Contributor I

Answered

My speakers/app doesnt want to play music from my phone anymore

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
May 27, 2023
41 replies
1626 views

I used to be able to play music i have stored on my phone and suddenly "this device" option has completly disapered as an option under any tab on the app.

I updated by phone and the app, i check permissions, all the file locrion stored on my phone are under music, nothing has changed from when i could play from my phone to now when i cant.

This is very frusting as there are some songs i have that arent availiable on streaming services.

How do i fix it?

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Best answer by Airgetlam

Here’s the original announcement from May 4…

Airgetlam

Any chance you have an Android phone? There are already several threads on this, but the easiest reference I could quickly find is this:

https://www.engadget.com/sonos-is-ending-support-for-local-file-playback-on-android-184537921.html

Bruce

Airgetlam

Here’s Sonos’ own FAQ

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/play-music-stored-on-your-android-device

Bruce

AirgetlamAnswer

Here’s the original announcement from May 4…

Bruce

E

EldorkableAuthor

Contributor I

Hi Bruce,

Thank you for your help, my orginal search must not have been worded correctly as i didnt see those articles.

Reading through them, this seems like a mega money grab decision on sonos end. I think ill need to looks in to an alternate speaker system and try to have my money refunded for these.

Poor business decision to take away a perfectly good feature and then make you buy a whole new item to continue to use it.

Very upsetting.

Airgetlam

My opinion doesn’t match yours, having been through the iOS version of this, when the OS manufacturer (Apple) blocked the ability of Sonos, and other companies such as Bluenote, from using the mobile devices as network drives. Since this change isn’t in the interest of Sonos, it’s hard to imagine they’re behind it.

And for a money grab, I don’t understand that at all. There’s nothing that Sonos sells that would ‘fix’ this issue. It would, at the worst, require you to get an NAS, something Sonos doesn’t make or sell. And for likely no cost at all, you could put your music on an already existing PC or Mac (neither of which Sonos sells) and use the already existing ‘play from this library’ function that has always existed.

Bruce

N

nik9669a

Senior Virtuoso

Hi Bruce,

Thank you for your help, my orginal search must not have been worded correctly as i didnt see those articles.

Reading through them, this seems like a mega money grab decision on sonos end. I think ill need to looks in to an alternate speaker system and try to have my money refunded for these.

Poor business decision to take away a perfectly good feature and then make you buy a whole new item to continue to use it.

Very upsetting.

My interpretation of the article places the “blame” elsewhere than Sonos:

“As newer versions of mobile operating systems are released, it can sometimes change the way information is shared between devices, and this feature will no longer be compatible with newer versions of the Android operating system.”

How can Sonos support a feature that no longer exists in a third party product?

Airgetlam

Oh, I did forget the third option, Bluetooth, which I suppose you could possibly consider a ‘money grab’, if you didn’t already have a Sonos device that had Bluetooth built in. Seems like a tenuous assertion, though.

Bruce

106rallye

In another topic iBroadcast was mentioned, that has a free option that allows you to play your uploaded music.

R

RJSUK

Enthusiast II

Hi Bruce,

Thank you for your help, my orginal search must not have been worded correctly as i didnt see those articles.

Reading through them, this seems like a mega money grab decision on sonos end. I think ill need to looks in to an alternate speaker system and try to have my money refunded for these.

Poor business decision to take away a perfectly good feature and then make you buy a whole new item to continue to use

Sonos want you to upgrade to Bluetooth with their new Era speakers. You know, that years old flakey technology that they now promote as cutting edge!

I've attached an extract of an email from Sonos, the response to a query about their faltering support for "owned" music. Nowhere does it say that they are unable to support Android "This device" playback. Basically, they just can't be bothered. The bit about the unreliability of "This device" playback is embarrassing and laughable given their decision to embrace Bluetooth!