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Workaround(ish): Android App Crashing with Firmware v16.3

Those Android users unfortunate enough to have installed the v16.3 firmware released on 17 July may have encountered a nasty bug that crashes the app over and over. Thanks to an intrepid detective on Reddit, we’ve narrowed down the bug and identified a weak workaround.

The bug causing the crash seems to be triggered by local library music. And the local library music does not need to playing, it simply needs to be in the queue of the currently selected Sonos device.

So if you are encountering this bug and your Android app is stuck crashing ...

  • Using a functioning controller* clear the queuesⵜ on all Sonos devices
  • Start Android app, everything works!
  • Play streaming source, everything works!
  • Play local library music, BOOM CRASH BOOM

… hence “weak workaround” as local library music in your queue will continue to crash the app.

* Desktop app and Web app work particularly well
ⵜ or replace the queues with streaming music

Side note: this bug is not limited to Samsung devices, tho’ it may not impact all Android devices. Samsung devices happen to display the Android OS error message shown below, while other Android devices opt to log the error without a pop-up.

 

98 replies

Y
Userlevel 2

When did having a cup of coffee and listening to a piece of music become something I had to plan in advance?

 

 

G
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Here is another work around that will allow you play your library on your Android device:
 

Use the web app
https://play.sonos.com/

It seems to run faster than the android app.

HTH

 

 

Just tried this. Won't run on phone. Says screen size too small and directs me to Android app. I can now only control my system via Windows desktop app. Fortunately I have it installed on 3 PCs (2 laptops and a desktop) but it is far less convenient than controlling via the phone.

Sonos seem to have taken a bad situation and actually made it worse. Who knew that was even possible?

H
Userlevel 2
Badge +1

Wait, so the ‘workaround’ is ‘use your desktop computer’ or only stream music.

That’s awesome. Thanks for your help. Would you like to buy a playbar, two play 3’s, a play 5, and two play 1’s?

A
Userlevel 2
Badge

Wooooow.

This is happening to me, and using my local library is 99% of my Sonos use. So...now I just can’t control my system with a phone. That’s greeeeeat.

The web app also seems to be all kinds of broken, so now to do anything I have to go to the one Windows PC in the house, start whatever I want playing, then run back to the room where I wanted to hear it. Jeez, great job, Sonos. WTF is going on over there?

R
Userlevel 3
Badge

Thanks for the ‘workaround’ for the latest pathetic app update - even though it means that yet again, I can’t use my music library on Sonos. What a joke. The app (on a Pixel 8) kept crashing constantly, so I cleared the queues on the desktop app. At least for now I can use streaming services, which I assume is what Sonos wants to force us into anyway by screwing up this app over and over. I invested in the Sonos system specifically to play my personal music library. At this point, it looks like Enron might have been a better investment.

I

Dear Press250,

Thank you for your analysis.  What you described makes sense.  It does relieve the frustration to some extent knowing it is not just me …..

In short, I do not stream !!!   I exclusively use my media library ……….

As mentioned, I can engage via the Windows OS software so I’m ok for now.

Thanks again

 

 

D
Userlevel 1

Thanks for your message - saved me loads of time.  I cannot believe that they release this POS for consumption to the public.   Sonos is a shambles if I could leave I would but they know that...

Z
Userlevel 2

OK…..another problem that we can wait a while for a fix.  I have four android devices that we use to control our Sonos system and the Sonos app crashes immediately as soon as they are opened.  Just started today for me I think.  Maybe yesterday.  And yes, I do use it to access my music library on my PC.  I get to use my music library for a couple of weeks and now it’s down again.  Thanks, Sonos.

S
Userlevel 1
Badge

Good Lord how friggin horrible are the Sonos devs? They systematically break everything about local libraries, you know, the only real reason people would bother getting high performance speakers. I could have my intern program their whole system for them in a day or two. Are they hiring 6th graders? I think the 7th graders might be able to pull it off better.

Hey, don’t blame the poor devs, they’re just bashing out code. Blame their managers, and their managers. You know, the one who won’t pay coders to fix existing problems, only to create new features.

robin19
Badge

As this month is meant to be the one when "Local music library search and playback" make a delayed return to the app, it's quite an, umm, achievement to so comprehensively break local library playback in the process. And even more annoying that they've blocked access from older versions of the app at the same time and make it difficult to access the web version of the app on a mobile device. Enjoying my music collection has never been so unenjoyable.

R
Userlevel 3
Badge

From 'The Verge':

 

Google is purging ‘low-quality’ Android apps next month

 / 

Play Store apps will be required to provide a ‘stable, engaging, responsive user experience’ starting August 31

 

Wonder if this will apply to the Sonos app....

press250
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

That is not new: Sonos have always had two version number schemes. the oldest I can find is 13.7-29120 which was also known as 3.2, which was released in 2011.

Yea @controlav, when my Android tablet crashes at the merest hint of a local library file (a queue of local music is enough, it doesn’t have to be playing) I really don’t care about numbering schemes. 

S

I just don’t get people saying they can’t find things on the app… It’s like moving to a new town and saying you can’t shop at the supermarket because it’s not laid out like the one you used to shop at. Go up and down the aisles and visit a few times and you’ll get used to where things are…

Because the new app makes no sense how they laid it out, it’s clunky 

I

No crashes when playing library: +1

Unable to add to end of queue: -1

“Something went wrong” when restoring app from background: -1

Indexing compilation albums screwed: -1

So one small step forward (which seems more like a little step backwards)

B
Userlevel 3
Badge +3

Confirm on android 12 (Hauwei 2019) app now just closes immediately after loading and playing from local library.

Another tack... latest 16.3 app on Windows & Macbook is fine and allows you to everything as before (16.2 withdrew the update library function yesterday).

Back to the future! 

R

This is BS.  WTF Sonos?!!

Only way to control my system is through the PC now.  Nevermind the missing app features, now it won’t even launch with local music… 99.9% of my listening.

The system was nearly perfect before May, can we just have that back, please?

E

zero UAT and zero qc. i installed the old android app on my phone so i could get old functionality and that has been working since the trash upgrade. recently i spent hours trying to figure out how to get my pc library to load and finally got it to work. not even a week later it forced me to update to the new android app version which cant handle playing from my library. just crashing over and over. and yes I turned auto update off for android play store, this happened anyways.

M

I only listen to music from my local library so this has rendered my system totally useless.  Such poor customer support. It was bad enough when there was no local music library search.  Now my sonos system is useless.  How about rolling back the dodgy updates? It would nice to listen to my music on my not inexpensive sonos system

press250
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

I posted yesterday in a different thread about this same problem, here's an update I've discovered to the above posted here - you can play your local music through both the PC app and the Android app if you save whatever local music queue to a Sonos playlist. After it seemed like this was the case I tested it directly by playing a local music album from the PC app, which crashed the Android app, playing that same local music album from the Android app, which also crashed the Android app, and then from the PC app playing that same local music album but then saving the queue as a Sonos playlist, and after clearing the queue so the Android app would open again, playing the resulting playlist, which playsled from both the Android app and the PC app, without crashing the Android app.

And some of you say the new app isn’t user friendly!

M

While I appreciate letting us know what causes those crashes and how to work around them, it is not really an option for me. I specifically got the my Sonos devices because I wanted to stream my local music library. That’s the one reason I got them.

When their new app hit, I updated and didn’t like it. But I figured while it would have been nice to release it for voluntary use as a beta version or something, things would improve over time as they went back to fix bugs and re-introduce features that were removed. Then I found out that I could roll back to an older version and noticed just how big the differences were and how much better the older version was running. For a while I was content. I had to deactivate automatic updates and take great care not to accidentally update the Sonos app, but that was a small price to pay for being able to use it to stream my local music library again.


Then, a couple of days ago, the forced update to the new version again. And to add insult to injury, it turns out that this version of the app isn’t working with the local music library anymore at all. It feels borderline petty to disallow the old version (which obviously still worked fine with the hardware).

I wonder if there are legal steps I could take since I bought (not rented!) the hardware with a given feature-set that isn’t working as advertised anymore. And I get it, software gets updated and sometimes some features change over time to a certain degree. I’m not usually someone who sues quickly about anything (in fact, this would be the first time I did for anything) but updating the software and at the very same time adding a hard block to using the old software fully knowing that it’s badly broken in parts feels conscious, almost petty. Like they’re offended that we don’t want to use their shiny new version and so they’ll force us to use it whether we like it or not.

On that note: Does anyone here know another manufacturer who sells speakers that can be attached to a PC (or other sound source) and ethernet to play music from a NAS or whatever source is directly connected to them?

M
Userlevel 1
Badge

Here’s hoping this firmware push is laying the ground work for the next App update and they are just now incompatible.

Sucks for sure (I have all the same issues), but maybe it’s a signal that the next app will have our local music features promised last month and delayed until July…

Of course, this could also signal that they have very poor QA (or only care about streaming) or release pipelines and they never meant to push the firmware without the app. Interestingly, the Dutch article floating around suggested the update was supposed to be yesterday which hints at the firmware being pushed accidentally, i.e., app team found a blocker and pulled the brake but the firmware team didn’t...

P
Userlevel 1

Thank you for diagnosing.  I have the same problem here.  By the way, it is all the crazier since I went to my wife’s IOS device to clear the queues and they removed the option to clear queues in that app!  I have over  a decade of experience with Sonos apps that are each worse than the last version and even for me this one is just crazy awful.

I will add that you can clear all the queues from the PC app (only, nothing else will work) and then the android will work.  But even after clearing, and if the app is set to stream sonos to speaker or room A, if you then go on the PC app and play from the library for room C the android app will immediately crash.  I am not sure how I would program it to do that if I wanted that behavior.

With the way they have deprecated my library in the interface so that it is way harder to find, I am led to wonder if the streaming services are paying Sonos to hide non-paid options in the interface.  

By the way, I presume it is too much to ask that a Sonos moderator might appear in this thread and at least say that it is a known issue they are working on.

I swear the interface in the app from 10 years ago was better than this one, with each one successively worse.  If I did not know better, I would think that Google has done to Sonos what it did to Sage and secretly bought it and is trying to kill it now.

M
Userlevel 3
Badge +2

FYI - They released an update to the app (at least I can confirm for Android) that fixes the app crashing at load/startup.  It’s finally working for me again, and I can get to my library.  None of the issues from my original post (below) have been resolved, but at least the thing freaking works again. 

 

 

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

What do you mean by version 16.3? Mine updated today and is 80.1-55014.

Hi @furacaopr, on the desktop app it reports “Version: 16.3 (build 80155014)” so we are both talking about the same firmware.

So, another mess Sonos has introduced, different version numbering schemes for the same firmware 😂🤣😅

That is not new: Sonos have always had two version number schemes. the oldest I can find is 13.7-29120 which was also known as 3.2, which was released in 2011.

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
P

Wow, glad I didn't spend a bunch of money on a system that would be completely broken for my use case in 6 months. ☹️

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