The New Sonos App and Future Feature Updates

That email is read and responded to by a low level person on the support team.  You aren’t reaching the CEO by flooding that email, you are making some poor support person work harder at a time when they are probably more swamped than they’ve ever been before.  

Unbelievable. You took away the most important feature, the ability to play my own music. That was the ONLY reason I invested in SONOS in the first place. 

Upgraded app and now can’t play or find any or my music. All Sonos speakers in my house are quiet.  

Was forced to upgrade to new version of Sonos app and now can’t find or play any of my playlists. Nothing works and I have been on the phone with your tech support for hours with no resolution.  Please fix your problem. 

Obviously I don’t expect that the emails will be responded to by the CEO. You missed my sarcasm. But why is a support person manning that inbox? There are other ways to contact support on the very same page it is listed. 

What do you suggest to get the acknowledgment, transparency and communication so woefully lacking ?

The insanity is that if there was more transparency regarding the defects then support wouldn’t be so swamped. Just own up to all the issues. Send out a news article. Then support won’t be contacted about the same things a hundred times. I mean it’s basic problem management. 

Need a rollback option for Sonos app. Can’t play any music at all. 

We use our Sonos system for playing music in our Mac music libraries. Recent updates have silently removed the libraries and recreating them fails with a “Can't add folder to music library (913)”.

It’s a joke that Sonos is breaking this and does not provide an immediate work. One spend several thousand dollars and has to wait now until Sonos can be bothered to fix the software they. This does not match the price tag Sonos is asking
 

Thought it might be useful to summarise what has happened that I am aware of. If nothing else, it’s been cathartic for me to write things down :-)

• The key driver for releasing the new app now was two new products that had been designed to only work with the new app (even though one of the products will only be shipped on 5th June, almost a month after the new app was introduced)
• This new app involved a complete replatforming of the way that Sonos works. At least part of this change is the move to make it cloud-based. Lots of questions as to what that actually means for individual users, data, etc. These questions have not been addressed
• Replatforming is a complex process that frequently unearths issues and problems that were not known about or anticipated and often over-runs
• Choosing to mandate a deadline for replatforming based on a hard deadline for product release created a (in)significant risk that the new app would not be ready by the date at which it was forced to be released
• Sonos acknowledge that they knew the software had bugs when it was released - e.g., alarms. There may well be other bugs that Sonos does or does not know about
• The new software was also released with the deliberate loss of a large number of  existing features (i.e., not bugs). Some might consider these to be basic functions, e.g., adding songs to a queue of music, sleep function. This is not a comprehensive list of the functions that were removed
• The new software seems incredibly unstable. Work-arounds and solutions work for some people and not others, or are too complicated to be easily widely replicable. Where solutions do seem to work, they do not work consistently time after time after time
• Lots of edge cases have not been properly catered for. Given the sheer amount of music services Sonos supports, combined with product options and individual customisations, there will be a lot of these which will take a lot of work to address
• Customer service is currently overwhelmed. Web support is often unavailable or unable to help; the wait times for the helpline are very long
• One of the currently advised work-arounds is to use the existing desktop app for Mac or Windows. This desktop app is not available to everyone as it has been removed from download links in advance of being sunsetted
• The timelines provided by Sonos above are not for an exhaustive list of all the work required or features to be reinstated. That list has not been released publicly and will likely extend far beyond the timelines detailed above (i.e., not all features previously present will be available by mid-June)
• Sonos has a long-standing customer base. One of its key differentiators and sources of value (as stated in multiple public announcements) is the loyalty of these customers and the way that you want to maintain them in the Sonos ecosystem. A large number (but definitely not all) of these customers are angry/ annoyed/ upset with these changes and how they have been implemented and communicated

Given that, a few questions for Sonos. No, I’m not expecting immediate answers but to Sonos - these should be on your crisis communications roadmap:

• Does Sonos commit to restore functionality to what it was before the new app was released (i.e., to what was available in the latest version of the gold app)? Does that commitment include all edge cases, and if not, what will not be resolved?
• What is the full list of work to be done to the app, and what are the current estimates for when things will be done? (Yes, this will be horrifically long both in number of tasks and duration, but probably time to tell us all the bad news at once rather than drip-feeding it out)
• A lot of people would like to temporarily go back to using the latest version of the old gold app (i.e. v16). What is the reason that they cannot (other than just saying ‘you can’t)? Have a lot of other changes been made behind the scenes that mean that this is not possible? If so, what?
• It is an imperfect solution, but can you commit to maintaining the availability of the desktop app whilst you work to improve the mobile app? Could you make it available for download for those who do not already have it?
• What are the improvements for users that you hope to bring by releasing this new app? (Not generalities about ease of navigation, actual features that necessitated replatforming)
• What are the implications for customer data/ security/ other from moving to the cloud? How will Sonos mitigate any potential downsides from this move?
• What is the process by which you will communicate progress on resolving these issues to us, the users (not the press or trade journals)?
• What are the concrete steps or commitments that Sonos will make to ensure that a) situations like this do not happen again or b) if they are unavoidable, that the impact of them will be communicated to users well in advance?

Sorry for the essay. But...I’m feeling much more zen now. Feel free to tell me where I’m wrong!

I don’t think that issue is entirely related to the new Sonos App, as I did see this posted as a possible solution to the error you’re seeing…

1. Right click on the Music folder and click on PROPERTIES at the bottom of the menu.

Click on the SHARE tab and then click on the first SHARE button…

1. A new window opens and you click on the ‘v’ drop-down list option next to the ADD button.
2. Click on "Sonos Wireless HiFi System" then click on the ADD button and finally click on SHARE.
3. Open your Sonos app on your PC and add your music library.

Also see this earlier thread with screenshots…

https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-and-music-services-229131/can-t-add-folder-to-music-library-913-6893981

@CC22 

Just to briefly mention, the PC/MAC desktop controllers are (still) available on the Sonos download page here:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/downloads

Sonos have also published this document on their support site, outlining a timeline for future feature updates to their new App:

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