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Your feedback on the new Sonos App

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.

 

3397 replies

K
Userlevel 1

As someone who never streams and only plays music from my library I am hugely disappointed that the Music Library is essentially no longer functional.  I have over 3K CDs loaded to mine and it’s now for all practical purposes impossible to scroll through them.

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

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

SONOS BEAM - Now playing screen on TV

 

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -
C
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

As someone who never streams and only plays music from my library I am hugely disappointed that the Music Library is essentially no longer functional.  I have over 3K CDs loaded to mine and it’s now for all practical purposes impossible to scroll through them.

What is particularly annoying is that I was part of the beta test and these issues were all reported but obviously never addressed.  Why this beta was released into production I just don’t know.

Beta-Shmeeta 😎

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -
Ken_Griffiths

So - setup is only available via PC? 

Yes and the indexing too.

S

Its terrible, I want to add Tunein to my services but i’m unable to do this.

Just asks me to log in and out again but nothing changes 😡

J
Userlevel 4
Badge +3

Why would you release an update for a product YOU know is very loved and a part of people’s lives. It’s what I use for an alarm clock, listen to music. Some time ago, you first completely cut off old products that were still in use telling people that they would be just trash, then reversed course. Only to release a separate app to control the older models.

Now you release an app that has limited functionality, plus with major bugs of adding music libraries to the Sonos, Error 913 shows up. I know you want to update the app and add things, but this is a huge step backwards. It was not ready for prime time, that’s for sure.  

 

From the number of responses, it’s clear you know it wasn’t a smashing success. 

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

So - setup is only available via PC? 

Yes and the indexing too.

So, that's the old Windows program? 

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -
R
Userlevel 7
Badge +15

Just to show the BBC Sounds bug in action, this is definitely not Vernon Kay, and it still shows the time of his show…

 

 

Ken_Griffiths

So - setup is only available via PC? 

Yes and the indexing too.

So, that's the old Windows program? 

The Windows or Mac App available here:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/downloads

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

It's what's on now

 

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -
C
Userlevel 1
Badge

Most of you guys in this thread are “lucky”! I now can’t get beyond the App not finding my Sonos system on my Wifi network! The “funny” thing is, it does find it sometimes, but then doesn’t show / can’t find the connected speakers. If I’m really lucky (maybe 1 in 50 times of re-installing / re-setting the App) I hit the jackpot, the stars all align and I can even play music. That’s when I encounter all the other issues being discussed here...which quite frankly I’d be pleased to have. Needless to say, if I close and re-open the App I’m back to square one, no speakers or components found.

Call it “SONOS Classic” or whatever you like, but please SONOS, allow me to download version 16.1 of the App.

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

So - setup is only available via PC? 

Yes and the indexing too.

So, that's the old Windows program? 

The Windows or Mac App available here:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/downloads

What a performance!  Honestly, it's really one huge Dog's Dinner. 🐕🍲

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -
Bumper

So - setup is only available via PC? 

Yes and the indexing too.

So, that's the old Windows program? 

They hadn’t updated it in years, it’s about the only somewhat reliable software Sonos has, oh the irony 🤣

Ken_Griffiths

So - setup is only available via PC? 

Yes and the indexing too.

So, that's the old Windows program? 

The Windows or Mac App available here:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/downloads

What a performance!  Honestly, it's really one huge Dog's Dinner. 🐕🍲

When these things were announced, some time ago, before the release of the new App, I thought the step-by-step guide here, put out by @press250 to help with this, was a very handy post to read and refer people to, to perhaps make things easier for some, but it focuses on Windows and a similar guide for MAC users would perhaps have been useful too. I don’t use Mac, otherwise I would have done one myself, but maybe someone will step in and create a further thread on the topic.

https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers%2Dand%2Dmusic%2Dservices%2D229131/adding%2Da%2Dwindows%2Dsmb%2Dshare%2Dstep%2Dby%2Dstep%2D6892060

T
Userlevel 5
Badge +3

Has anyone tried an old and new test with 2 phones? So I have a fairly new Motorola that I keep as backup and I'm going to upload the new app with auto update on, etc and compare that to my main phone where I have just restored the old app and shut down (fingers crossed) all auto updates (Google Play & in the Sonos App). 

 

Btw the old app works fine but I'm waiting overnight in case there is this forced push update that is one of the complaints. I'll report back tomorrow. 

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

So - setup is only available via PC? 

Yes and the indexing too.

So, that's the old Windows program? 

The Windows or Mac App available here:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/downloads

What a performance!  Honestly, it's really one huge Dog's Dinner. 🐕🍲

When these things were announced, some time ago, before the release of the new App, I thought the step-by-step guide here, put out by @press250 to help with this, was a very handy post to read and refer people to, to perhaps make things easier for some, but it focuses on Windows and a similar guide for MAC users would perhaps have been useful too. I don’t use Mac, otherwise I would have done one myself, but maybe someone will step in and create a further thread on the topic.

https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers%2Dand%2Dmusic%2Dservices%2D229131/adding%2Da%2Dwindows%2Dsmb%2Dshare%2Dstep%2Dby%2Dstep%2D6892060

Read. Useful. 

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -
U
Userlevel 4
Badge +3

Btw the old app works fine but I'm waiting overnight in case there is this forced push update that is one of the complaints. I'll report back tomorrow. 

Reverted to old app yesterday morning (UK), no forced update for me as yet🤞However I did update Sonos firmware first so maybe that has an impact?

R
Userlevel 7
Badge +15

Most of you guys in this thread are “lucky”! I now can’t get beyond the App not finding my Sonos system on my Wifi network! The “funny” thing is, it does find it sometimes, but then doesn’t show / can’t find the connected speakers. If I’m really lucky (maybe 1 in 50 times of re-installing / re-setting the App) I hit the jackpot, the stars all align and I can even play music. That’s when I encounter all the other issues being discussed here...which quite frankly I’d be pleased to have. Needless to say, if I close and re-open the App I’m back to square one, no speakers or components found.

Call it “SONOS Classic” or whatever you like, but please SONOS, allow me to download version 16.1 of the App.

When you are connected, have you tried updating the firmware?

Also, have you tried turning off all the speakers, force closing the app, opening the app, then turning all the speakers on one by one, ensuring that each speaker appears before moving onto the next?

T
Userlevel 5
Badge +3

Btw the old app works fine but I'm waiting overnight in case there is this forced push update that is one of the complaints. I'll report back tomorrow. 

Reverted to old app yesterday morning (UK), no forced update for me as yet🤞However I did update Sonos firmware first so maybe that has an impact?

I spoke too soon. The old app is disconnecting after working for a while and I get messages to update to the new to reconnect. Uninstalling now as this system is absolutely useless. 

I would recommend a quick test of old v new on 2 phones as the 'old' app works fine (until the update message) but the new is all over the place popping in and out of different speakers, dropping the system, disappeared features and contents and errors when you try to run the 'available' features. 

A
Userlevel 2

No apology from Sonos management for the totally unnecessary utter chaos they have caused for all their users.

No regard for their loyal customers (to date) nor any seeming understanding of how most users want to use their local home systems.

I have a large local digital music library with many high quality files which has been built up over many years. I do not want to have that music streamed from my system via a cloud back to my local Sonos network for obvious security and unnecessary bandwidth issues.

I can see the direction of travel that Sonos is taking and I am not going along with it.

I am now looking for an alternative solution to construct a multi room home music system that will shortly be replacing my current Sonos one.

A
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

A valid point that was raised by a user on the AMA was that local music library implementation should still work in an internet outage with any cloud services such as music suggestions allowed to fail gracefully.

A year or so ago we had a major internet outage for several months in our vicinity (a power cable was cut through and the exchange was running on batteries that only lasted a few hours). During the outages I was still able to search and stream my music from my NAS perfectly well using the old S2 app as the music stayed within the confines of my local network.

While this maybe an edge case, it doesn’t make sense for local music to go out to the cloud and back in to the local network. 

The app should also still work when there is no internet access, albeit with much less options, but configuration of local speakers and playing of local music should still be possible.

Bring back the old Sonos app. It was clunky, but it actually worked!
Ken_Griffiths

A valid point that was raised by a user on the AMA was that local music library implementation should still work in an internet outage with any cloud services such as music suggestions allowed to fail gracefully.

A year or so ago we had a major internet outage for several months in our vicinity (a power cable was cut through and the exchange was running on batteries that only lasted a few hours). During the outages I was still able to search and stream my music from my NAS perfectly well using the old S2 app as the music stayed within the confines of my local network.

While this maybe an edge case, it doesn’t make sense for local music to go out to the cloud and back in to the local network. 

The app should also still work when there is no internet access, albeit with much less options, but configuration of local speakers and playing of local music should still be possible.

So what does happen now then, if you just disconnect the internet, but still leave the router and local WiFi network up and running?

A
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

A valid point that was raised by a user on the AMA was that local music library implementation should still work in an internet outage with any cloud services such as music suggestions allowed to fail gracefully.

A year or so ago we had a major internet outage for several months in our vicinity (a power cable was cut through and the exchange was running on batteries that only lasted a few hours). During the outages I was still able to search and stream my music from my NAS perfectly well using the old S2 app as the music stayed within the confines of my local network.

While this maybe an edge case, it doesn’t make sense for local music to go out to the cloud and back in to the local network. 

The app should also still work when there is no internet access, albeit with much less options, but configuration of local speakers and playing of local music should still be possible.

So what does happen now then, if you just disconnect the internet, but still leave the router and local WiFi network up and running?

I’m using the old S2 app!
I won’t upgrade until all the features I need are in the new app.
I’m not against using the cloud to enhance the service, but it shouldn’t be reliant on it.
The web app obviously won’t work without an internet connection, whereas the old Windows and Mac apps did. Not sure if the mobile apps work the same way as the web app.

Bring back the old Sonos app. It was clunky, but it actually worked!
C

Hello Sonos.  Just want to add my feedback that the new Sonos app is no where near as good as the previous one.  Lots of functionality missing.  App is slow to respond to changes in volume or switching speakers.  Connections can not be established (...try back later message regularly...).  Very frustrating experience.

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

A valid point that was raised by a user on the AMA was that local music library implementation should still work in an internet outage with any cloud services such as music suggestions allowed to fail gracefully.

A year or so ago we had a major internet outage for several months in our vicinity (a power cable was cut through and the exchange was running on batteries that only lasted a few hours). During the outages I was still able to search and stream my music from my NAS perfectly well using the old S2 app as the music stayed within the confines of my local network.

While this maybe an edge case, it doesn’t make sense for local music to go out to the cloud and back in to the local network. 

The app should also still work when there is no internet access, albeit with much less options, but configuration of local speakers and playing of local music should still be possible.

So what does happen now then, if you just disconnect the internet, but still leave the router and local WiFi network up and running?

All depends whether you can see your file storage in the first place.  Firmware update yesterday knocked out my trusty SMBv1 file store. Gone. Disappeared. Vanished.  Can't be arsed to drag out PC, fire up Windows to attempt to set up alternative file store.  It can't be done via the Courageous app.

As I said above, a total Dog's Dinner. 😝

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -

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