Unable to play song ‘song’ - the song is not encoded correctly. Issue since 15.2

The recent update seemed to improve the streaming consistency 

I thought the problem had been resolved and removed the older Play 3. Went to play Amerca’s Greats Hits History, and it skipped the first song and gave the encoding error message. I plugged the old Play 3 back in, had that play the album as the lead and grouped the other speakers and it played fine. THE PROBLEM STILL EXISTS. 

Still exists

FWIW, my Sonos devices are connected via wired ethernet (including disabling wifi on the devices) and the encoding error still occurs. I can confirm this is NOT a networking problem as there were no issues last year with the exact same playlists on the exact same network that no longer play.

As an example, a holiday playlist that is based off of iTunes Match songs that has worked on Sonos for as long as I can remember (since at least 2019 when I purchased the Sonos port to replace my Sonos Connect where it worked for years before). Now the same Sonos port can’t play the playlist displaying the ‘song is not encoded correctly’ error.

Maybe DRM is the issue on iTunes Match files? DRM is mentioned above, however this should be a pretty straightforward scenario for Sonos to diagnose - what changed that caused DRM’d files to no longer be playable that used to play on the exact same hardware?

A change on Apple’s server that feeds your Sonos the music data?

All of a sudden this week , the Radio Station (Talk Radio) started sending error messages Music not encoded properly. Unable to listen to the radio. Radio station is WSB 95 in Atlanta, 97.5. What happened? 

Have you rebooted both your speaker and router? What service are you using to reach this station? 

I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it.

There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your network and Sonos system.

Thanks @Airgetlam for the reply! It is always possible something changed on Apple’s side. 

I tested @CambridgeZach’s method and can confirm the following:
1. On a Gen 1 Beam Soundbar, playing the holiday playlist fails with the encoding error. Same on my Sonos port, Arc, beam gen 1, and current gen amp.
2. On a Play:1 A200, playing the holiday playlist plays without error.
3. Group the A200 with the Beam Soundbar prior to starting playback, the playlist plays without error.

Next, I tested removing the A200 partway into playing the song.

Here is the setup: Group the A200 with the Beam Soundbar prior to playing, start the first song (starts playing on both devices), remove the A200, then test the scenario.

A- Perform setup, then let the track finish playing (tested with a 3min 31s song) - it completes without error. Subsequent tracks play successfully (listened to the next 10 songs or so).

B- Perform setup, then skip to next song - playback fails with the encoding error as well as subsequent tracks.

C- Perform setup, then advance the playback slider (same behavior whether it is 3s or 1min+) - playback fails to resume with the encoding error.

D- Perform setup, then hit pause, wait 5s, hit play. Playback continues and subsequent songs play as well. Same multi-song test as above, tested another 5 or so.
 

I verified that scenario A,B,C, and D with an A200 being in the group with the Gen 1 Soundbar resulted in successful playback/navigation without any issues.

Tagging @Corry P here as FYI; perhaps it is as simple as a specific encoding is requested when an A200 is in a room group? Certain user interactions cause the stream to be restarted, and when that happens without the A200 in the group an encoding is requested that is not available/invalid from Apple Music for that song?

The music I am listening to in this playlist comes from content that was uploaded as part of iTunes Match and is not available in the Apple Music Store.

Build is 75145120.

At least I have a workaround for the holidays. It was driving my family nuts that every time I left the house with my phone airplay would disconnect and the holiday music would stop.

I’ll update to the latest version and go through the process of running all these scenarios within 10 minutes and then submitting diagnostics and following up with support to share that detail in addition to the above repro.

Thanks!

Thanks @torsion13 for documenting the issue. 

Frustrating this still hasn’t been fixed, I remember speaking to CS nearly a year ago about the encoding issues. 

For me it’s all purchased music, if I get something from Apple Music via the subscription it always plays fine, if I bought a track from the iTunes store it’s unplayable, and this is consistent.

A track only becomes playable if it transitions from a purchase only to being available via the subscription, in which case it’ll start to work.

Not sure exactly how to fix this as it’s clearly not just a Sonos issue, as my car can’t play purchased tracks either.