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

  • 12 September 2016
  • 353 replies
  • 15976 views

Userlevel 4
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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.

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353 replies

Userlevel 3
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Agree, Chris - but mea culpa, forgot option

6. It's GRAND! Like it as it is.

Maybe we need an outside-the-lines users group? They often work.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
You should create a poll
Userlevel 3
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Well, let's do that. If you have ideas for it, pass them on else I will just dig about until I get a hit on how-to. How does that sound?
Userlevel 3
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http://www.poll-maker.com/
Userlevel 7
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I actually did one a while back and i messed up all the choices and never went back and made a fixed one.
Userlevel 7
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I'm talking about the poll function here when you create new thread.
Userlevel 3
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I will work on this, but ultimately, of course, it's not our product. But I built GUIs for over 25 yrs and I know this one is not right. Gotta try.
Userlevel 3
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Well, talking about an external one but I can look at the internal one too. It's just that the external one will likely, same as internal, be heavily weighted with pre 6.4 users 😞
Userlevel 3
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There is a way, people 🙂
Sonos by contrast has been in this situation before and in one case, the mute button change, acknowledged that they had screwed some things up for people with very large systems and promised a future fix to mitigate the problems they had caused. Years later those promised fixes have never been implemented.
And you didn't need a have "very large system" to be screwed up by that, you just needed to have bought into Sonos' multi-room promise.

There was a similar situation with the migration to this blighted forum. They promised corrective action and openness. ... Then .... nothing ... for a year, and counting.

A related situation is their refusal to offer a repository of prior Sonos s/w versions, so that a customer may chose to revert back to the UI which they have already paid for.

I don't have any particular point to make other than an observation that each company has a very different culture and approach to dealing with development missteps and that might be an indicator of how likely it is that Sonos will do anything in response to the complaints around 6.4.

I think that this IS a culture thing. There are many aspects of Sonos culture that we all admire, and rely upon, and laud to others.

But another aspect of their culture is this seemingly stubborn refusal to provide any configuration options, even when they have needed to alter the UI for new markets they are chasing. That is way less customer friendly IMO.

It is understandable that they need to chase new markets, but they could keep some customer faith while doing so.

ie. the mute button thing which you referred to. ... Some Sonos manager once decided to ship the first units without a pause button for aesthetic reasons presumably ... this was stupid in the first place, as our dvd and cd players already had both pause and mute functions, so we all knew how they worked ... the Sonos shortcoming became untenable with the advent of streamed services, as it chewed out peoples' download caps where people assumed the stream was paused .. so Sonos just took away the mute facility away from all people who had bought into their multi-room functionality promise ... no facility to configure off or on the new behaviour for customers whose Sonos experience was trashed by this change

Now they are selling Sonos on shelves alongside boom boxes .. they want one tap play for people who don't understand anything more complex than a light switch ... so they just turn all units, for all customers, into hair-triggered mood-killers in social settings.

Also they trumpet "LISTENING OUT LOUD JUST GOT EASIER WITH YOUR SONOS APP", but for customers who have moved beyond just light switch controls, they make things harder. Examples are making the UI less intuitive, as just what a tap will do, as it is now modal ... also Play Now is now also modal, as a good chunk of the time it is also going to re-play the historic queue! ... and I now need to scroll back through the queue to find the start of album I just queued with "Add To End of Queue", because there is now no other way to Play without destroying the queue.
Userlevel 3
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OK... working free for the cause. You can put in two pennys and see what happens:

https://goo.gl/gcWez6
Userlevel 3
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Hey Chris... there's the open one 😉
Sonos never allows user customizable switches. Maybe a queue lock on queue screen could get traction. But a switch in settings menu I am certain will never happen as they have never allowed customization like this as a philosophy.
They don't allow them, excepting where they do:
* Group Album By
* Sort tracks by
* Show Media Servers?
* Status light on|off
* Updates on|off

It is not such a reach for them. It is just quicker for them not to.
Userlevel 3
Badge +1
iTunes DB flags much better when you figure out how to use them. The output options are not so grand. We are trying to get a consensus on SONOS, just a simple non-invasive choice pick 1 https://goo.gl/gcWez6 It won't solve stuff but it would be nice to know how the blog members feel. If you all think 6.4 is the cat's PJ's, I am bailing.
Userlevel 1
I have accidentally deleted my queue three time today.
Userlevel 1
This makes me sad.
I am a long time sonos owner with 3 connects 1 zp90 and 1 zp80. I must say it really is a hoorible update. This is the first update in all these years that has me seriously looking for and trying out alternatives. I have 2 devialte phantoms on which i used the sonos interface. That meant that I had to sacrifice some sound quality for ease of use. Th last sonos update is so bad that I am now using devialet propriatry Spark app. Please undo the playlist changes or you will be losing a long and thusfar loyal customer. Kind regards W.Aukes
... another customer signing up to complain. Take note Sonos and sort this ridiculous update out.
Userlevel 5
Badge +11
@jgatie sorry. Don't believe you. Nobody picked a controller up and was able to use it without hiccup. The complaints have been queues created being deleted. Save that queue. That your guests may add tracks to that queue and then the queue gets deleted does not eradicate the whole queue that was previously created as it was saved. How to add a track is still very simple! Explaining how to add a track is very simple!
Whilst you may not have had to explain the controller to your guests, which I don't believe, the first time they used it you now have to explain a simple instruction. Your guests will soon learn how to use it.

@Chris. No need to be insulting. That you disagree is fine. I use my system multi-room and apart from forgetting to do something for an oops! moment (which as I RTFM were expected) I have had no problems with the new sysem. The difference is I embrace the new system and work with it rather than hating it and trying to make it do what the old system did the old way.
Userlevel 5
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@soveryfaraway. Nope. BOB is BOB who just happens to have an opinion that does not agree with yours. It's called discussion.

@others I have noted the usual "hate" posts that are bereft of any reason why it is hated.
Userlevel 7
Badge +15
Well done you managed a post without RTFM in it.
Our comments of social use since the update is based on actual experience - yur theory of 'just explain it and it will all be fine' just isn't the reality. As for constantly remembering to save the queue in case of a finger staying on a track for a fraction of a second too long, how completely impractical is that?
Can you give me a reason with the change, besides the changes of functionality, why the queue should be irretrievably deleted instead of the songs at least just being inserted into it?
Wow, so now the defense is to call other posters liars. I think this little debate is over.
Userlevel 5
Badge +7
Like you sjw I am waiting for a reasonable explanation for this change. The costs of this "make play easier" approach is way to high! Why the queue deleting. Please someone explain. Why!??
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 7
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And know I hardly ever had to explain anything on old controller. Especially as many are familiar with it using it other places (but experts by no means)