Include Contributing Artists field in search!
I use both Artist and Album Artist tags frequently for my tracks. Sonos desktop controller (other controllers probably do the same) shows Artist in the information screen for the track, but when I select Artist Info->View Tracks by This Artist, the controller does not match anything. This is because Sonos interprets Album Artist (when it's not empty) tag as Artist, and the actual Artist appears only as Contributing Artist (if enabled in the controller's settings), but the search functions does not include the Contributing Artist field. Very inconvenient. Please, add Contributing Artist field in the Search function!
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Userlevel 2
I agree this would be really useful update. I have my music library set to 'Group albums using albumartist' which filters out all artists on compilation albums (as I have the albumartist set to the name of the album on compilation albums). The result of this is that I cannot search for an artist on a compilation album, only the name of the compilation album. Being able to search by artist even though my music library is grouped by albumartist would get around this.
This is a definite must have - can't believe it's not already there!
FYI - Andronos from the Google Marketplace does allow you to search Contributing Artists. Whilst overall the app is not quite as good as the official one, I use it at parties so people can search Compilation Albums properly. It also have an iTunes-like coverflow feature if that sort of thing interests you. It's free, with an option to donate if you wish. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.contix.android&feature=search_result#?t=W10
I find it unbelievable that such an essential feature should not be available from the beginning, and it escapes me why it does not find more followers. Probably no one is listening to own music anymore, and everybody is just using spotify & Co.
Userlevel 2
This is easily my number one priority for Sonos to fix. About a third of my library consists of compilation albums and with the album artist populated for these (as Various Artists) and group by Album Artist turned on around 4000 out of 12000 tracks cannot be searched by artist. I love the Sonos system but this is a terrible oversight that really should be given high priority. The above was more of an issue for me when I had the Album Artist populated with "Various Artists" for multi-artist compilations. When I upgraded to iTunes 11 I found that I too was only able to search for Album Artist in this program also. I was able to 'fix' the search in iTunes by changing the album artist for all compilations to blank. (All of my compilations have had the Compilation option ticked for a long time). The search now works correctly in iTunes and also in Sonos providing I do not group by Album Artist. With group by Album Artist turned off however my artists list contains the artists on my compilations. In many ways I would prefer compilation artists to only appear under the "Contributing Artists" list but Sonos needs to search both "Contributing Artists" and "(Album) Artists" when searching by artist. Has anyone else experienced the issues surrounding tagging of compilations since the upgrade to iTunes 11? I can group by the iTunes compilation flag on Sonos and this puts the compilation artists under "Contributing Artists". Unfortunately however it is not possible to search by "Contributing Artist" in Sonos. Until this issue is solved I will continue to not group compilations in Sonos so that the artist search function works for both single artist albums and multi-artist compilation albums. I will continue to leave the Album Artist blank for multi-artist compilations in iTunes too. This approach however, makes it harder to scroll through my artists list for album artists as the volume of compilation artists greatly outweighs the volume of album artists in my music collection. Does anyone at Sonos have a library with a very high percentage of multi-artist compilation albums? If so, they should highlight the seriousness of this issue to higher management. I really do hope the handling of multi-artist compilations in both iTunes and Sonos is improved soon. At the moment it all feels rather broken in my opinion, in both Sonos and iTunes. Please can we have an official response from Sonos on this matter?
Totally agree, number one issue for me. I have a lot of various artist albums. Please fix. The user experience would be so much better with this one issue fixed!
Same here. I miss this feature for the last 6 years! It is a big big gap in the featurelist and in my opinion a must have in the system. I adressed it several times in the last years, but nothing happens. I do not understand, why it is not available and Sonos only focus on the online-systems and not on all (old) users, who use Sonos with a local database.
I've had my Sonos for a day now and I've been trying to find out what was wrong with the search since I couldnt find a lot of my music. I was shocked to find out that this isnt possible. Also I'm puzzled why this hasnt raised more noise amongst the users. This is a really big thing to me.
This really needs to be fixed. Nearly 50% (6000) tracks in my library are from various artist compilations. It is ridiculous that I cannot access these 6000 tracks by performing an artist search. It is such a pain to scroll through my huge "contributing artists" list to find what I am looking for. It should just work. It should group the results into two sections. The first section should show the albums by the specified artist. The second section should show the various artist compilation albums that feature the specified artist. In this view selecting the compilation album should just show the track(s) on the compilation by the searched artist. I shouldn't have to use my iPad (with iTunes Match enabled) to find out which compilations feature an artist that I am looking for. This is a major flaw with search and I can't believe more people haven't complained about this. I can only assume Sonos do not test their system with various artist compilations!!! Please fix Sonos. This is almost as ridiculous as no DTS support for the play bar. (I'm one of the thousands of users that will only consider a PlayBar if DTS is added)
Also consider voting on this related topic.
"Please could you create a KB article that explains exactly how to get compilation albums to work correctly for display and search"
https://ask.sonos.com/sonos/topics/_how_to_article_required_for_compilation_albums
"Please could you create a KB article that explains exactly how to get compilation albums to work correctly for display and search"
https://ask.sonos.com/sonos/topics/_how_to_article_required_for_compilation_albums
This really needs to be fixed. Nearly 50% (6000) tracks in my library are from various artist compilations. It is ridiculous that I cannot access these 6000 tracks by performing an artist search. It is such a pain to scroll through my huge "contributing artists" list to find what I am looking for. It should just work. It should group the results into two sections. The first section should show the albums by the specified artist. The second section should show the various artist compilation albums that feature the specified artist. In this view selecting the compilation album should just show the track(s) on the compilation by the searched artist. I shouldn't have to use my iPad (with iTunes Match enabled) to find out which compilations feature an artist that I am looking forward. This is a major flaw with search and I can't believe more people haven't complained about this. I can only assume Sonos do not test their system with various artist compilations!!! Please fix Sonos. This is almost as ridiculous as no DTS support for the play bar. (I'm one of the thousands of users that will only consider a PlayBar if DTS is added)
Please fix this major issue in the new Version 5.0 controller that is currently in beta. I think a substantial redesign may be required to support multi-artist compilations properly but it really does need to be sorted. There isn't a single indexing mode available that works as required for both grouping compilations and albums by album artist. Not being able to search the contributing artists view is a major flaw in an otherwise fantastic system. Being a developer I wish I could just walk into Sonos and help them fix this major flaw. I know that such an issue would not get signed-off by the testers in the IT department that I work in. Please can we have some aknowledgment from Sonos that although online services are getting very popular that doesn't mean that the issues with local based music should be ignored. The same issues apply to 'multi-artist compilations' in the Amazon Cloud Player and I suspect other online services too. Sonos need to look at the big picture surrounding multiple-artist compilations and come up with a consistent solution for both local music and online services.
In the public beta 5.0 the term "Universal Search" has been coined. For the time being this terminology is greatly exaggerated, for the term "universal" in my mind implies that the user can search in the category 'contributing artists' - which sadly isn't the case. If the user even isn't permitted to search his local music collection, why then use the term "Universal Search"?
Horrible! +1
Are there any official statements to this? As usually, I couldn't find out if thats on the list to be fixed or if it's technically not possible, so we don't have to wait and discuss. I dislike this situation.
Well, having a party without this "feature" (or better, with this bug) is no fun. It annoys me for years.
I'm disappointed by Sonos. This and other basic "features" are postponed for years, and development goes into another direction. Sonos started great but failed to get rid of basic problems, and is now focussing on streaming services or new design. Maybe it's us old guys using a file to play music from that do not fit with Sonos anymore.
Are there any official statements to this? As usually, I couldn't find out if thats on the list to be fixed or if it's technically not possible, so we don't have to wait and discuss. I dislike this situation.
Well, having a party without this "feature" (or better, with this bug) is no fun. It annoys me for years.
I'm disappointed by Sonos. This and other basic "features" are postponed for years, and development goes into another direction. Sonos started great but failed to get rid of basic problems, and is now focussing on streaming services or new design. Maybe it's us old guys using a file to play music from that do not fit with Sonos anymore.
I do not understand, why it is not available and Sonos only focus on the online-systems and not on all (old) users, who use Sonos with a local database.
I missed the search (or better universal search, wich lists artists and contribution artists) for year, as well the browsing/jumping via artists/contributing artists via i-Feature, e.g. list all songs from (contributing) artist, ...
I don't think, that this is impossible and a basic function of other music software, ...
I missed the search (or better universal search, wich lists artists and contribution artists) for year, as well the browsing/jumping via artists/contributing artists via i-Feature, e.g. list all songs from (contributing) artist, ...
I don't think, that this is impossible and a basic function of other music software, ...
New Version, same problem. Years over years over years.
I agree, it's disappointing.. There have been made no additional features for the whole media library function for years. The missing search for con.artist is one of the most arguing things...
+1 I am a new user and thought it strange I couldn't find an artist i could swear was in my library. Now I know where it went. Please fix.
New Sonos user. Agreed with all the comments above. This should not be complicated.
Surely this is getting embarrassing for Sonos now. In addition to Andronos on Android, the 3rd party iPad app Sonopad has also recently been updated to include Contributing Artists when searching the local library. C'mon Sonos. Pull your finger out on this! With your resources, how hard can it be, when two separate third party indie developers have already cracked it.
This is really fantastic. I just tried SonoPad and SonoPhone. In both Apps on iPhone and iPad, the search for contributing artists works like a charm and it is unbelievable, that Sonos is – after years over years – not ready for this basic feature here.
I've just tried SonoPad tonight and the Contributing Artists search is fantastic. My music library contains approximately 700 album artists but well over 3000 contributing artists. I can finally search for all of these 'lost' artists (and tracks) but I shouldn't have to use a third party controller to do this. If SonoPad can do it why can't the official Sonos controller? This really should have been fixed when the universal search function was implemented. I agree that it's unbelievable that this basic feature has been missing all these years and still hasn't been implemented. Please Sonos, sort it out and don't try to blame it on tagging!!!
+1
what's the status on this feature request? Still not fixed I think in the software...? All the links to ask.sonos.com are dead as well...
The post you responded to was 4 years old, and from the old Sonos forum, which is why those links don't work.
Given that there's not been any action on the request, I'd assume it's pretty low on their list of things that need to be worked on. That being said, it could be released with the next software release. Sonos chooses not to share their roadmap with us.
Given that there's not been any action on the request, I'd assume it's pretty low on their list of things that need to be worked on. That being said, it could be released with the next software release. Sonos chooses not to share their roadmap with us.
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