Sonos app on Android: How to see my playlists?

  • 13 September 2021
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Sonos One + Android phone with large flac libary on phone.

 

I have a lot of playlists in my Android music player (Black Player EX)

How do I play these playlists in the Sonos app?

 

I SEE all my music, and I see my playlists in the Sonos Playlist area, but the playlists show no tracks, and when I try to play them I get an error: “Unable to add songs to the Queue”

 

My music library is on an SD card, not the phone’s native storage.

 

Right now, on Sonos I am confined to playing albums and tracks. That works fine, but I NEED MY PLAYLISTS TO ALSO WORK.

 

I have no other source of music. Please tell me how to solve this!

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33 replies

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@Corry P 

Yeah, I know how that goes.

Corry P
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Hi @SamJones6 

I’m afraid I have no timeline to share.

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

Say Corry,

I am moving to a new apartment soon, and am not sure if I want to set it up with Sonos, given this issue.

Is there a sense whether this will be fixed in the near term (weeks) or longer term (months+) ?

 

Thanks!

Corry P
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@SamJones6 

Thanks!

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
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» Android version on your phone(s).

Phone 1, main phone: Sony Xperia, Android Version 10

Phone 2, referenced above, Google Pixel 3, Android Version 11

 

If any other info is needed, pls advise.

Corry P
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Hi @SamJones6 

I completely understand. In fact, I think the only further piece of information we need is the Android version on your phone(s). Please let me know, and I’ll set all that up so that we won’t need you to call us at all.

Thanks.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
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» When you used VNC and another phone, were you still exporting

» playlists as M3U, or did you leave them as Android playlists? There could be a difference.

Yes?

Here is the workflow in detail:

Phone #1 -- Sony Experia, music on SD card:

  • Black player EX, native playlists: Sonos SEES playlists created in Black Player, symptoms described in detail above on this thread
  • Black player EX, exported M3U playlists: Sonos SEES exported M3Us, symptoms as described in detail above on this thread
  • VLC Player, native playlists: See write up above on this thread

Phone #2: Pixel 3, Music on internal storage (phone does not support SD card)

  • Black Player: native playlists: Sonos DOES NOT see playlists at all
    • Did not try exporting playlists

 

» Due to the inconsistencies of this issue, we would appreciate you

» calling in to our technical support team

I am happy to consider this, but I am NOT happy to start the conversation from zero

If you have a ticket number, and have fully painted it up internally, so a call in will directly move to gathering further info, I am happy to help. If there is ANY chance of simply spending all the time AGAIN, I am not interested.

 

Corry P
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Hi @SamJones6 

The permissions certainly seem right.

When you used VNC and another phone, were you still exporting playlists as M3U, or did you leave them as Android playlists? There could be a difference.

Although we are aware of the issue, it does not happen in all circumstances. I was trying to help you fix it so that you can find some way of listening to your playlists before we get round to fixing it in software - you mentioned your phone is your only source of music.

Due to the inconsistencies of this issue, we would appreciate you calling in to our technical support team so we can create a case and take some details and diagnostics - we are still investigating, so this would serve to help us help you. I completely understand if you don’t wish to spend further time on this, however, and I appreciate the time you’ve already spent.

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

» My first thought is to try a different, generic music app for Android.

The above was suggested early on, and I followed the suggestion and wrote up my experience above on the thread.

 

» Do you have another Android device that you can test on? If so, it might be worth trying it out.

I already in the past tried this on multiple Android devices and saw the issue is consistent or worse. For example, I have a Pixel 3 with 100% of the music library on internal storage (this phone does not support an SD card). The Sonos app doesn’t see the playlists at all (it sees and plays the music as albums and artists, but the Playlist area of the Sonos app is empty when I do have a number of playlists).

There are a number of threads on this forum of folks reporting the same issue I report. I do not expect this issue should be new to the Sonos team.

 

» It may also be worth checking that the Sonos app on your phone has all the permissions it needs.

In Android Settings, the Sonos app has the Storage permission.

That is all I can think of that might apply?

(And the Sonos app has no trouble playing music that is on the SD card… so the permissions would appear to be solid, yes?)

» we are aware of the issue and are looking to work on it,

This makes it sound like the issue is known or probable in the eyes of the Sonos team.

If that is the case, why would I go banging around trying to fix it as a user?

Corry P
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Hi @SamJones6 

That’s not what I expected. As it worked on my phone, I can only presume therefore that it has something to do with the difference between your setup and mine. My first thought is to try a different, generic music app for Android.

Do you have another Android device that you can test on? If so, it might be worth trying it out.

It may also be worth checking that the Sonos app on your phone has all the permissions it needs. If you don’t know how to do this, it’s probably easiest to just uninstall the app and reinstall it.

I hope this helps - if it doesn’t, I’ve run out of ideas. As I mentioned before, we are aware of the issue and are looking to work on it, but my own experience is that playlists on internal storage do work, so I don’t get why yours will not.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
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Hi @SamJones6 

I believe if you keep your music on the SD card, but don’t export your playlists and instead allow Android/Black Player EX to save them where it wants to, you won’t have this problem.

@Corry P 

I regret to report that the above is not the case.

  1. I first tried WITHOUT doing any exporting. Had the problem reported on this thread.
  2. I then tried exporting. Had the identical problem (details above on this thread)
  3. I then tried using the VLC player and creating a playlist in that player. Had the exact same problem (details above in this thread)

 

IOW: If what you suggest were the case, I never would have had a problem!

Corry P
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Hi @SamJones6 

I believe if you keep your music on the SD card, but don’t export your playlists and instead allow Android/Black Player EX to save them where it wants to, you won’t have this problem.

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

» A SONOS MOVE or ROAM would allow Bluetooth play from your phone.

Yes. But that is not my use case.

I want the flac files to get to the Sonos for higher fidelity.

If all I want is a bluetooth speaker, I would not bother with Sonos.

 

» Some routers accept USB sticks and behave as NAS drives that are accessible to SONOS.

Yes, I am aware of that.

However that is not the use case on this thread. Please review the thread to understand the use case.

 

Thanks!

buzz

A SONOS MOVE or ROAM would allow Bluetooth play from your phone.

Some routers accept USB sticks and behave as NAS drives that are accessible to SONOS.

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@106rallye 

» You can use the Android app to command the Sonos system. I'd say that's Android suppport.

Your position would be correct IF in the Sonos app all I could do was command the Sonos system.

However, the Sonos app ALSO shows my local library, tracks, albums, artists, and playlists.

If it shows those things, it should be able to play those things (as there is a Play button right there…).

But, while it plays SOME of those things, it does not play ALL of those things.

IOW: Either: (a) The app is broken (e.g. it should play all those things, but is damaged and cannot); OR (b) The feature set presented (play all these things) is out of scope with the feature set Sonos actually offers (and in this case, the app’s presentation -- and the relevant product documentation -- should be updated to reflect this.)

 

I am not taking a position as to what the truth should be (‘a’ or ‘b’). That is for the Sonos team to decide. (I thought it was ‘a’, but that is just what I derived from the information and app presentation. Such things are decided by Sonos Product Management, not by me.)

I am just observing the issue and trying to collaborate with the Sonos org to move toward clarifying what the situation actually is.

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@John B 

» abandon playing from your phone and store your music on a NAS drive,

» using the phone merely as a controller. 

 

I am aware that this is a possibility, but it is simply not the use case presented on this thread. (Note, I asked how to engage a specific use case, not “what are alternative architectures.” I know there are other architectures, and it is clear that Sonos was not designed for the use case I present though that is not clear from the Sonos literature and user experience.)

My use case exists for a specific reason: I spend my days and weeks spread across three different locations (a house, an office and an apartment). Each of these has a Sonos (that I am largely unable to use due to the Sonos on Android limitation discussed on this thread.) My phone holds my whole music library so that it is accessible to me in the car, at the beach, when I travel, and when I am in these three locations.

The phone is my master copy of my music library for this reason.

And, it goes without saying, the playlists I have on the phone are heavily used (with such a large library, playlists are the only effective way to make the music accessible), and they work great when I am in the car/at the beach/in an airplane/etc. They simply do not work when I am at home/office/apartment where Sonos systems exist. (My workaround is to use bluetooth speakers that had to put next to the Sonos speakers… and try not to weep at the relatively poor audio quality.)

I did not expect this limitation when I spend thousands on Sonos gear.

I could raise a huge stink, but instead I have tried to constructively engage the topic here on this forum.

I hope that is an acceptable path of engagement.

 

J

Another possibility would be to abandon playing from your phone and store your music on a NAS drive, using the phone merely as a controller.  This was how Sonos was designed to play local content, and sits much better with Sonos architecture than playing music stored on the mobile device (which is no longer even possible with Apple devices).  I also found a NAS to be more robust than the phone source when playing FLAC across several speakers.  In operation it is virtually identical to playing from the phone, despite your earlier comments.

I apologise in advance if my attempt to provide a helpful suggestion irritates you as much as everyone else’s attempts seem to have done.

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@Corry P 

Corey, Thanks a TON for your detailed investigation of this issue.

The good news: I think we are all on the same page now. (Yeah!)

» So, if you have the space on your phone,

Ahhh, there is the rub. I don’t. My music library is LARGE (8000+ tracks, mostly flac), and doesn’t fit to any useful degree on internal storage.

If the Sonos app could evolve to digest the playlists (android-internal or m3u or both) in an SD card setting that would get us somewhere!

(As it is, I can’t use the Sonos most of the time, which is crazy, because it sounds way better than my bluetooth speaker… and heck, I have several Sonos speakers… that I almost never use as a result of this.)

 

Corry P
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Hi @SamJones6 

Apologies - as I had no ideas at the time, and as no-one else had suggested it, getting in touch with technical support seemed like the best path for you to take. 

I have now discovered that we are in fact aware of this issue and are looking into it. With Android, we pull from the Android built-in music library database rather than actually scanning the device ourselves, and at some point over the years this has stopped working for playlist importing - in certain circumstances. In fact, I checked my own playlists and they are all empty in the Sonos app too.

On my own device, I discovered the following: Moving an album’s folder and it’s m3u playlist file to the phone’s internal storage and rebooting the phone (which makes Android rescan media content and can take a while, with no progress being shown) did in fact allow Sonos playback of the playlist. Most of my playlist files just contain all the tracks of a particular album, so it was easy to test one album and playlist.

So, it seems the issue is only with importing playlist files from an SD card. I double-checked this by creating a new playlist in Samsung’s Music app referencing only SD Card-stored tracks and Sonos picked it up immediately and would play it (no reboot of phone needed). Unfortunately, this doesn’t actually result in the creation of a m3u file so doesn’t really compare. It’s possible that new playlists have a better chance of working if you don’t export them as m3u, and just leave them in the Android database (which is where I presume Black Player EX will store them otherwise). I don’t think moving only a playlist file to internal storage will work as the playlist usually (or at least mine, created initially on WinAmp do) reference the tracks relative to where the playlist file is. Moving only the playlist file would break this relative addressing.

So, if you have the space on your phone, I recommend moving your music library to internal storage, along with any playlist files, then rebooting the device and waiting 10 minutes or so after the reboot before testing playback of the playlists on Sonos - though I also recommend doing a quick test, along the lines of mine, first, if you have a lot of music just to test that it will work.

I can’t promise any results as I’m unfamiliar with Black Player EX, though I believe the plethora of music playing apps for Android all just interact with Android’s own database, so I think the chances are good.

I hope this helps.

 

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
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@Corry P  Thanks!

Please review this thread. It sounds like you just threw a stock answer on the thread.

If I thought tech support could fix it, I would be happy to contact them!

But…. they can’t fix what isn’t there…

From this thread (and others), the bottom line is: Sonos on Android is just missing the playlist feature. It is very misleading, because the Sonos app on Android has a section for Playlists.

But it doesn’t work. Not because it is broken, but because the Sonos team chose not to fully build this feature on Android.

Again, please review my use case and the discussion on this thread.

 

Corry P
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Hi @SamJones6 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

If you haven’t found a solution to this yet, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
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@106rallye 

» Doesn't  your phone have a native music player you could try?

No. Android Play was discontinued and disabled by google years ago and replaced with youtube music.

 

 

» To me playing music that's on your phone seems like a very old fashioned notion.

Well… it is %60 supported by the sonos app...

 

» Since your phone is mobile (and so can be lost) I suppose your music files are also on a computer.

Yes they are

 

» Couldn't you work with those?

The sonos app on windows is a mess, and I have seen it fail to function on multiple systems, and make a mess on other systems. When it doesn’t work it is impossible to troubleshoot. And I don’t use my computer for playback for anything else, so it has no playlists.

So the answer is: Using the computer for music is not my use case. My phone is like a remote…. it is on the couch with me, and it is how I play music.

 

106rallye
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You can use the Android app to command the Sonos system. I'd say that's Android suppport. And you can play to the system from your phone (just no playlists from a certain app) - that's more than some users with older devices can do from their iPhones…….. 

Doesn't  your phone have a native music player you could try?

To me playing music that's on your phone seems like a very old fashioned notion. Since your phone is mobile (and so can be lost) I suppose your music files are also on a computer. Couldn't you work with those?

 

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@Ken_Griffiths Well, VLC Player seems to be the most popular player on Android (100M+ downloads!), so I tried it.

 

Made a playlist in VLC. Added 2 songs to it. It plays fine in VLC Player. Rebooted phone to make sure the Sonos app would rescan what is on the phone, but the VLC playlist is not listed in Sonos at all.

 

So until someone chimes in, it appears my architecture simply does not work with Sonos at all.

 

VERY misleading by Sonos. (And pointless, it seems to me.) To say Sonos has “Android support” is not really true. It has limited functionality on Android.

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@Ken_Griffiths  Yeah. I do not see a single success story based on the architecture I have. Am I missing something?

I get the feeling Sonos may not be the right system for me. Kind of a bummer, because it is quite close to ideal.

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