Music Library search returns no result. Force app close fixes

Can Sonos please at the very least acknowledge?

Many thanks

This forum, to the best of my knowledge, is only monitored by Forum moderators, and not Sonos coders, or Sonos Support . You’re much more likely to get acknowledgment if you call Sonos Support.

Thanks for the reply but it’s not the end of world or important enough to spend time and money on phone calls to notify Sonos of something they may well be aware.

Hi @Stuart_W 

Thanks for your post!

Sorry to hear of this issue you are seeing with inconsistent search results with your Music Library. As far as I can ascertain, we’re not aware of any such behaviour. I’d therefore encourage you get in touch with our technical support team to report this and to go through some troubleshooting steps with them, but I do understand if you might find the current wait time too much (although I understand it is coming down these days).

You can, if you wish, upload your video to YouTube (or a file hosting service such as Google Drive) and share a link to it here (if you use YouTube, remember to make the video public). Please also recreate the issue with not getting results and submit a support diagnostic from the same device immediately afterwards, then perform your fix and submit another diagnostic after performing a successful search for the same term(s). Please let me know here when you have done so, but please don’t share the given numbers.

Thanks.

I’ve replicated the issue.

Here is the video on YouTube 

Have diagnostics and will call tech support.

NB the video is for the earlier search than the diagnostics relate to.

Hi @Stuart_W 

Thanks for the video - I noticed that when you do your first search, Music Library does not show at the top while you are typing, unlike in the second, working example.

Does Music Library even show on your Home Screen after a failed search? If not, this is the likely reason as to why you do not get search results and is what we need to troubleshoot.

I notice your system is largely running on SonosNet, but you only have one wired device - we recommend one wired connection for every 5 unwired speakers. If this is not practical for you, I recommend removing the ethernet cable from your Arc and seeing how things perform on WiFi only. If things get worse, just reconnect the cable.

I hope this helps.

Thanks Cory. You probably don’t have time to go through all my recent (24 months) support interactions but I can assure you we’ve been through any number of iterations of Wi-Fi only, 1 wired, 2 wired, ARC wired, Play 3’s wired. I’m not getting the same number of drop-outs I used to though it’s not 100% stable.

Not sure what you mean by Music Library not appearing at the top? It NEVER appears at the top. Sonos changed that to appear at the BOTTOM and it only appears if it finds a result. EDIT. The search result screen does show an icon for Music Library at the top but it cannot be seen even if no results are found - One has to scroll past the other music services to the right and it is at the end. (I don’t know if it doesn't appear at all when this “Error” happens.

Hi @Stuart_W 

Ah, fair enough.

When you are in the middle of typing your search string on the first example in the video, I don’t see Music Library show in the top right. In your second attempt, after restarting the app and before you even finish typing, I see Music Library in the top right corner.

I checked my own system and see Music Library in the top corner even if I am searching for something that I don’t have in my library. 

So, I am wondering if you see Music Library anywhere at all in the app (but I really mean the Home Screen) either prior to or after a failed search - if you do not, that is the reason why search is not working, and that is what we need to troubleshoot rather than anything to do with search in particular.

Thanks again for the reply.

I’ve viewed the video and I now see what you mean by the “Music Library” not appearing - It doesn’t. Though I note that “BBC Sounds” and “myTuner Radio” does and they are all added music services that the app needs to pull from the speakers. Why would it ONLY be the Music Library that ever disappears (I never search for podcasts in this way. Sometimes radio stations) if it was network issues? Wouldn't one expect all or some to be also missing?

This is NOT a behaviour I noted prior to the app “upgrade” hence my post.

Hi @Stuart_W 

Music services are different - it is assumed that they will always be available, and they will show if you have added them.

I’m 99.9% sure the old app displayed Music Library if you had at all configured it. Now, the app only displays ML if it thinks it’s actually available right now. 

So, for some reason, it looks like the app might be deciding that you don’t have a ML, and only reassesses it’s opinion on a restart. This is most likely caused by an unreliable connection to your ML source.

Where is your Music Library stored? On a PC? A Mac? A NAS drive? Have you tried giving this device a reboot? If said device is not replying to queries in a timely manner, it may result in the disappearance of the Music Library item on your Home Screen (something which you have not yet confirmed one way or the other).

The next time you see this behaviour from the app, and before force-closing the app, please go back to the Home Screen and look for Music Library - is it present on the Home Screen or not? This is key to understanding what is going wrong for you.

Edit: changed some thoughts about the old method