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Sonos and Mac OS 10.15 Catalina Music Library

  • 6 January 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 1826 views

Just before Christmas, I decided to proceed with updating my iMac OS to the Catalina.  I had held off since it became available out of respect for the things that could “go wrong” in terms of my day-to-day computer work.  Before the upgrade, Sonos Controller and my iTunes library interacted very well, allowing me to play albums, tracks, playlists, etc however I wished to play them.  Upon upgrading to Catalina, with its attendant introduction of the “Music” app vice everything audio-visual being stored in the iTunes library, my Sonos controller no longer can access the library to play anything.  Note that I do keep my entire iTunes audio-visual library on an external Lacie drive.

Interestingly, when I recently imported some new music from CDs, it did not get added to my external drive, but rather to the iMac’s HD under “Music”.  (I will be changing that default after this issue gets resolved.)  These tracks did show up when I added that folder to my Sonos controller’s music library.

When I looked at the iMac’s “music” folder, I saw a file entitled, “”Music Library.musiclibrary”, whereas the iTunes library had different title, with a “.itl” or “.xml” extension.  I believe that this could explain why the older music (pre-Catalina) cannot be played through Sonos.

I have uninstalled and re-installed the Sonos app, disconnected and reconnected my music library, gone through all the suggestions that I can find through this site and other internet searches, and I am now coming to you folks, the experts, for assistance.  I am frustrated having spent many hours trying to address this shortfall.  I cannot believe that I am the only person experiencing this problem.  Can you folks help me?

Note that the only way that my Sonos is anything other than a brick is when I play individual albums or tracks from the Music app via Air Drop - a very limiting approach compared to my pre-Catalina experience.

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Best answer by el rubio 6 January 2020, 21:57

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3 replies

Hi Ken, for the time being, the SONOS App version 10.6 does not read the Apple Music App generated .xml files correctly and will not import the playlists. I have solved this issue by using a tool ‘Export for iTunes’ which I use in one place for a Synology NAS and in another place for a LaCie NAS. You can find more details in this thread. I hope this helps.

Thank you for your response, “El Rubio”.  I just completed the latest Sonos update, and, of course, continued to be dismayed by the inability of the application to access and play the music that, prior to Catalina, it happily did.  I am not interested in modifying my holdings to accommodate the application’s shortfall.  I cannot understand how the Sonos software engineers cannot provide the same functionality with Catalina that they could provide up to Catalina’s release.  I am seriously considering selling off my Sonos kit and not using the Sonos application further.  It WAS a great tool, but no longer.  Sonos has had several months to address this shortfall, but, clearly, the collective will on their behalf to do so is absent.  Again, thank you for trying to provide a workaround to Sonos’ failing.

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Hi, read the thread shown below, it might help. 
 

Sonos and Mac OS 10.15 Catalina