Skip to main content
Griff_
Contributor I
May 8, 2024
Answered

Bring back the ability to search music library

  • May 8, 2024
  • 119 replies
  • 6027 views

I have been using Sonos for several years, and it is attached to a streaming service and my music library on a USB drive, which has years worth of accumulated music, including a lot not available on streaming. I have just (8 May) updated to the new Sonos app. Now I can still see and trawl through my music library, but cannot search in it. The general search function just returns the streaming and Sonos radio results, and there’s no dedicated search for the music library. This effectively cuts off my access to my own music, by making it prohibitively difficult to find anything. Please bring this functionality back. I know you want to prioritise revenue generation, but this is disrespectful to your customers.

    This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.
    Best answer by BazDistro

    Taking away search capabilities is bad enough—I’m already looking for Sonos alternatives. But they also removed the alphabetic side bar that allowed us to more efficiently move around the library. It’s hard to imagine this was an oversight. It’s a concerted effort to turn us away from our own music libraries and I agree with others who interpret this as egregious disrespect. If things remain unchanged, this is an absolute deal breaker. I don’t use streaming services and never wish to. Sonos is useless if it cannot help me to easily stream my own carefully curated music collection. 

    119 replies

    Show previous replies
    jgatie
    jgatie
    June 19, 2024

    @jgatie No offense intended and as I said I’m definitely not into conspiracy theories. In my case I can access my local library, I just can’t search for things. Searching used to be great. It would return top results from my services with an easy button to get more, plus it showed results from my library. The new app totally lost the ability to search my library. Still hoping they listen to all of us and get a new app out quickly.

     

    Searching local libraries is scheduled to be released in mid-June, which means any day now.

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

     

      Kos
      Enthusiast II
      June 25, 2024

      Local library search and playback delayed to July in order to address feedback from beta testing.

       

      Surprise… why on earth did they remove it in the first place… why on on earth are Sonos doing beta tests NOW and not months ago?

      Kos
      jgatie
      jgatie
      June 25, 2024

      Local library search and playback delayed to July in order to address feedback from beta testing.

       

      Surprise… why on earth did they remove it in the first place… why on on earth are Sonos doing beta tests NOW and not months ago?

       

      They didn’t remove it.  The app was rewritten from scratch, and it was only half-done when it was released.  Not a big difference to you, but a significant difference if one wants to know why things are missing. 

      Dean_25
      Avid Contributor I
      June 25, 2024

      You can still search the Music Library in the Windows app, so it’s being indexed and updated. It’s just not in the UI for mobile devices. As a software professional, it’s astonishing how incompetent the Sonos UI designers are, to have forced such a terribly-regressive product on their user base. Cardinal rule of software design, you DON’T use your users as unwilling ALPHA (not even BETA!) testers. I hope they get a lot of people moving to other platforms, serves them right! This is a HISTORICALLY INEPT occurrence, one for the textbooks.

        Ski4life
        Trending Lyricist I
        June 26, 2024

        Local library search and playback delayed to July in order to address feedback from beta testing.

         

        Surprise… why on earth did they remove it in the first place… why on on earth are Sonos doing beta tests NOW and not months ago?

         

        They didn’t remove it.  The app was rewritten from scratch, and it was only half-done when it was released.  Not a big difference to you, but a significant difference if one wants to know why things are missing. 

        Although it also seems that Sonos wants to redirect the entire interface through their servers.  With respect to the streaming services, sure this works fine.  But it makes it VERY unstable when accessing one’s own library.  Even when I can access my library (it’s hit or miss) the app is slow and unstable.  If this is all a way for Sonos to monetize my music selections, then I have no sympathy for their problems.

        byrne.ja
        Lyricist I
        July 6, 2024

        I might just put the money I was going to spend on a new Sonos zone into purchasing a lifetime Roon subscription instead. Should allow me to search my own purchased music again!

        WiggyToo
        WiggyToo
        Trending Lyricist I
        July 24, 2024

        Music library search has now been released in the android app at least.

         

        Gav

        Amadeus1756
        Avid Contributor II
        July 24, 2024

        Music library search has now been released in the android app at least.

         

        Behaves a little weirdly tho.

        I used the new client (on iOS) and searched using a track which I knew was in my local list - it appeared.

        A few hours later, I did the same and it didn’t appear.  Search locally didn’t do anything.  I’d not changed anything.

        Removed library, re-added, re-indexed.  Song still didn’t appear.  But also my album list had some single entries for *some* albums but for other albums it seemed to break it down by track.

         

        So it’s got issues, and it’s not been tested. :-(

         

        Update: Just had a quick look at this.  Seems that one of my CDs has “Artist” as “Ms. Dynamite” for some tracks and other tracks (something like - they differ) “Ms. Dynamite/Keon Bryce”.  In the controller music library settings, I’ve tried the “Group albums using” option as either (the default” of Album Artists (all the Album Artists tags is “Ms. Dynamite” on this album” or “Do not group compilations” - both seem to behave in the same way - looks like this is being ignored.

        Not being able to search albums was a pain, effectively messing up the albums is (to me) a bigger pain.

        kallagh
        Trending Lyricist I
        July 25, 2024

        Search seems not to work at all at the moment. No results from any source. Just getting “Something went wrong” message.

        Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement