Contributor I

Answered

Unable to play X - and the song is not encoded correctly

101 replies
17194 views

I was getting this error from time to time, but now I'm getting it on 3/4 of songs... Seems random, as sometimes a song that was working fine would refuse to play and start showing this error (or vice versa).

My music source is YouTube Music. I've tried rebooting the speaker, reinstalling te app, rebooting the Wi-Fi router, etc. Also tried using an ethernet cable instead of Wi-Fi. Nothing seems to work.

Diagnostic number : 1167656549

Screenshot :

Thanks in advance!

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Annazel SAnswer

Retired Sonos Staff

Hi @kubulozaurus.rex.

Thanks for your response and update.

Upon checking the diagnostic report, errors that we observed on the initial diagnostic are still showing and the Android controller’s WiFi connection is ‘unknown’.

We appreciate the time and effort you've spent troubleshooting with us, but at this point, it would be best to reach out to Sonos Support so we can take a closer look at this in real-time and expedite the process. I suggest our phone team for they have more resources available on their system for advanced troubleshooting, and the tools our agents can use would be very useful in this case, there can be an advantage if they need to remote into the controller to see what's going on.

If you have any questions, please feel free to let us know.

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Show previous replies

I

icr8stf

Lyricist II

I get it as well, but with the following services.

Sonos Radio - Seems more odd that this is in the list here.
Amazon music

P

PAstork

I continue to have the same issue as others. Just within the past few months, my Sonos has begun skipping songs in the middle of play and moving onto the next song. This happens whether I am playing any playlist or if I am playing a full album either from my own library or Apple Music. I receive a message that Sonos is Unable to play due to an ENCODING error. I have tried all off the suggestions mentioned including power off and on, removing both the Apple Music App and the Sonos app and reloading them. Nothing seems to work. Any suggestions?

Airgetlam

What did Sonos say, when you submitted a diagnostic after one of these events, and contacted them?

Bruce

Ken_Griffiths

The issue I have (sounds like it is similar to others on this thread) is that playlists or songs from Amazon that I saved a while ago are now not playing and have an error saying the song isn't encoded correctly. Current playlists will play. Seems maybe the playlist points to a file that has been changed on Amazon. Really could do with a quick way to re add songs to playlists in order to get the 'new' song location. Or for it to be fixed within Sonos or Amazon. I've also tried re-adding Amazon music in the app, but without success. Songs in the playlists that are saved locally still play, it just skips any that are streamed from Amazon.

FWIW, this is what I tend to do to help get around the issue you mention…

I just create playlists in the Amazon ‘native’ App and I edit/changes them in that App, they all feed through to the AM Service in the Sonos App and from there, I save some of the playlists to the ‘My Sonos’ Tab - if things change at Amazon, then they ‘may’ show (sometimes) in the Amazon playlists in their native App and I quickly edit (remove/re-add) and then all is updated in the Sonos App automatically and continues to work.

Maybe give that suggestion a try and see if it helps.

Kwiss

Contributor I

I get this with the BBC 1XTRA shows. I can play the shows fine with the separate BBC Sounds app, but not with Sonos. The workaround is to play the sound to my Sonos Roam speaker with Bluetooth and then use the Sonos app to play the show on both the Roam and my Play:1 speaker.

H

Hopkinsag1

Lyricist I

This same issue has just recently started happening for me. YouTube Music and Apple Music.

F

fenster44

Contributor I

Having the same problem, mostly with Sirius XM, but sometimes with Apple Music. Music stops randomly, I wait a couple minutes, and then everything works again. Happening more frequently now than before.

Airgetlam

In most cases, this is due to some type of wifi interference . It may not be much, but occurs at the moment the Sonos system is reaching out to grab the ‘definition’ of the file, and start the streaming process. Note that it’s entirely possible for the source of this interference to be outside of your network, and WiFi and SonosNet signals are subject to other radio signals.

The only 100% certain way to know, however, is to submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it. But even then, Sonos, looking at the hard data, would only be able to confirm that it is interference, without necessarily being able to tell the source.

But 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 Sonos system and network.

Bruce

S

Simon_96

Contributor I

The way I interpret that is the issue is on YouTube’s end, and the Sonos engineers, while helping the YouTube engineers, don’t know exactly when YouTube will release a fix to the YouTube Music servers.

I wish that were true but I've been having this same problem while streaming Sonos Radio HD, which I think we can agree is unlikely to be a problem with the source. I still believe that all problems with tracks skipping, stopping, etc all come back to wireless connectivity and Sonos doesn't offer a robust set of tools within its app to help users diagnose and solve these issues.

Airgetlam

Certainly Sonos provides essentially no tools for us to use at a local level. However, they do provide a method to submit a diagnostic from our systems, and a customer support group to call in to and have them interpret the data.

Sadly, not all Sonos Radio HD comes off of Sonos servers.

Bruce

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