Sonos app update disaster recovery game plan

I thought perhaps I am outlier: a single disgruntled user.  But I see now, even the New York Times advises avoiding the App.  The actual recommendation is do not update.  To late in my case.

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/sonos-player/

I note that Sonos keeps issuing updates to its fundamentally flawed app overhaul, but none of the updates has resolved any of its major failings, such as:

•the app’s inability to find any of the playlists created using the previous version;

•the absence of an option to create new playlists; 

•the absence of an option to save a song queue as a new playlist; and

•a Sonos favourites option that creates an archive of favourites that cannot be played as a list.

What is the point of issuing updates that do not address these fundamental flaws?

It is a question asked by the greatest philosophers of our time. It may be that, like the mysteries of the deep universe, it is simply beyond our earthly understanding.

By now, the odds of Sonos fixing any of the major flaws in its new app are slim and none.

The company apparently does not care that users cannot retrieve all the playlists lost when they trusted Sonos hype and updated to the Black Sonos app. Neither does its IT brain trust appear to think it is important for users to be able to create new playlists with Black Sonos.

So, it is time to enter the Sonos departure lounge and switch to reliable alternatives.

Aside from investing in Apple HomePod technology, what are some of the best Sonos options?

Some people have so little patience these days.

I get it’s frustrating, but to just jack it all in?

Good point on impatience. Too much of it today, yes. Too hair-triggered, too often. My impatience is impatience with incompetence and the lack of corporate accountability to address that incompetence. 

Sonos continues to push users to update to its new software even though anyone who updates will lose his or her inventory of playlists compiled over the past few years. The absence of any option to create new playlists is another fundamental flaw/shortcoming that has yet to be addressed in any of the subsequent Sonos updates. So, impatience, yes, but sometimes impatience is warranted. Especially considering the investment in Sonos hardware and the trust invested in its IT competence that its customers have made. Both of which now seem bad investment bets with devalued future returns.  

Not sure playlists have disappeared. They should be there on the Windows or Mac desktop apps, they’re just not showing up currently for some people in the app. I’ve not lost access to any of my playlists since the app update.

Good point about today’s impatience acceleration. Too often emotional fuses are too short on too many fronts; might be the result of social media-induced attention span erosion. But impatience here is impatience with incompetence combined with a dearth of corporate  accountability in the wake of a premature release of a software update that devalues the usability of expensive hardware. Add to this Sonos’ ongoing push for customers to update their software to the new and fundamentally flawed update. An update, by the way, that still severs users from all the Sonos playlists they have carefully compiled over the past few years and provides no way for those users to even create new playlists.

Also, there is no sign from the Sonos IT brain trust that those fixes will be coming anytime soon – if at all.

When investing an hour or two waiting online or on-phone for Sonos IT help that provides no answers or any details of when Sonos solutions might be available, then, yes, patience is tested.

Sonos maintains and updates information on the app and the coming fixes here:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/the-new-sonos-app-and-future-feature-updates 

Apologies for the repeat on the impatience response. The Sonos forum is often slow to update.

Happy for you that you have not lost access to your playlists. I am not so lucky. And there are no answers from Sonos or anywhere else why I, and a lot of other Sonos users, are not so lucky. We should not be spending our time trying to determine what is behind our bad luck. And luck should not be a factor in the use of what should be reliable technology.