Enthusiast I

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

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
April 9, 2023
144 replies
24857 views

Since the 15.2 release there is quite a few songs that display this error when trying to play them. These seem to be mainly songs that are not lossless. They were purchased over time from Apple Music. They will still play if I use the Apple Music app, but they will no longer play from Sonos app. I suspect some lossy codex broke with latest release. Occurs with all my Sonos products.

Is this a known issue?

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

Pinned Reply By Corry P

Hi @The Etron

Thank you for reporting the issue with TuneIn Podcasts - we were able to replicate the problem and are now investigating.

For everyone else, please note that there are multiple reasons for the “not encoded correctly” error occurring:

Apple Music used to (years ago) provide music tracks with Digital Rights Management (DRM), which results in Sonos being unable to play them. Re-downloading those specific tracks would be the only way to fix this. Other sources may have done the same.
Failed WiFi transmissions can also cause this error. Our support team can identify if/where this is happening and assist.
Actual errors in the files themselves can also cause this error - if this is the case, the same files will produce the error each time, and probably at the same point. Again, replacing the files will be the only way to resolve. Most likely to be seen with Music Library rather than with music services.

I recommend each of you get in touch with our technical support team who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports.

I hope this helps.

Edit: I should add that if there were an issue with our software rather than encoding/transmission issues, we would also need to you get in touch to have the issue documented and investigated.

Show previous replies

B

Brainiac

Enthusiast I

An update…. right after I sent the last post, I received an email from Sonos Support requesting a callback as this issue has been escalated. That’s happening on this Thursday. Hopefully this will help them make progress.

E

elgigi

Lyricist I

Having the same issue as all of the above posts. Just got all my Apple Music setup, then connected to the Sonos App and it looks like only about 5% of songs are playable. We have one Symphonisk Table Lamp. Really disappointing, and I hope Sonos comes up with a fix as this was the entire reason we got the lamp/speaker in the first place.

B

Brainiac

Enthusiast I

When I spoke with escalated Sonos support last week, and we went through some testing scenarios where they could view diagnostics, they did acknowledge that there is apparently a problem with playing uploaded/matched songs from Apple Music to AirPlay-enabled Sonos speakers from within the Sonos app (this music plays fine on non-AirPlay Sonos speakers). I thought I had made this clear to the first Sonos support rep I spoke with; i.e., that this only happens on AirPlay-enabled speakers, but apparently that fact wasn’t noted. This new rep I spoke with last week did acknowledge this. So Sonos knows about it. Hopefully they are working on a fix. It’s possible that something Apple changed is causing this problem. If this turns out to be true, then it’s still on Sonos to handle it since the problem is with how this music doesn’t play on AirPlay-enabled Sonos speakers.

O

onewayoflife

Lyricist I

I have nothing much to add, except to say that I’m experiencing the same issue since a recent update, and I think like others also have iTunes Match - though I hadn’t clocked which specific songs are affected, other than it being seemingly random songs from my Apple Music library rather than other music streamed from the wider Apple Music.

Thanks everyone for sharing all the updates.

K

kumasanx

Contributor I

I reported the same thing to Sonos, and opened a topic in Ask A Question, to no response. Happened immediately upon updating to 15.2. Songs that had been playing moments before no longer worked. i eventually converted files to lossless...not lossless for my time! Still get the error occasionally.

Chopdog

Renowned Enthusiast I

Still a problem with 15.3

It’s very frustrating. It’s a problem with music I’ve bought on iTunes because it’s not on Apple Music - and doesn’t play in Apple Music as Lossless…. (another frustration for another day).

R

runaway_hedgehog

Contributor I

Also experiencing this- horrible. Sonos please fix.

E

elgigi

Lyricist I

This may or may not apply to other users, but we’ve managed a “work-around” by not using the Sonos App at all, and just playing our Apple Music from the Music App using the Airplay button. You can select the Sonos speaker using Airplay and it plays all our Apple Music, even the ones that Sonos refused to play.