Your feedback on the new Sonos App

So after months and months of updates and fixes, why is my system so sluggish and painful to use. Grouping rooms, changing the volume, losing sound from one speaker in a stereo pair, all sound dropping when I add a new room to a group, the list goes on. I’d rather you focus less on the functionality and get the app working properly first. Come on Sonos, I am about to explode with frustration. 

Give my my custom radio stations back. I can still access them with the Mac App that thankfully you haven’t killed yet, but its much less convenient and I’m worried I’ll loose this functionality completely soon with you lack of focus on access to music...

Hey @MattyJake Thanks for the Plex recommendation. You were 100% correct when you said it can transform the way you listen to a local library. The Plex service on Sonos seems to be a little lacking, but access through Plexamp provides the full set of features.

Once I’ve had more of a play I’ll write up a separate piece on my thoughts, pros and cons.

Thanks again 🤗

App is getting almost usable now. But constant log outs now. Doesn’t recognise me as system owner. Furiating. 

There has been at least a couple of other threads about that issue, although I’m not experiencing it myself. You may want to submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it.

I will try to find the thread where a Sonos rep asked for more hard data, and post a link in a minute…if I can find it. 

Here is the topic:

Yes, I’ve just been living with the fact that almost every day, I have to log in. That’s fine, but I can still play some of my music. Actually, I just wish there was a way to save additions to my existing music playlists. For example, last evening we watched a movie, and the song during the credits I liked, it took me a while to find it, but I used my Windows PC upstairs and opened iTunes and located it that way. Then, since my Apple iTunes balance is high, I purchased it. But in order to save it, I don’t have that option on any of my iPads, so I have to open the Sonos Windows Controller, to update the downstairs playlists. I sure hope they include this option with the next IOS update. I keep forgetting to save (or refresh) my playlists while my Windows machine is on. 

So you are using Sonos playlists? Could you not use an Apple playlist (that should automatically be carried over to Sonos). I use Spotify this way. Added bonus is that the playlists can be used elsewhere too.

Yes, my playlists are created and stored in the Sonos app. I’ll have to see if there is a way to move the Apple playlists into my Sonos app. I’ve may play around sometime today and see if there is a way I can do this. I originally had both iTunes and Sonos pointing to the same directory on my WD Passport drive until my music was totally gone in mid-May when Sonos stopped supporting the SMBv1 protocol, which is what my WD Passport drive used, so I had a backup off all my locally stored music on a WD MYCloud NAS drive that supports the newer SMBv2 protocol, and after pointing my Sonos app to that directory, I was able to recover most of my music and playlists. But I never redirected my iTunes library to this NAS drive. Maybe I’ll work on that today, but I know this drive is about 10 years old and I’ll looking for an SSD solution. Normally, before the new Sonos app came out, and since both applications were pointing to the same directory, whenever I would add a song in my iTunes directory, I would just reindex the Sonos application and the files would be in Sonos. Now, I have to do it manually, and it’s a lot of work. But I don’t subscribe to music services, so I am not familiar with Spotify. I think you are saying that your Spotify playlists would be portable, and can be used in other music applications? That is giving me food for thought. I will research this in the coming days and possibly make some changes to my local system. I am just nervous to mess up my current system right now, since I did manage to recover almost everything in mid-May. 

John

 John:  I think 106rallye was referring to playlists from the integrated Apple Music app on the Sonos app.  
 

 I like Sonos playlists because you can have a mix of your music with music from streaming services.

I think the most annoying failure of the new app is the volume user interface. If more than one room is active, then touching the volume pops open a new window….only then can you adjust the volume in the new window. It’s a two step process now that should be, and used to be, a one step process.

On the subject of playlists, and I have just discovered this tool, it is possible to export Sonos playlists with SonoSaver. Then once exported add them to your local library. They then appear as imported playlists in your music library…

https://sonosaver.mrupp.ch/

You can also back up Sonos playlists 👍

@John Guarr I was indeed referring to Apple Music playlist, since you spoke about buying from iTunes. Missed the fact you where pointing to your PC.

 That’s slick.  Do you have to convert them to M3U first?  I use SonoSaver for backup but never looked at the file.

Thank you. I understand better now. I mentioned this to someone else, that I know I’m limited to what I can listen to, since all my music is my own, but that’s the only way I can keep my mind straight and know what I have. And if my family keeps giving me iTunes gift cards, I’m good. I just have to remember to keep backing up my music. And I have three network drives, so I have triplicate copies of all my music, family pictures, etc. 

@MoPac As well as back up it will export to individual playlist files in various formats and m3u is one of the supported formats...

 Your right.  I forgot about that as I was only using SonoSaver as a backup.  Thanks for the hint.  Gonna’ give it a try.

ALWAYS DISCONNECTS from the network or can’t find it. Bring back the old version. IT WORKED!! Won’t purchase any more Sonos speakers till it’s FIXED!!

Just did today’s firmware update and IOS update. No change to holding my place in the playlist. Still takes you to the top of queue when you exit the Now Playing Window. So I guess, from the release notes, today must be Android Day.  I hope they at least addressed the open Android issues.

Still awaiting android update in UK (or at least, I am)... Firmware update has fixed silly compilation album issues in search and I can now play local library at album and artist level but still not folder level and no cover art or Somos playlist/que access yet but otherwise progress 👍

Oh, laggy volume issue seems to have been improved too with no lag apparent...

I am also in the UK waiting for the Android update.

If only Sonos would give us a release schedule.

But no they are too busy promoting new products to spend time providing information to loyal customers.

And they still claim they want to win back our trust. 

I thought all energy and focus was on fixing the app and how the speakers communicate. By rolling out a new product before the app is fixed adds to the losing of trust in what the CEO says. 

Hadn’t noticed that the firmware update had resolved the compilation issues but it has. Also, I’m not seeing multiple “sign in” notices so hopefully they are a thing of the past. VERY slowly getting there…

Queue management and the ability to go to an album from a playlist track are features not yet returned and that I used to use a lot, but fingers crossed. 

Hmmm…. According to the app (desktop and iOS), there is no firmware update available for me, yet I still have the issue of each track on a compilation album being represented as a separate album….

I’m on firmware 81.1-58074 - is yours the same?

Are there any recent improvements to the new app for iOS? I think I have the most recent update, but the queue still snaps back to display the front end of the queue, rather than forward to the track now playing… a real pain when the queue is 500 tracks long. Other queue management seems missing, like saving a queue as a Sonos playlist.

Am I missing something, or is this still ‘in progress,’ or likely to be abandoned entirely?

My latest update also has been a bit buggy, with individual speakers cutting in and out at random. Not a frequent occurrence, but enough to be annoying. Is this a ‘known issue’ or something more likely a glitch in my own network? It had not been an issue for me until the last app update a few weeks back.