Music Library Compilation Albums are fragmented

Hi ​@am577 

Please see my reply immediately above yours.

Thanks. Could you explain what you meant by the phrase “before we depreciate the Desktop apps” ?

I mainly use the app on an iPad, but have installed the Sonos app on a Windows PC and an Android phone, but the iPad is definitely my preferred platform. Do you expect Sonos to continue supporting and fixing the iPad app ? What do most Sonos customers use ?

Hi ​@am577 

The Desktop Controllers (as we call the Sonos app for Windows and macOS) used to have all the functions the other apps have, but as far more people were using mobile apps, we decided to remove most system configuration options from the Desktop Controllers some years ago due to the significant amount of work it took to keep 4 versions of the app running (especially when very few people were using 2 of them).

We have recently been working on the Web App to replace Desktop Controllers - this controller never needs a software update, and can also be used with platforms like Linux and ChromeOS without any additional engineering workload needed. We are aware, however, that some people who have performance issues with the new mobile apps find that the Desktop Controllers are very useful in working around these. We will not, therefore, depreciate (remove from availability) the Desktop Controllers in favour of the Web App until the mobile app reaches feature parity, and until those who are having issues with it cease to need the Desktop Controllers to work around these issues.

Yes - we will continue to support the iPad (iOS, really) app for the foreseeable future. Most customers use either the iOS app or the Android app - although there are more Android users out there in total, I think the majority of Sonos owners are iOS users (I don’t have figures to back this up, so I suppose it could be that iOS users are just more likely to ask for help rather than Google the issue, as compared to Android users).

I hope this helps.

Thanks, Corry, that was helpful.

AM

still happening here also.  if it helps, here are some notes:(16.4.2 controller on Mac)

GROUP ALBUMS using:

iTunes compilations:   compilation albums are not 'split up', but there are no songs under them. "No selections are available".

Album artists: the albums are split up into duplicates, one for each song.

I have tried putting 'Various Artists" into the Album Artist field, it makes no difference. 

Even without anything in Album artist field, iTunes/music still considers them as 'various artists'

Additional note: when playing with the above setting (music library settings), I'll often get a pop-up saying “<mount point> is no longer available. Device may not be powered on, etc....”   although the controller does see it, as it must be getting the album names & artwork off the NAS.  I can also see it in my finder and at command level. 

takes a restart to get Sonos to see the drive again..

Dan Wills 

Hi ​@Dan.Wills 

With the behaviour you are reporting, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports - if it is to be fixed, it will first need to be investigated and documented.

The “no longer available” error may be occurring if your NAS is not responding in a timely manner - a reboot of it may help, but please also make sure that it uses an ethernet connection to the network.

I hope this helps.

thanks Corry.

After reading a lot of posts that said this is fixed, I decide to rebuild for the heck of it. 

re-copied my library to the NAS (Apple Music, nee iTunes), hard reboot of all hardware, re-indexed.

and… it’s all working perfectly. don't understand, as nothing was changed. Go figure….

my compilation settings:

GROUP ALBUMS using Album Artists, and all songs/albums setting for compilation albums have “various artists” in the ALBUM ARTIST field.

another question: reading problem posts, I learn new bits of information such as plans to deprecate/replace the Mac/PC controller with app/web.  is there an email list, RSS feed, blog - any sort of information source where we can get a heads-up regarding upcoming changes? Some of these are very impactful, and being surprised is never a good thing.

thanks

Dan Wills 

Hi ​@Dan.Wills 

We make announcements here on the Community whenever there are large changes, and the main Sonos.com webpage will do so too. In addition, we sometimes send notifications to appear as pop-ups in the apps, or send messages that can be found at the top of the User menu (after tapping on the User icon in the top right corner). We also sometimes send out emails.

There are not any RSS feeds or email lists, however, through which you would be actively notified. You may find our Trello board of use, however.

I hope this helps.

The fragmented compilation album persists.  I have updated to 16.4.2.  Earlier versions of the controller used to recognize the indexing from iTunes as “part of a compilation.”  Now, it appears that the controller is looking only at the “artist” or “album artist” field (the latter is often blank in iTunes), rather than the “part of a compilation” checkbox.  Is there any further update on when this might be corrected?  Thank you.

 The Album Artist tag needs to be filled in.  For a compilation it’s usually Various Artists.