Cannot adjust volume buttons with Android phone unless I'm in Spotify or Sonos app

Hi @dani.w_nders 

Thanks for your post!

I believe this is by design - what if you were actually trying to adjust the volume of your phone’s ringtone? Also, given that multiple apps can read inputs from your volume buttons, how is the phone to know what is to get turned up or down? If you were to use the Sonos app to stop playback, then open the Netflix app (for example) to watch something but it was too loud, you wouldn’t want the volume buttons on your phone to control the volume of your Sonos speaker that is no longer even playing.

To make things worse, the Spotify app doesn’t even need to be on the same network as your Sonos speakers to be able to control them - the volume buttons would always control the Sonos volume if the connection were kept open and the Spotify app didn’t need to be open to utilise the volume controls on your phone.

I hope this helps.

Hi @Corry P 

I’m sorry, this does not answer my question :(

Especially because with my previous (rented) Sonos Five, I was able to do as described above. With the one I just purchased, this is not possible.

what if you were actually trying to adjust the volume of your phone’s ringtone?

This is something that I do very rarely. And if I want to, I can do that by opening the three-dot menu .

 

Changing the volume of my SONOS is something I do much more frequently: up to several times an hour, especially when I have guests or move around the room.

I used to be able to use my locked phone as a kind of  “volume remote control”, whereas now i need to each time unlock my phone, enter my unlock code, open the spotify or sonos app (or the three-dot-menu thing seen above) and control the desired volume.
I know this lasts like 10 seconds, but I’d love to be able to do it instantly. Especially when the volume is too loud for a conversation, I have to interrupt my guest and unlock my phone and do that, which can be distracting.
 

If you were to use the Sonos app to stop playback, then open the Netflix app (for example) to watch something but it was too loud, you wouldn’t want the volume buttons on your phone to control the volume of your Sonos speaker that is no longer even playing.

I agree - but the really cool thing was that the volume buttons were controlling my SONOS only while it was playing. 
And, even better: if my SONOS was playing (controlled by my phone), and I opened a youtube video on my phone, the volume buttons would control the youtube by default. When I would then close youtube and go to my homescreen, or even lock the phone, the volume buttons would go back to control my SONOS by default. It was just so smart.

This was just a few weeks ago - I wonder what happened here?
 

Hi @dani.w_nders 

I think I was just able to recreate something like your issue on my own phone, and I see what you mean. With Sonos being the only media app open, I should still be able to control volume with the phone’s buttons even when I switch back to my home screen, but I cannot. And that’s with the phone unlocked.

Do you have a notification from Sonos in your Android swipe-down menu saying “Stopping the service may interrupt playback notifications”?

Hi @dani.w_nders 

Please try going to Settings » App Preferences » Home Screen Volume Control and make sure it’s activated. It worked for me (though the message remains). While you’re on that settings page, please make sure Show Lock Screen Control is active, and try toggling Show Notifications off and on if nothing else works.

I hope this helps.

Hi @Corry P thank you so much for getting back to me and revisiting my question.

Do you have a notification from Sonos in your Android swipe-down menu saying “Stopping the service may interrupt playback notifications”?

Nope, I haven’t seen that - I checked Android App Notification settings and all SONOS notifications are enabled, but no notification of that sort.
Below you can find a screenshot of my swipe-down menu as music is playing from my sonos thru Spotify

 

Please try going to Settings » App Preferences » Home Screen Volume Control and make sure it’s activated. It worked for me (though the message remains).

Which message remains? The notification you talked about above? Not entirely sure what you mean here 😇 

About the settings: those settings were already active, I’m afraid. I tried toggling off and on - and I was able raise the volume from the home screen (🤩) for a fraction of a second (😔) then it switched back to ringtone volume control - so all in all it didn’t solve this.

While you’re on that settings page, please make sure Show Lock Screen Control is active, and try toggling Show Notifications off and on if nothing else works.

I did that as well but no luck here :(

Here’s a screenshot of the settings:

 

Any other hints of what could be wrong here?

Hi @dani.w_nders 

Yes - the message I was referring to is the same message I asked if you could see.

Thanks for the screenshots, and for trying those steps - with all of those settings active, and with the Sonos app having been opened at least once, you should be then seeing a notification control section much like the one for Spotify that you do have. Only tapping the X button on it should make it go away. Here’s what I see:

Without the Sonos notification there, you wouldn’t be able to control the volume via Sonos. As you have the Spotify app notification, however, it should be passing the button presses to Sonos, albeit via a different route. It is strange that the issue is occurring on both Sonos and Spotify - it has nothing to do with Android versions as mine is stuck solidly in the past.

One more thought is to make sure that Android isn’t closing down apps as soon as they are not on the screen, to save power. This will be individually controllable for each app in Android’s Settings » Applications. This is admittedly a long-shot.

I’ve flagged this with colleagues and an investigation will soon be underway.

Hi @Corry P 

Ok, now I see what you mean!
If I start playback from the SONOS app instead of from Spotify, I can also see that notification.

Still I cannot control the volume from the Home Screen.
I did get it to work from the lock screen for one instance, but only while SONOS was playing the music (not Spotify, which is where I mostly play the music from), but now it’s not working. Seems to be a hit or miss - mostly miss.

 

P.S. I just reinstalled both SONOS and Spotify and nothing changed.

Thank you sooo much for flagging this, I look forward to see what the investigation’s outcome will be.

I wish you a lovely weekend and speak soon.
Dani :)

Hi @Corry P, did anything come out of the investigation?

I made several other tests:

• Tried with my Android Phone to connect with a Wifi-Home speaker from Bose. Also here it didn’t work, same problem as described above.
• Tried with a friend’s iPhone and my SONOS. I launched Spotify and shared to my SONOS via WiFi. I was able to change the volume from the Homescreen and the Lockscreen. Beauty 👌

So it seems to be an Android issue? 
Whereas a few weeks it worked seamlessly?

Any idea on how to bring it back?

Hi @dani.w_nders 

No update as of yet - I will update this thread when we have a resolution. I have no time-scale to share, unfortunately.

@Corry P if it's any help, I've noticed this same issue since my Samsung phone updated to the latest version of Android (and I'm now also getting the service stop notification you mentioned above!).

It appears that Android now doesn't recognise the Sonos app as a media player and so the media volume buttons don't get activated on the Android home page.  If I'm playing music through Bluetooth headphones through Spotify, the volume buttons work as expected for media (taking priority over other volume settings eg notifications or ringtone, per my settings choices), and if I switched to a YouTube video, the volume buttons then control the volume of YouTube as the "active media source". But for some reason, this doesn't then work when you're playing media through Sonos.

Not being techy enough, I'm not sure if this is a setting in the background of the Sonos app, or an annoying feature of Android as technically the phone isn't locally playing media, it's just controlling the output of a stream via a WiFi device...? Either way, would be good to see what the answer is on this, and whether there is anything that the software folks can solve for us 😀

Thanks!