And just to add @John Guarr, the search demonstrated on my Home Sonos System iPad controller, was across 18 different music services, including my local NAS library. So the new Sonos App is not that slow, all things considered.

If only we could all order a perfect network in a box, so many peoples lives would be easier, not just home users  Nice dream, but hopefully we all know there is no such thing.

I certainly agree some people will have network problems, but I don’t see it being to the level we’ve seen recently. The app and firmware introduced too many moving parts.

When the Sonos platform was off yesterday morning, someone faced with a controller app full of grey boxes did the following

Rebooted my iPad. Rebooted my iPhone. Rebooted the Comcast router. Rebooted the eero Mesh Network. Updated eero Mesh Network. Rebooted the network switches. Rebooted the Sonos Boost.

This is where I get a bugbear with it always being users network, after a while people don’t even consider it might be something else, because it’s always the network 

One of the reasons I wanted my system to break is to try and find out why people are haing issues after the update. In theory there shouldn’t be this much chaos, just missing features. But... as it turns out, while we all own Sonos, not all Sonos hardware is equal.

I’ve identified what is causing the issues I am seeing and why it isn’t a consistent behaviour for everyone. It also helps explain the initial random volume jumping and potentially some of the seemingly random controller behaviour.

I’ve stuck it in it’s own thread because it’s a bit long and I didn’t want to spam this one with something so long or specific.

Thanks Ken. I’ll just have to play around a little more and try to overcome this hurdle. Thanks for the video. You definitely have a lot more to search through than I. 

Hi, I can’t search through 131 pages of forum. I’d like an update on the Music library function. I still can’t add it back using the app and seemingly there has been no progress on reintegrating controlling a music library on an NAS drive. Is this going to be reinstated? We are way past the stated deadline 

Fantastic detective work, @sigh! Would you say that the most vexing challenges are related to the new APIs and architecture: TLS, websockets, mDNS, cloud API and other firmware wildcards?

None other than Patrick Spence reminded everyone …

It's important to note that this was really a redesign of the entire system, not only the app but also the player side of our system as well as our cloud infrastructure.

… so while the new mobile apps themselves may not be the direct cause of specific challenges, the new mobile apps do “flip the switch” over to the new APIs and architecture. Rephrasing for clarity: using the desktop apps (or SonoPhone) exercises the old APIs in the device firmware, using the new mobile apps exercises the new APIs in the device firmware.

Can you please share the link to the post with the instructions from Sonos? 

Here’s the link (below) to add a library to Sonos - this should be working providing you are using a local library that is shared using SMBv2 or higher - SMBv1 and HTTP shared libraries are no longer supported when using the new Sonos Apps.

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

Hello,
You need to add the ‘Tunelin’ service and then you can access ‘My radio stations’ in the TunelIn list.
Sincerely

I never used squeezebox devices back in the day; I wasn’t nerd enough to deal with that solution. I moved to Sonos in 2011 after some dabbling with Apple AEX, that was still flaky then. At that time I remember conversations on the precursor of this community about how Sonos, by emulating a working out of the box Apple, had removed the need to be a nerd that squeeze box needed its users to be, to use it effectively for music play. From all accounts here, Sonos has reverted to being a squeezebox that only nerds can deal with. Perhaps this is just a passing phase?

Why can't Sonos release the stable version of S2 let us revert to that just like you are now letting people go back to S1. I can't go back because your software isn't allowing us to and if I switch to S1 then my era speakers are completely useless.  I cannot load a large playlist in apple music without grouped rooms breaking apart into individual rooms and the playlist never loads. Except for Subs my oldest speakers are play one. Release this beta garbage as S3. 3 months now and the only thing tech support has been able to tell me is we're aware of the problem and we don't have a fix. That's not an answer.

Repackage the good S2 use the same revert software that allows you to revert back to S1 should be done in 1 day.

3 months later I still have garbage that I spent thousands of dollars on that doesn't do what it's supposed to do. 

My Ace loudness control button is off screen at the bottom in landscape mode. Switching to portrait mode or shrinking the display makes it appear.

Still it would be nice if this and any other screen's controls weren't hidden behind the Room bar. Even adding a bit of white space so the screen would be able to be scrolled up would help.

Of all the threads I am not sure where this fits best but several times every week the app prompt me on installing speakers that is already installed. Not only one speaker every time but randomly. Today my Move2, yesterday it was a Sonos One and the day before that it was the Sonos Amp running as front in my media room.

Just to ignore and press elsewhere, but quite annoying. Right now I mostly rely on Airplay 2 to play my music but occasionally opens the Sonos app to see if it works okay or not and it’s not.

I´m not native Engish speaker, so I can´t find the most appropriate adjectives to describe my feelings everytime I decide to (suppossedly) enjoy some music.

And, at least in my case, this nightmare is getting worse, not better.

Since the last update 2 weeks ago:

• I need to open the app at least three times in a row. The first 2 tries the app just closes itself. This happens both on my S24 Ultra and my Pixel 8 Pro. Yesterday the S24 even suggested me to inhabilitate the app because it was failing to much…

• When the app is finnally open, the screen reamins blank. Nothing is loaded, neither my streaming services, nor the 2 Era 300 I have here in Dubai (I have another 2 Era 300 and 4 Moves at home in Spain, lets see how they work when I arrive there in September). So I need to close and reopen the app.

• Now when everything is loaded, I got a suggestion on the top of the screen suggesting me to add one Era 300, no matters it was actually appearing in the system. I discard the message and start to play music.

• Ok, take seat, play some music and relax, I said myself yesterday afternoon. And I did, but only for 15 minutes. Suddenly the music stopped (ironically, yesterday it happened wen I was playing “Enjoy the silence”) but the progress bar in the app says that it was still playing the song. I have to close the app, unplug and plug the speakers, and, of course, repeat the cycle of opening and closing the app. Finnally, I noticed that I didn´t feel like listening to music anymore.

• In addition, last Sunday I had to take one of the Eras to another apartment, so I had to remove the stereo pair. When I placed it back in my apartment and tried to stereo pair it again with the other, the process was interrupted before the final confirmation sound, and my beloved “something went wrong” appeared in the app. I was going to repeat the process, but then I noticed that the speakers were actually paired.

This is soooooooo frustrating. And no, it is not my network...

Just another day/night living the Sonos nightmare.

Finally, finally, finally everything had been working as it should for a week or so, one of the few extended periods of full Sonos functionality since the “courageous” app/cloud upgrade. Last evening I spent a few hours with one of my two Roams, which I play at low volumes on my balconies to not disturb neighbours. All my other Sonos gear (Play 5s, Beams, Play 1 surrounds,  sub mini, second Roam etc.) were working.

This morning, nine hours later,  I attempted to listen to the same Roam. It didn't show up on the Sonos app. The other Roam was also gone. All other devices were there. Both Roams were available through Bluetooth. Ah, I thought I, surely there must have been a firmware update overnight. My app is set for auto updates, but I tried a manual firmware update anyway. The app assured me all devices were up to date. So I rebooted my router and all other networking gear. Still no Roams, but everything else was still there. No problem, thought I, I'll just re-add the Roams to my wifi network. The process went according to plan and the app informed me the Roams were connected. They still didn't show as speakers in the app. So I tried switching the Roams from the 2.4GHz band they've always used to the 5GHz band and re-adding. Still, the Roams didn't show up, even though the setup process worked.

Finally, it appeared that the perilous factory reset might be the only remaining option. I did that and both Roams were found and added to the network AGAIN (I switched back to the original 2.4GHz). Only this time I was informed a firmware update was required. Finally, after the firmware process completed both Roams appeared in the Sonos app as speakers and all was the same as it was 12 hours earlier. Curiously, investigation showed that after the update both Roams were running the same firmware as yesterday. (I've learned to do screen caps of these things to mitigate incorrect assessments should I contact Sonos support on those days when I have hours to waste on telephone hold.) 

That's one huge mess of a way to listen to a little music, isn't it? This, on top of the other many, many issues I've wasted my time on since the courageous upgrade, has me again questioning whether my Sonos systems in two homes will ever work properly again. I'll be in the other home (different country) again in three weeks and I'm very concerned. I was there during the first month of the courageous upgrade, and it wasn't pretty

Thanks again, Sonos, for wasting  more of my time. I was a once a satisfied customer, but those days are gone.

I have been a Sonos owner since 2012, I have 13-14 speakers. I have been a Beta tester for software and hardware.  I am also a stockholder.  I was disgusted and continue to be by the new app, I just don’t understand how this app gets out the door, it’s insane how unuser friendly this app is with MINIMAL improvement in the last month since the CEO’s message, but then I see that the Chief Product Officer sells over 37,000 shares of stock when things are where they stand?  I think I may be out.  I just need a system that works...https://ca.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/insider-sale-chief-product-officer-maxime-bouvatmerlin-sells-37256-shares-of-sonos-inc-sono-3567246. Please provide the shareholders and owners on WHY there should be any confidence?????

This is a general comment surrounding the new app. I am very much afraid that this latest problem could actually be the downfall of the incredible SONOS products. I have been an avid user of SONOS since around 2005. I think I have registered close to 50 products over the years. I am one of SONOS’ biggest fans and proponents. But right now, even I am frustrated beyond imagination!

Please, PLEASE, PLEASE do everything in your power, SONOS, to get this system back on the path to a solution - FAST.

Help.

So much for the promised “2 weekly update cadence” 

Having been a ‘release manager’ for software myself, I was amazed at such a schedule, especially for bug fixes. Juggling hundreds of branches of bug fixes into a single release is a challenge, and difficult to be precise about scheduling, especially if any QA is expected. It would be easy to set a goal for every other week, but to guarantee such a thing…or even expect it, is beyond me. Perhaps I’m just a bad manager. 

2 weeks is a standard release cadence in an agile development environment but this, like all aims, can be missed...

Also of course there are backend components that will be subject to changes as well as the app(s) and firmware which may not be visible or announced to the community…

You can bet the the dev team(s) are doing thier utmost though

It’s certainly what we shot for, being an Agile Development team. I just wouldn’t swear to our users that it was going to be every two weeks. More often than not, it was, but there were certainly instances of our not meeting that schedule. We sure tried not to. 

I've been in technology development for 35 years and was recently at a site where they were Agile zealots. I was on a 2 year programme and arrived midway through and it was in a bit of a state partly because of the looseness of Agile with no definite end state. Our work stream delivered once I put controls around it and held practical workshops but another work stream was still working on defining scope 2 weeks before close out. This situation is like that. They've jumped for a new architecture and platform without any clue of the impacts, clearly without any impact analysis and tripped over and over stumbling into obstacles. The development has had zero quality controls (QA? Testing anyone?) and is shambolic. They are fixing bugs and introducing new ones because they didn't have the basic understanding and assessment of the new tools they were using. Their use case was wishful thinking, 'pie in the sky' and they had no systematic means of practically achieving what they wanted. You can have the most beautiful dream of a product but if you cannot practically engineer it and create it, it remains formless. It's a typical 'bad' technology project that over promised and is not now delivering. It will stagger on until someone pulls the plug. That is the reality. And no amount of 'blue sky' thinking is going to change it. It might be comforting for some to think there will be a happy ending but they only happen in Disney movies. 

I don’t know about the tech to agree/disagree. And I couldn't care less because I am happy in the S1 backwaters where all works fine, well insulated from the chaos.

But if what you say is correct, what is the typical Sonos user that is caught up in this mess, to do?

They can follow the ‘blue sky’ happy-ever-after crowd’s advice and tinkter with their local networks, booting and re-booting, tinkering some more in an endless cycle or cut their losses. I was a typical user, most on here are die hard enthusiasts who are into the details. Most of the rest of us have lives and there are better quality hi fi components out there where you won’t be tied in to this software and cloud dependency. 

This is the technical stuff on why the problems are there from an indistry leading engineer

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-happened-sonos-app-technical-analysis-andy-pennell-wigwc/

If their Sonos App is not working correctly, the speakers should still work. They could stream a Disney film from Disney+, with sound from their Sonos HT system, and enjoy the end of the film.

Thank for your insights and very helpful link.

This project is a case study of what not to do in software management. Schedule-driven development leads to cowboy coding and a pre-MVP release followed by entirely predictable bug churn, with the solution always heroic efforts supporting wishful thinking.