SONOS are you reading this? Please put the controller queue function back how it was!

  • 12 September 2016
  • 353 replies
  • 15976 views

Userlevel 4
Badge
I've downloaded version 6.4 of the app. What a mistake. To anyone who is about to do it, DON'T DO IT IF YOU LIKE YOUR QUEUE.

Sonos please put it back how it was. This new app is so awful I am considering selling my entire Sonos rig (6 pieces!) and walking away from you, after what was until this week, many happy years.

Touching on a track because I want to play it, or add it to the queue (the queue that I DID WANT), does not mean I want to delete the whole queue and replace it with the entire album (which I DON'T WANT) which the newly added track comes from.

If I wanted to delete my queue, I would delete it. If I wanted to add the whole album, I would add it using the play all function.

You've just taken something intuitive and user friendly which worked so well and turned it into a worse than hateful mess.

PLEASE UNDO THIS AWFUL, HORRIBLE CHANGE.

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.

353 replies

Userlevel 4
Badge
It's a shocking, ill conceived mess of a feature. It took me nearly an hour to get through to speak to Sonos customer support (presumably because every other person who's bought Sonos) was also on hold to ask how to fix it. Their reply: the App upgrade can't be reversed when you've done it, so all you can do is post about it in the community, as I've done herewith, in the hope that Sonos listen (before they alienate all of their customer base). So people, if you want the current cr@p undone and put back to how it was before when it was good, the only chance is for all of us to post our objections here in the community and use people power to persuade Sonos that if it ain't broke (which it wasn't), don't try to mess about and fix it for the sake of it. Over to you fellow Sonos users, if you hate this update and hate losing your queues for no reason, shout long and loud on here and get your friends to do the same. It seems to be our only chance!
Userlevel 5
Badge +7
I can confirm that the intent was to make playing music easier and perhaps more familiar for those used to some of the most popular music playing software out there.

Very interesting to here that confirmed by a Sonos rep as many have suspected that the company may have been trying to align with the queuing approach of some other popular suspects. I am a bit put off by that because I do find it inconsistent with the "You are better than this" message. Sonos was "better than that" and decided to join the crowd. It was one of the areas that I thought Sonos was a step above.

For example I still cannot understand how a one tap on a song could warrant adding an entire album including songs before the one I tapped. Don't get me wrong there are things I like. I like the ability to tap on the play button on a playlist or album tile and it starts immediately. I would prefer if it just added it to the end of the queue and started playing immediately however.
Userlevel 1
Badge
Ryan S:

Do you even comprehend why long time users are upset with a FUNDAMENTAL change in the operation of Sonos? I have been a Sonos user since 2007. Some updates have been frustrating, but this one is downright infuriating. I hove not been around the forums since you castrated the old Sonos forum, but for years on the old forum we would tout the superiority of the Sonos queue over other systems. Now, after many years of loyalty and promotion of Sonos you go ahead and make a change that goes against everything we have been promoting for you.

The worst thing is that I did not have a choice in this update. I just brought a Sonos unit out of storage and was forced to update the app before I could update the player.

Please add the ability to disable the touch to play feature.
Well it is no secret that the queue has been a thorn in the side of a very vocal, if not very large contingent of Sonos users. It started with diehard iTunes users, who were used to the "select a song and play from here" function of the first iPod, and continuing with the apps that mimicked the iPod interface because it was ubiquitous, as much as it was limited. I personally felt liberated when I first used a Sonos queue. Still having an iPod for use in the car, I would curse at the dashboard because I couldn't insert a song I wanted to hear into a playlist without deleting the current playlist and playing the rest of the album that song was on. I've said it before, going to the Sonos queue after using an iPod was like driving with my feet on the steering wheel for years and then learning you could steer with your hands. This update defaults to my feet on the steering wheel again, and I hate it.
Userlevel 1
Oh sweet mother of jesus, I thought this was a glitch that would be fixed with a consequent update. You are telling me Sonos did this ON PURPOSE???

What the actual?

So now, when my daughter puts one of her songs on, my entire queue is replaced with that album????? She is 6. We do not share music tastes.

And I spend a while curating my queues.

This is awful!! And frankly enough for me to sell my players and switch to another system if it's not fixed!

Especially if you have a queue set up for a party, then someone puts their one track they want to hear on and replaces your ENTIRE QUEUE with that album!! People who don't know sonos will do this everytime. It is so counterintuitive. This exact scenario happened to me last night.

God, this is frustrating SONOS. Please fix it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I never showed people how to use Sonos. Ever. I handed them a controller and let them go. Little kids to my 80 year old mom. All got it intuitively, all added a song for a party, and not one of them erased a queue. It did exactly what they expected, they picked a song to be played after the songs picked before yours are played. If you go from an intuitive interface to one you have to explain in order to not do something irreversible and unrecoverable, your UI needs work.

And stop with the save the queue thing. Are you saying not only do I have to hold a pre-party class to teach every guest to do what used to be intuitive, I now have to have them save their work after adding their track in case someone else fails the pop quiz?
Good to see people signing up to share their views on this ridiculous update - don't forget to add your reviews to the iOS App Store.

Come on Sonos, it is about time we had a response to see if you are listening to us.
Userlevel 1
Badge +1
Sonos, I was wondering if your next update please could be one where everything is exactly the same as in the last update. In fact, if you could do that for all future updates, at least for the next year or so, that would be awesome. Thanks.
Someone else mentioned this, and I think it is a key point. Apps like Spotify, Deezer, iTunes etc are generally used by individuals. The Sonos app is much more likely to be used by a group of people. I think shared queues and personal queues are different beasts and should be treated differently. So I think that Sonos makes a mistake by trying to make its shared queues work like individual queues in other apps.
I can confirm that the intent was to make playing music easier and perhaps more familiar for those used to some of the most popular music playing software out there.

I think that may be the problem. "Those used to some of the most popular music playing software out there" are listening to music on their phone using ear buds. They are not "Listening Out Loud".
Userlevel 1
I have been a user of Sonos since the very beginning, and have 14 base units in 3 houses and have passed the bug onto several friends. I have lived through the highs and lows of updates over the years. I use the system heavily. When my buds come over for parties we all add to the playlist on our phones and enjoy an incredible jukebox experience unavailable on any other platform.

End then this update came along. I can't imagine in what world anybody would find it a useful feature to kill the playlist constantly. Even scrolling through albums you can easily unintentionally replace your entire playlist with some random album. Not enough to just budge in and play the song immediately, but to replace the playlist, and even plug the entire album in place? I am without words, ok maybe a few words.

Please fix this. Can I suggest if someone at Sonos really wants to keep this feature, make it a choice in settings to choose "kill playlist" feature as an option but don't force it on the user. My last party was a gong show with everyone yelling "what the hell did you do" at each other thinking we're all killing each others playlists.

Having said that, this feature aside, I love the work you guys at Sonos have done over the years.
Userlevel 7
Badge +17
be aware that sonos havent trashed anything (aside from the strange insert at track 2). The functions that existed before still exist.

However, it is the way this changed is forced on all users I take issue with.

Its clear there is one camp who are happy with the new changes as enables them to more easily play albums and playlists in their entirety and not even be aware of the queue. The other prefer to work with a more 'sticky' queue that can be easily manipulated and added to as in 6.3 and everything before it.
Moving the 'album and playlist' play functions centre stage comes at the expense of the previous 'jukebox' style queueing options being buried deeper.

This is really a case for a configuration option to have the new way or the old and, since this entirely controller based, I can see no reason why it cant be done.
I signed on to the Sonos community for the first time today just to make this point… Please undo the new Play Now feature in 6.4 which kills the great functionality of the original queue. That flexible and social queue was what made Sonos stand out as a music system.
Userlevel 2
I'm still actively resisting 6.4 on all my devices except the one I accidentally updated (Keeping this device away from guests as even I am nervous to accidentally mess up the queue). Having tried out the 6.4 functionality on the updated devices since the update I'm more convinced than ever that this move has created a fundamental flaw in the app. The Sonos queue should be held sacred - trying to emulate the queue systems of music apps like Spotify and Apple Music is a misdirected effort based on false analogy. I echo previous sentiments and hope the good people at Sonos have the humility to rectify this mistake.
I think Ryan's real answer (but can't say) is - the team f@cked up with this release and didn't listen to the beta testers. I would pass on this feedback to the team but they probably won't listen. We've recently jumped into bed with Apple and Spotify so are going to change our unique selling point (the awesome queue) to behave just like their mundane players.

Sort it out Sonos and let us know when you are going to sort this mess out. Stop giving us a load of waffle trying to cover your tracks.
Please get this sorted it is doing my head in. I'm not the only one in my group of friends. We all hate it. The sooner this is sorted the better. Hope your listening Sonos.
Sonos have been quiet on this over the last few days so hopefully they are seeing sense as they have pi55ed off a lot of loyal long term customers.
Thanks for all the feedback everyone. We've been reading all your comments and are passing them on to the team, so thanks again for sharing.

We know there are some huge changes here and will continue to be listening for the future.

One glaring "huge" change is that you appear to have rushed a beta release into production knowing that it broke things for existing customers.

ie. abrupt termination of currently playing tracks, due non-intuitive tap exposures
and unwanted queue destruction due to the UI making incorrect guesses about what I want
and the replaying of the old queue, when I just asked to play something new

It is seems to be generously assumed here that you will complete your new options, which I am sure have been welcomed by many, by restoring normalcy for existing queue users. ... But these shortcomings, and incomplete behaviour modifications, were well discussed in the public beta, and probably prior to that also.

So why piss everybody off by rushing the job? ... that's a bit of a "huge change" isn't it? ... and an unwelcome one too IMO.
Userlevel 3
Badge +1
It is rather like they traded a flexible and fairly powerful database system for an iPod. It's clear that someone (or several, as it might be) didn't appreciate what they had and trashed it for the simpletons who also could not appreciate it.
Userlevel 1
Both my wife and I have fallen out of love with Sonos due to this queue issue. When we bought our first Playbar, we were smitten. We only wanted a TV soundbar, but the wonderful software made us go all-in. We soon had a full 5.1 surround setup and a pair of Play:5s for the the other rooms in our home. Playing a new song required no thought or consideration, just tap and play and it was added to the queue. Now you have to be careful about how you click. We accidentally erased a ques of several dozen songs or more several times now, and since they aren't saved automatically, it's difficult to impossible to rebuild the queue. What a pain in the ass. Sonos, your audio quality is great, but non unparalleled. What set you apart from the crowd was the software, which is now frustrating and inconvenient. We no longer recommend Sonos to our friends and will invest no more into Sonos products until this is fixed. Your competitors are going to move into your space and either eat your lunch or force you to respond to customer needs. Either way, a win for consumers. Perhaps no one realized how vital the "additive queue" functionality was to the pleasure of the Sonos system until it was gone. Sonos sure didn't.
Userlevel 7
Badge +15
Perhaps no one realized how vital the "additive queue" functionality was to the pleasure of the Sonos system until it was gone. Sonos sure didn't.Plenty of people knew how great and vital it was - and made their feeling very clear. Sonos chose to ignore them completely and not even allow them the option of keeping the same control system.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
I disagree with every single solution BoredofBedlam gave as "problem solved". Jgatie is correct I have never had to teach anyone how to use my Sonos. Saving the queue doesn't keep myself or my guest from stopping what is currently playing. It is not feasible either to be saving the queue all night long as friends and guests add dozens of songs to the queue.

BoredofBedlam - you obviously use your Sonos in a much different manner. That doesn't mean that changes should be made to the controller that don't allow users who use it in a multiuser, multiroom environment should not have protections to keep the music going.

If you were at a bar and the touchtunes jukebox at the bar allowed anyone to walk up and tap on a song and all of a sudden interrupt what everyone was listening to how would you like it. Even if there was a big honking sign on top the touchtunes saying "don't click on a song" people would click on songs all the time.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
BoB sorry if I came off insulting. You just don't use your system the same way the rest I do is many times do and your solutions are not solutions. You can't go in and save the queue every 5 minutes and you can't stop people from instinctively clicking on a song they looked up when they can click on an artist or album they looked up and it not stop the currently playing song. This is not all about queue erasing by also music being easy to interrupt. All of which are major issues in a multiuser environment with this update.
Userlevel 5
Badge +7
The 1 thing I have always wanted in the app is an option to play an album starting with the track I have just selected. This update absolutely works for me. Love it !

Funny enough I had no problem doing this before this lovely update :o)

I know what you mean so just playing around but still makes no sense to me to have that happen from a one tap on a song. You could easily add an album to the queue and start listening wherever you wanted. I would not incur the cost of this update to achieve that outcome from one tap.

I for one was skeptical about a switch because I think these things may actually cause more complexity but I am now tending to the inclusion of some sort of "Enable One Tap" somewhere in options. For me that will then be left firmly off.
They could have easily put a "Play from here" into the menu and everyone would have been satisfied. Instead it deletes the queue, adds the entire album, and is the default. Nobody, but NOBODY asked for that. Every thread about mimicking the iTunes style wanted a "Play from here" option, not a wholesale change to the entire interface, and of those wanting it, a good many were newbies who had queue-shock, some of whom came back later to praise the queue.