Sonos and Mac OS 10.15 Catalina

Following the above conversations has anyone had any problems with album artwork not displaying correctly in the the Sonos desktop controller after updating the music share?

Alex, if you are using macOS Catalina then the music library folder structure has changed, like /Music/Media

in macOS Catalina the Music App will not automatically generate the xml file - look in File → Library → Export Library and save the xml file - then update your SONOS library again - you should find all your music, except the playlists (see also this thread)

Did you have any problems with Album Artwork or Sonos permissions in Catalina when you updated or did everything work normally as it should? Thanks.

All worked fine and Artwork is shown in the SONOS App. However, lately I have experienced issues with Album Artwork of songs that I purchased on the iTunes store. I am still investigating if this is due to the fact that songs may not be downloaded automatically onto my MacBook and as such an Apple Music issue or a synchronisation issue with the SONOS App.

Thanks, please post your results when you have them.

Thinking about your recent problem el Rubio I had a similar problem when using  iTunes when album Artwork showed in iTunes but not on some songs in playlists on the Sonos desktop app, it solved the problem when I selected the corresponding album in iTunes and selected the artwork in properties by clicking on it. I then double clicked on the artwork having selected it. Then went back to the Sonos desktop app and updated the share. Problem solved. Hopefully it’s the same problem as you have.

Hi, I confirm I have the same problem and use the same workaround for the time being. Songs that I buy from Amazon are in mp3 format and have the Artwork embedded. I assume that the songs I buy from the iTunes store in m4a format use a cache memory and do not have embedded metadata with JPG or PNG album art, so it must be done manually.

I have an external disk with my music library on to which Sonos connects to, this is a network enabled device so I do not need my Mac switched on for Sonos to access my music library.  As with so many I also had issues with not seeing playlists in the Sonos app.  Here is my work around:

Sonos music library folder is listed as  <external drive name >/Music

This contains a folder ‘iTunes Media’ containing all the iTunes/Music files.

In the Apple Music app on my Mac I export my Library to the file iTunes Music Library.xml in the <external drive name >/Music folder.    Do this in Apple Music by File - Library - Export Library.  This generates an XML file that Sonos can read and contains all the playlists.  For a library of about 5000 tunes this took just a few seconds.

In the Sonos app perform an ‘Update Music Index Now’.

You should now see all your playlists as you see on the Mac.

If you change your playlists in Apple Music on the Mac then the iTunes Music Library.xml file has to be regenerated and the Sonos index updated.

I hope this of some help but it is disappointing that the Sonos-Apple interface is so sensitive to configurations that are slightly different from the norm.

Roger

Hi

I have read this entire thread, and followed all the steps to get this working but still no joy on the playlist front. I keep my music on the Mac, but copy it all to my NAS via a Sync Task so that I can access my music via Sonos when the Mac isn’t switched on. This also means I have a backup of my media should I replace the Mac or it have any issues that mean I can’t access the files on it.

To try and get this working, I did the following:

In the Music app, I set the folder for my library to the default value, i.e. /Macintosh HD/Users/Martin/Music/Media, with ‘Keep Music Media folder organised’ ticked.

I deleted all the music from my library, and then re-imported it all so that it would be placed in the new ‘default’ location.

I deleted the music library from my Sonos app.

I granted the Sonos application Full Disk Access

I added a temporary folder with some music in from my Mac HD, which allowed me to also grant Full Disk Access to SonosLibraryFolder (as am unable to add or remove anything via Privacy>Files and Folders), though both have Full Disk Access in there as well. I then removed that Music Library.

I then granted the account granted to the NAS music share read/write access (previously had read only).

I added the folder iTunes under /Macintosh HD/Users/Martin/Music/, i.e. /Macintosh HD/Users/Martin/Music/iTunes

I created the correct folder structure (including iTunes folder) on the NAS share, and then sync’d the music library onto the NAS, so my structure on the NAS is now:
\NAS\Share\Music\Media\ (All Music is under here, by artist folders)
\NAS\Share\iTunes\

If I add my local music folder as the music source, and let it index, the Xml file is created without issue.

If I then remove the library and re-add using the NAS share with the credentials that have read/write access, the Xml file isn’t generated. If I copy the Xml file to the iTunes folder on my NAS, there are imported playlists present but they aren’t the ones in my library.

I’m obviously missing something - I thought by granting disk access and recreating my library from scratch would work, there is a step I must have missed?

It’s worked fine except I didn’t have my playlists, but thought as it appeared to be fixed, it was worth trying to get it working, but sadly still isn’t.

Any help or advice as to where I’ve gone wrong gratefully received

Regards

Martin