Your feedback on the new Sonos App

As system integrator and installer and reseller of Sonos, quite frankly this new app UI is TERRIBLE. I recall about 10+ years ago Sonos did this same thing, they completely changed the app UI when the previous version worked perfectly and all existing users loved it and were used to it. Why change something if it’s already great? I stopped proposing Sonos to my customers 10+ years ago all because of the new app, and now I’m in the same position again. I’ll happily recommend other products that have a much more intuitive UI and won’t make drastic changes to their customer base.

Well, spent a while switching between differing networks. My original WiFi 5, a new WiFi 6 and my ISP supplied router (UK - EE/BT). Running my full network vs. a totally cut down network of a tablet, a phone, my NAS (music shares) and a single Sonos Move…

I have seen NO differing behaviour between the 6 variations across all my network functionality (Hue, ST, Ikea, cameras + the usual TV, Fire, PC etc. etc.) except for the ISP router on full network which is poor, as would be expected.

The only change I have noticed is that BBC Sounds appears to be showing the correct text now…

The laggy volume & play/pause seems to manifest on older gen (but still S2) play 1's - incl. single & stereo pairs but excluding surround setup.

I am sticking with the WiFi 6 mesh but not for reasons of Sonos performance, just general coverage which is now up there with those @Ken_Griffiths reported in an earlier post…

Make of this what you will, for me it continues to point to Sonos back end(cloud) performance . I have now done all I can or intend to do, either it gets fixed or BlueSound get a new customer...

Hang on, your assertion is that if the app plays back music that it is working as it should? Forget widget, forget playback controls, forget previous such features? Strange angle

Sonos do not make a widget for my main iOS controllers - I don’t think they ever have?
Playback controls working here are IIRC - play now, play next, add to end of queue, replace queue - yep I’m sure they’re all there.
I’ve not forgotten the previous features - I’m waiting patiently, but I’m not too bothered about library search at this stage. I miss the queue management more. It’s a speaker system controller - lots of bigger things in the World to concern myself with - so nope it’s not a ‘strange angle’ at all.

Hang on, your assertion is that if the app plays back music that it is working as it should? Forget widget, forget playback controls, forget previous such features? Strange angle

Sonos do not make a widget for my main iOS controllers - I don’t think they ever have?
Playback controls working here are IIRC - play now, play next, add to end of queue, replace queue - yep I’m sure they’re all there.
I’ve not forgotten the previous features - I’m waiting patiently, but I’m not too bothered about library search at this stage. I miss the queue management more. It’s a speaker system controller - lots of bigger things in the World to concern myself with - so nope it’s not a ‘strange angle’ at all.

I guess they should re-title this topic "How Ken's app and life are going"

Yep, ‘life’s good and the music is good too’ - can that perhaps be the new title (please)… thanks.

Hi Everyone

We moderators of the community - @Corry P, @Jamie A & @Sotiris C. - wanted to take an opportunity to explain some of what is currently happening on the community.

First of all, we value all the feedback you are providing about the new Sonos App. We hear you. Feedback is coming in fast and thick, however - for understandable reasons - and to be frank, we are having trouble just keeping up with it all. For this reason, some topics that have not yet been replied to will go unanswered. We will, however, do our best to amalgamate some of these separate threads into bigger, related threads (such as one big thread for Alarm complaints and another for Queue Management) to be answered en-mass. The threads that are feedback on other aspects of the new app will be merged with this post.

Threads that describe issues such as missing rooms and app crashes (those that are not just feedback, in other words) will be answered, as will threads not relating to the new app in anyway, but these will take a bit longer than normal.

Please be aware that we are reading every post, we are recording and collating all feedback, and all of it will be passed over to the app software development team. In addition, we are doing our best to identify previously unidentified issues and report them to our technical teams.

We know many of you are concerned about certain features going missing, so let us take this opportunity to say that the following features are coming back:

Alarms management
Sleep timers
Queue management
Playlist editing

In addition and contrary to some speculation, local Music Library is not going anywhere, though SMBv1 support has been permanently removed. Local Music Library searching is something that is still being worked on.

We’d also like to thank everyone who has taken it upon themselves to help others here with their questions and concerns - we appreciate you all!

Thanks for listening - take care of yourselves, and each other.

Combined threads:

General feedback (not relating specifically to those below):

Queue management:

Alarms:

Playlists:

Music Library:

Sleep Timers:

Please note that there is an official statement that can be read here.

The app no longer works and has ruined my experience.

Maybe try a reboot of your speakers and if necessary after that, try the Sonos App reset as mentioned in this Sonos Support Link and follow the on-screen instructions:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/reset-the-sonos-app

If still no joy after that, then (if practicable) go onto submit a Sonos system diagnostic report from within the Sonos App, note it’s reference and then contact/chat with Sonos Support Staff via this LINK and see what the Staff can perhaps suggest to resolve the matter.

And there you have it courtesy of Ken with his rose tinted glasses, The Emperor's New Clothes in full Panglossian pride with zero recognition of any of the real problems with the architecture technological, systemic or legal. The problems highlighted by Andy Pennell and others on here are not going away, and there is zero response from Sonos either because their software engineers are ignorant of them or negligent.

I would understand the ‘Emperors New Clothes’ comment if it was a case that the new Sonos App was not working here.

I think I’ve posted enough clips to try to show the doubters that it is working fine, from App startup, library playback to controlling group volume etc. it seems you refuse to believe what I am seeing.

My son initially delayed upgrading from S2, but he’s now on the latest App and so is my daughter/son-in law and several friends and they’re okay with the App too.

The only complaint I have is the few seconds delay when I press the play/pause button in some of the music services before playback starts, but everything else is just fine.

The music is most certainly still playing here and it sounds exactly as before the May 7th update on any/every room or group.

Regardless of the new Sonos App ‘remote’ anyway, I also still have Airplay, Direct Control, Voice Service, Line-In, Bluetooth, Plex, TV Apps and may other things besides to play audio to my Hardware.

Do I accept that others may have issues with device discovery, local library shares not working and lag due to a good many things? Yes of course I do and in some cases I can see how Sonos may need to improve things for those people and how some users perhaps can also do more to improve some things for themselves too.

Anyhow if you think the new App is not behaving here, then all I can add is you’re entirely mistaken.

It's not really about whether it works in your bedroom, it's about the rest of the world. 'Facts' do not emerge from your boudoir and your Panglossian constant refrain of "everything works fine in the best of all possible worlds" is contradicted by documented proof from software engineers better qualified than you to comment. Experts have also commented on here many times about the flaws in the architecture and you clearly cannot comprehend their network expertise. For anyone interested see any of @sigh observations. Sonos need to address the issues raised and they won't be glossed over by a massive publicity campaign or users like you are proclaim "perfection" in every update.

What will happen first I wonder? Sonos fixing the app or Sonos going bust? Of course, that might be the solution - get bought out by a bigger company who actually listen to their unhappy customers.

Come on Apple, you’re sitting on a mountain of cash!

Whereas I suspect Sonos management and their team of developers have a very clear plan and are moving away from their old ecosystem over to new technology and are building everything from the ground up and ‘by design’ they are taking their S2 customers with them, switching things over from the old to a new platform and a new way of how everything works.

My guess is old firmware/software on the existing hardware will be removed step-by-step and in will come the new. The transition is undoubtedly a disruption to ALL, but I suspect this has been entirely expected and that all is steadily going to plan. The big benefits of a far better multiroom wireless audio system will come later, when all the old stuff has been taken out and has been replaced. It’s maybe just a case they could not do the switch overnight, in one fell swoop, and yes it’s painful, but there is no gain without the pain and when complete, customers and shareholders that stick around and stay the course will likely reap the benefits of their investment.

So that’s my view of the Sonos world and I accept its quite different to yours and many others around this community too.

Please *. You are making all of us sick to our stomachs.

*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

As far as I’m concerned, @Ken_Griffiths has just as much right to post his experiences as anyone else does, as long as he stays within Sonos’ rules for posting in this forum. So far, he’s spoken about his personal experiences, and offered advice, but hasn’t attacked anyone.

Installed the latest update...still no access to my music files and no clues from support. Maybe the next update will fix it. Why don’t they just roll it back to the version that worked? I’ve gotten rid of all but one speaker. I just keep that around in the off chance that it begins working again someday. In the meantime Bluetooth works well enough without the headaches that come with every Sonos update. I do miss the days when all of my Sonos speakers worked. It was a good system once.

Hi @T Breitenbach,

Note that Sonos have changed the way that their new App accesses audio from shared libraries over the local network. The previous S2 App supported SMBv1 and HTTP protocols for file sharing, but these have known vulnerabilities and are no longer used by Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon etc. and all has now shifted to using SMBv2 (or higher) file sharing - so you perhaps need to upgrade your shares… see these links depending on how you share your library tracks…

For MacOS users see this YouTube video:

https://youtu.be/kjhKhDuvgDY

For Windows Users:

Sonos also sent out notices via the S2 App and emails about the changes and produced this guide…

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/add-your-music-library-to-sonos

What will happen first I wonder? Sonos fixing the app or Sonos going bust? Of course, that might be the solution - get bought out by a bigger company who actually listen to their unhappy customers.

Come on Apple, you’re sitting on a mountain of cash!

Whereas I suspect Sonos management and their team of developers have a very clear plan and are moving away from their old ecosystem over to new technology and are building everything from the ground up and ‘by design’ they are taking their S2 customers with them, switching things over from the old to a new platform and a new way of how everything works.

My guess is old firmware/software on the existing hardware will be removed step-by-step and in will come the new. The transition is undoubtedly a disruption to ALL, but I suspect this has been entirely expected and that all is steadily going to plan. The big benefits of a far better multiroom wireless audio system will come later, when all the old stuff has been taken out and has been replaced. It’s maybe just a case they could not do the switch overnight, in one fell swoop, and yes it’s painful, but there is no gain without the pain and when complete, customers and shareholders that stick around and stay the course will likely reap the benefits of their investment.

So that’s my view of the Sonos world and I accept its quite different to yours and many others around this community too.

Your take suggests that marketing were kept completely in the dark about this clear plan as they were sending out emails and promotional info leading up to the release that the new release would have all the existing features but enable the new exciting things for the future.

If things are currently going to plan then somebody was deliberately misleading a large number of people.

There certainly doesn’t need to be disruption to ALL and the level of pain with the way it has been rolled out was unnecessary when they knew the new mobile app was way behind schedule.

The new hardware was ready, the backend server platform was ready, the app was, as we now know, at least 3 months behind schedule. The version released in May will have been submitted at least 2-3 weeks before the May release date to ensure it passed both Google and Apple App Store approval processes and was available for release.

A decision had to be made between pushing back the release date on a large inventory of new hardware sat waiting to be sold that was either already paid for, or would have invoices due soon until the app was in better shape, or release the app knowing it was in bad shape but hope to recover the new hardware costs and hope for the best with user reactions.

The Sonos Tech-Blog has a small number of articles which discuss things like the development test/release platform and process, so there is no way anyone was unaware of the state of the application or how far from the previous app it was.

https://tech-blog.sonos.com/posts/releasing-the-sonos-system-software/

The ground-up rebuild of the app was probably long overdue. The previous S2 app will likely have some difficult to maintain code, maybe code that was no longer well understood and was unnecessarily complex to integrate new features, like the Flutter wizards. While only Sonos know why it wasn’t ready, the actually code or features the app needed was unlikely the main cause.

The reason I say there is no need for disruption for all or the level of pain you suggest is because the Sonos platform is built with feature switches. The players and App make calls to the cloud platform to find out what features to enable. This allows the development teams for the firmware, app and cloud platform to operate independent schedules for delivery. When all parts are in place, then initially the feature switches will be enabled, with a default setting of on applied later if all goes well.

Some of the initial work-arounds following release, such as transfer the system ownership to yourself for everything to appear, suggest the cloud platform teams were needing to perform a data transformation/migration and had used a common sensible pattern of performing a shadow transformation leading up to the release. This avoids big bang interruptions or data transformations, by performing the data transformation in parallel to normal user usage, in preparation for a future switch over. There will always be outliers where it doesn’t work, and something like transferring ownership back to yourself will trigger all the new code paths and fill in the missing transformation. A potential reason to do this would be for a change in how login/device flows changed in the new app and previous couplings between data for account, household + devices weren’t very optimal.

eg, Login required at app start, mDNS performs local discovery, while a web service call retrieves devices registered to the login. If the web service call fails or doesn’t match mDNS then show nothing. It is reasonable to suggest something like this happens because people who travel between household now have to logout then login in the new app for the devices to show. Whether mDNS is successful or not, the app won’t show them if they don’t match the login.

The design of the cloud platform and breaking the code development dependencies of the different teams is a common pattern used by companies all over the world. It gives a solid foundation which enables the development and deployment of new code/services/features without needing disruption or pain when releases are planned and managed appropriately.

Hang on, your assertion is that if the app plays back music that it is working as it should? Forget widget, forget playback controls, forget previous such features? Strange angle

Sonos do not make a widget for my main iOS controllers - I don’t think they ever have?
Playback controls working here are IIRC - play now, play next, add to end of queue, replace queue - yep I’m sure they’re all there.
I’ve not forgotten the previous features - I’m waiting patiently, but I’m not too bothered about library search at this stage. I miss the queue management more. It’s a speaker system controller - lots of bigger things in the World to concern myself with - so nope it’s not a ‘strange angle’ at all.

I beg to differ. I have a large library of music, from tapes, records and CD which i have diligently digitised. They are all in a folder on an external disc which is plugged in to my router. This is the music i play. I bought a set of Sonos speakers because they were a) wireless, b) could all be controlled from an app on my phone, regardless of where i was in the house and c) others in the house could play what they wanted in the room they were in without affecting my experience. That seems like a simple enough expectation; play my music on my speakers in my house, the way i want. Since the infamous update i can't do that. To me that is a complete failure on the part of Sonos to meet the simplest expectations of a customer who bought their products as advertised. If that was the plan and it is all going smoothly - from their perspective, they should be sued for this kind of disregard for customers.

@GSatt

Let’s see what today’s app update brings as it is meant to tackle some music library issues…

I bought a set of Sonos speakers because they were a) wireless, b) could all be controlled from an app on my phone, regardless of where i was in the house and c) others in the house could play what they wanted in the room they were in without affecting my experience. That seems like a simple enough expectation; play my music on my speakers in my house, the way i want. Since the infamous update i can't do that. To me that is a complete failure on the part of Sonos to meet the simplest expectations of a customer who bought their products as advertised.

This sums it up rather nicely. I couldn't have said it much better myself.

Hello
With the latest update of Android Ver 80.04.05 release +20240702.edb3233., if I want to listen to the music in my library in a Samba shared folder, it systematically crashes the Android application. I have to go through the application on a Windows PC to be able to do anything.
In short, it's impossible to use the Android
It's a real pain.
Claude

Let’s see what today’s app update brings as it is meant to tackle some music library issues…

Shall I use my apparent invisibility for good or for evil….?

Hang on, your assertion is that if the app plays back music that it is working as it should? Forget widget, forget playback controls, forget previous such features? Strange angle

Sonos do not make a widget for my main iOS controllers - I don’t think they ever have?
Playback controls working here are IIRC - play now, play next, add to end of queue, replace queue - yep I’m sure they’re all there.
I’ve not forgotten the previous features - I’m waiting patiently, but I’m not too bothered about library search at this stage. I miss the queue management more. It’s a speaker system controller - lots of bigger things in the World to concern myself with - so nope it’s not a ‘strange angle’ at all.

I beg to differ. I have a large library of music, from tapes, records and CD which i have diligently digitised. They are all in a folder on an external disc which is plugged in to my router. This is the music i play. I bought a set of Sonos speakers because they were a) wireless, b) could all be controlled from an app on my phone, regardless of where i was in the house and c) others in the house could play what they wanted in the room they were in without affecting my experience. That seems like a simple enough expectation; play my music on my speakers in my house, the way i want. Since the infamous update i can't do that. To me that is a complete failure on the part of Sonos to meet the simplest expectations of a customer who bought their products as advertised. If that was the plan and it is all going smoothly - from their perspective, they should be sued for this kind of disregard for customers.

I have a locally held library here too 25.697 tracks at last count - it’s never stopped working here and has been available in the new Sonos App since the early May release. That’s perhaps partly because I read the attached notification that was sent out by Sonos in April, and the emails from them too about SMBv1/HTTP shares being obsoleted and that only SMBv2 (or higher) shares would work with the new App, well actually that’s not entirely the case as the SMBv1 issue in particular was widely discussed at the time of the S1/S2 split (August 2020) so my library had been prepared for the recent changes some time ago.

Anyhow the library has always worked fine here as the screen-capture attached perhaps shows too.

Hello,
I had also updated my folder to smb2 and it worked fine. But now, as explained above, I do have access to my music, but the covers are not displayed and if I launch a playback it comes out fine but then the Android app crashes systematically. I can't manage anything any more, as soon as I restart the app it stops, and that applies to both my tablet and my phone.

See if the app update later sorts things out for you...

App failing on update check this morning, PC client is fine though (same network, same node):