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Your feedback on the new Sonos App

Corry P
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

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:

 

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

 

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

1185 replies

E
Userlevel 4
Badge

I have been a Sonos user for years.  Right now I own 2 Play 5 stereo pairs and a Roam.  I use my Sonos to access my music library.  That’s it.  I don’t stream.  I don’t use it for my TV.  I don’t even use it as my alarm.  The Music Library and the queue are the heart of my Sonos system.

Due to the loss of the basic functions in the new updated App, I now have a $1000+ boat anchor.  Please get the basic functions back such as:

  • Music Selection to queue by Artist / Album / Genre / Song
  • Queue Management like “Play Now” , “Add to End of Queue” and “Clear”

Without these functions added back, my system is sitting idle and my Wife is really wondering why we spent so much for something that does not work.  Telling me that the features we require will be rolled out in the future is just unacceptable.  I literally can’t use my system as it now stands.

Give us our old App back.  Then start rolling out the new App and entice us to switch once the App is stable and has features that people want.   Eventually everyone will move.  But forcing the move prematurely is a poor way to treat your users.

etdown

U
Userlevel 5
Badge +2

Corporate doublespeak at its worst! If Sonos cares one single bit about its customers here’s what has to happen:

 

  1. Statement from upper Management. Apologize, retract ridiculous “courageous” statement. 
  2. Explain very very clearly what is going to be in and what is going to be out.
  3. Most importantly, acknowledge the humungous error and give all customers opportunity to rollback App until new version is 100% complete.

This is the bare minimum. Anything less should ruin Sonos as a going concern.

L
Userlevel 4
Badge

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:

Queue management: 

Alarms:

 

UNACCEPTABLE

Bumper
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Local Music Library searching is something that is still being worked on.

 

 

Your support told me differently: “For what concerns searching the music library, this is not possible as the new App uses only universal search. To find the music library you can go to the Home screen and scroll down to Your resources. There you can browse the music library and start playback.”

This sounds to me like a “new app can’t do it” thing. I don’t know what “universal search” is, but this sounds to me that even if local libraries return, they will only be browsable, not searchable.

That would be a deal breaker for me!
Local music library should be treated as another service.

That’s why a clear answer alongside releasing the update would have been so important. What I am picking up from Sonos is that the company itself is unsure when if and how features return, and I wouldn’t trust any roadmap they throw out there.

I do not wish to add to the confusion, I am trying to figure out what local music libraries are going to look like months down the line. But I feel like Sonos themselves have no idea and just quietly wanted to drag the entire feature behind the shed.

On the German forums moderators told us to “just use Plex, it’s free.” *shrug*


The moderators are lying/misleading you  

 
Plex on Sonos requires an active Plex Pass subscription, yes you need to pay to play over Plex. Not free. Plus you need hardware to run it on. 

 

Ken_Griffiths


The moderators are lying/misleading you  

 
Plex on Sonos requires an active Plex Pass subscription, yes you need to pay to play over Plex. Not free. Plus you need hardware to run it on. 
 

It might be worth subscribing perhaps for a month or so until another solution can be put in place. It’s not that expensive. Maybe use iBroadcast cloud services on Sonos. That’s cheap aswell, or even free in some circumstances.

A further option if there is a PC/Mac on the LAN, is to setup an SMB v2 (or higher) share and use that for a while too.

I know it’s not ideal but even Microsoft are are dropping support for SMB v1 and http shares too in Windows. It was bound to happen at some point because of the vulnerabilities that were mentioned around those old protocols.

garfieldairlines

It might be worth subscribing perhaps for a month or so until another solution can be put in place. It’s not that expensive.

If it’s “not that expensive”, will Sonos pay us the subscription for the time needed to fix up their broken mess ?

https://garfieldairlines.net
G
Userlevel 1

My concern with the new app (installed May 9) is that all my personally curated and saved playlists on Sonos have disappeared. Previously any song playing offered an option to “add to Sonos playlist” feature, this too has now gone missing. I am using an iPad with latest IOS. Thankfully, I did not update the app on my iPhone! Is anyone else experiencing this, or have knowledge of a coming fix?

Thanks.

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

My library lists and plays BUT there's no artwork.  Old S2 shows album artwork.

Go figure. 

It's the courageous bee's knees 🐝🐝🐝
Ken_Griffiths

My library lists and plays BUT there's no artwork.  Old S2 shows album artwork.

Go figure. 

I see the local library artwork on the iOS controller, but it’s missing on my Android tablet, but the tracks do still play (as you mention) - clearly it’s a piece of work still in progress.🤷‍♂️

Bumper
Userlevel 7
Badge +14


The moderators are lying/misleading you  

 
Plex on Sonos requires an active Plex Pass subscription, yes you need to pay to play over Plex. Not free. Plus you need hardware to run it on. 
 

It might be worth subscribing perhaps for a month or so until another solution can be put in place. It’s not that expensive. Maybe use iBroadcast cloud services on Sonos. That’s cheap aswell, or even free in some circumstances.

A further option if there is a PC/Mac on the LAN, is to setup an SMB v2 (or higher) share and use that for a while too.

I know it’s not ideal but even Microsoft are are dropping support for SMB v1 and http shares too in Windows. It was bound to happen at some point because of the vulnerabilities that were mentioned around those old protocols.

I have Plex Pass and can say it is worth it for me. I use it for video as well though. But Sonos is taking something away here and forcing people to make a choice they shouldn’t need to. It’s bad enough that they are expecting us to come up with a solution that had been a feature for close to two decades. But at the very least they should be accurate and upfront with what they recommend. It’s not OK to tell people to use Plex because it’s free when they know full well that it costs money and will require hardware to run it that many people may not have.

 

Regarding smbv1 it’s really a non issue. This will affect some, but smbv2 has been out since 2006, so most nas setups will already support it and  Sonos should have supported this way before due to the issues with v1.

 

BUT and its a big but the problem is that there is an active bug that prevents some users from indexing their libraries on SMBv2. Sonos has knows about this but, they’ve communicated with users on the community about it. AFAICT it’s been present since they brought in SMBv2 support. But the workaround has been to use smb1 to index and then you can turn smbv2 back on and the share works totally fine. This is a sonos bug to fix. But they haven’t and they are turning off the one workaround. So these owners will be hit with the no search and won’t be able to index. This is not a company that actually cares about customers.

Bumper
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

My library lists and plays BUT there's no artwork.  Old S2 shows album artwork.

Go figure. 

Same here. Scrolling the library takes forever. Missing the quick link letters to jump around. Sometimes the library link doesn’t show in the controller.

No longer surprised when things don’t work as this is the expected behaviour apparently.

B
Userlevel 3

I work in technology and run a software development team. Releasing this dog pile of bugs and missing features is an embarrassment and a disservice to their users. It is easy to understand why there was so little release level communication given that embarrassment. Frankly, it beggars belief that the release wasn’t delayed and I would love to hear what their motivations might be.

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

My library lists and plays BUT there's no artwork.  Old S2 shows album artwork.

Go figure. 

Same here. Scrolling the library takes forever. Missing the quick link letters to jump around. Sometimes the library link doesn’t show in the controller.

No longer surprised when things don’t work as this is the expected behaviour apparently.

Thanks for the confirmation that it's not just me. 

So many bits missing or badly implemented that it's difficult to know what's broken, what's intentional, what's absent... 

I feel for the moderators having to deal with this farago.  

It's the courageous bee's knees 🐝🐝🐝
C
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

I work in technology and run a software development team. Releasing this dog pile of bugs and missing features is an embarrassment and a disservice to their users. It is easy to understand why there was so little release level communication given that embarrassment. Frankly, it beggars belief that the release wasn’t delayed and I would love to hear what their motivations might be.

Bonuses? 😜

It's the courageous bee's knees 🐝🐝🐝
Ken_Griffiths

BUT and its a big but the problem is that there is an active bug that prevents some users from indexing their libraries on SMBv2. Sonos has knows about this but, they’ve communicated with users on the community about it. AFAICT it’s been present since they brought in SMBv2 support. But the workaround has been to use smb1 to index and then you can turn smbv2 back on and the share works totally fine. This is a sonos bug to fix. But they haven’t and they are turning off the one workaround. So these owners will be hit with the no search and won’t be able to index. This is not a company that actually cares about customers.

That brings up another point. Perhaps correct me if I’m wrong here, but I’ve not (yet) come across anyone with that SMB v2 indexing issue that uses a dedicated Ethernet connected NAS box, but have seen some users report it that use their router with an attached USB connect drive - so maybe having the USB connection, rather than the Ethernet connection, in the mix, is perhaps where the issues may lie with the indexing.

It has never been made clear by Sonos if they only intend to support Ethernet connected NAS devices, going forward, but the thoughts have crossed my mind, if Sonos have left out the local library indexing on the new Sonos App because the longer-term plan is to revamp that aspect and remove features relating to SMB v1 and http shares/indexing, but also to try to resolve the issue with USB connected drives.

If they can’t resolve the issues of course, once they get round to that piece of work,  then they may have to make it clear to users which type of NAS connected storage devices are going to be supported, perhaps🤔?

DGR1
Userlevel 3
Badge +4

BUT and its a big but the problem is that there is an active bug that prevents some users from indexing their libraries on SMBv2. Sonos has knows about this but, they’ve communicated with users on the community about it. AFAICT it’s been present since they brought in SMBv2 support. But the workaround has been to use smb1 to index and then you can turn smbv2 back on and the share works totally fine. This is a sonos bug to fix. But they haven’t and they are turning off the one workaround. So these owners will be hit with the no search and won’t be able to index. This is not a company that actually cares about customers.

That brings up another point. Perhaps correct me if I’m wrong here, but I’ve not (yet) come across anyone with that SMB v2 indexing issue that uses a dedicated Ethernet connected NAS box, but have seen some users report it that use their router with an attached USB connect drive - so maybe having the USB connection, rather than the Ethernet connection, in the mix, is perhaps where the issues may lie with the indexing.

It has never been made clear by Sonos if they only intend to support Ethernet connected NAS devices, going forward, but the thoughts have crossed my mind, if Sonos have left out the local library indexing on the new Sonos App because the longer-term plan is to revamp that aspect and remove features relating to SMB v1 and http shares/indexing, but also to try to resolve the issue with USB connected drives.

If they can’t resolve the issues of course, once they get round to that piece of work,  then they may have to make it clear to users which type of NAS connected storage devices are going to be supported, perhaps🤔?

All really well made points by Ken and Bumper. I use a USB drive in my router. About £10 from Amazon and does a great job. Obviously I keep separate backups because it could give up at any time. I’m somewhat loath to spend good money on a NAS solution as a replacement. I could run Plex on a NAS, but not on my USB drive. And I use iBroadcast. Clarity from Sonos on this would really help. While I love streaming services, there’s so much music that isn’t available to stream and I would feel terrible if I lost access to my own local collection. It’s taken me decades to build 🤓

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Here's my 'NAS' - an old RAVPower wifi filestore (with usb and sd card)

 

 

It's the courageous bee's knees 🐝🐝🐝
P
Userlevel 5
Badge

Is it possible for users to manually rollback the app to the previous version? Would it mean having to set up the system again?

O
Userlevel 6
Badge +7

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.

Does this include posts in the big “The new Sonos Mobile App & Web App” thread (which currently has more than 750 posts)? I’ve put a few pieces of feedback about the new UI in that thread, but was worried it might get missed amongst all the complaints about missing features.

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

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.

Does this include posts in the big “The new Sonos Mobile App & Web App” thread (which currently has more than 750 posts)? I’ve put a few pieces of feedback about the new UI in that thread, but was worried it might get missed amongst all the complaints about missing features.

Why not post the links here so we can check them out?  

 

It would be nice if this thread could be kept less inflammatory than the monster one 😏

It's the courageous bee's knees 🐝🐝🐝
B
Userlevel 3

Please bring back the dual mono option, as many of us use this where speaker placement such as ceilings means stereo sounds odd. 

M
Userlevel 2
Badge

I literally can’t use my system as it now stands.

The desktop apps should work as per usual for interacting with your library, searching, creating queues etc. You may consider it an inconvenience, but it is a solution no one seems to be mentioning here.

J
Userlevel 3
Badge

I can not even get my devices connected so focus on that first please before the other changes!  I’ve spent over £1000 on Sonos equipment and at the moment it’s useless. 

T

Haven’t read it anywhere else: I if I search for an artist with a lot of albums, the app is not display all of the albums (web app and old app do) - it only gives the first ~fifty #pleasfix

Y
Userlevel 2

I would like to thank the Sonos team for making my investment in 5 Sonos devices (Playbar, Sub, SL etc.) almost unusable. It must seem very strange to have a family listening to their local music library from Android. No, sorry, we're not all with a mouse behind a desktop. Thanks to your magnificent new app, no more playback from a folder, no more search, no more indexing. Nor can I find the setting that forces playback in uncompressed mode. I would like to suggest 2 things: 1. Obviously fire the person responsible for this project, with congratulations for having reached a level of failure never seen in the history of major new releases. 2. Quickly release a brand new version called Sonos S2, which will immediately correct all the shortcomings of the current app. Finally, support very courteously tells me that the missing functions are simply delayed. I would like to see your face when the salesman of your new car hands you the keys and tells you that the delivery of the engine has simply been delayed. 

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