist after that, then you can still go onto reproduce the issue 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 help you to resolve the matter.

We have gone from loving our Sonos speakers and app to literally screaming in frustration every time we now try to use due to the worst app update in history. Literally made our entire system useless. Doesn’t recognize the speakers or amps anymore, BEYOND laggy if you get it to play and try to change volume or song, missing functionality and utterly frustrating!!! FIX IT SONOS!!!!!!