Sonos introduces New Search

Just wanted to add another voice saying that not including personal library in the “new search” is a step backward and a reason not to use it. Please keep library support going forward, it is essential!

Since the rollout of the new search which does not work at all, with classic search I can only search artists, stations and genres. I can no longer listen to Mixcloud nor music on my device. Any help?

Hi @Shaplinfist 

You should still be able to use Classic Search just as you used to, though the ability to play tracks stored on an Android device will soon be removed. New Search should also work for you. 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.

@Corry P thanks for your reply. As you can see from my screenshot I only have 3 options available for classic search. And as for removing the ability for users to play their own music on the system that they have paid for, this is a massive backwards step, to me one which will lose you many customers. I guess it depends if Sonos values their customers or values restricting peoples ability to use the products they have paid good money for to try and squeeze a bit more cash out of them through subscription services

Looks like you have an issue with your controller App, as there should be many more tabs/categories in the classic search view - see screenshot:

Maybe try a reset of the controller App and see if that perhaps resolves the matter for you. I can actually see 18 tabs/categories that can be searched with the MSP services I have installed.

@Ken_Griffiths thanks buddy, the update had removed my services so I can once again access Mixcloud after adding it again. Still pretty disappointed that Sonos are restricting our ability to play music from our devices. I was considering adding another product to my system but now I will probably just get a different system that I can play my music on without restrictions 

Hi @Shaplinfist 

The categories you see there are based upon the music services you have installed - the fewer you have, the fewer categories there will be available for searching. Again, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team for assistance.

Edit: looks like you found that out by yourself - great!

@Corry P yes thanks I realised that I had to re add the services after the update. Still very disappointed to have my ability to play music from my device restricted though. This is particularly unfair to people who have already paid for their product and you are now planning to take a massive part of the service away with no discussion or compensation. Terrible move

Hi @Shaplinfist 

This is an announcement article for New Search. I appreciate your points, but I request that you please make them on the related thread, or on a new one of your own making:

Indeed this is concerning. Releasing this new functionality without such a feature is a quite a message. I would like them to at least acknowledge they are working on it. Otherwise, the writing is on the wall (and it will be time to investigate other solutions than Sonos in the long term...)

I just had a play and it does seem like a massive improvement so far.

⚠️ URGENT Please update the Search in order to scan NAS local library without this feature the Search is useless and I would rather use another Mobile App to browse my music. Thank you

Hi @Romain Casteres 

Please use Classic Search to search your Music Library.

Thank you, hoping that this search capacity will be implemented into the new Search version

Don’t like the new search feature. It rarely works and can always find what I’m looking for with the Classic Search. Example: 

I can no longer search Audible books from my library .This was possible before but now when I try to search for a specific book title in my large library I gave no option but to scroll through the whole thing because all I get are music suggestions. I think your new search seems pretty broken. The tab for audiobook search has vanished. Pretty frustrating, and a bad user experience so far.

Ps - this is also broken in classic search.

Audible search old and new still not working at least on Android. (Audiobooks missing in old and audible missing as provider in new)

Fix it please but fix it!

Lot of new things to like in the "new" search, but the inability to pull from my library is a deal breaker. 

To me neither of the search functions works any more on my iPhone, for the new one I more or less always get a response that my request can not be processed at this time. And for the old search it keeps refreshing or something and resets the search to the initial result, meaning if I klick on Deezer to see more results I get that for a short wile and then it jumps back to the overview, completely useless. My daughter was in tears last night when she tried the Sonos app on her Android phone the search functions seems to work even worse on the Android app than the IOS one.

Shame about this update.  Search works from home screen, you play your music, then go back to say the same artist and everything has disappeared. So you have to go to the home screen again and select Search and start allllll over a again. 
Currently looking forward to ditching my Sonos system after all these years of managing a nightmare of an app.  First speaker gets donated next week  - I can almost feel the stress leaving me already 😁

7 months later! Waiting for new search to do anything but add more clicks. I want Apple Music my library to always be default (top of results)

if I want something else I’m happy to scroll but 95% of the time im using Apple Music my library. I don’t care if it does it magically or not but at least let us prioritize the results in our settings please? 

The new search uses tabs, can’t you just select the Apple Music Tab, rather than scroll? See attached highlighted button…

Hi @abj0028 

If you predominantly use Apple Music, it should already be giving you Apple Music results first - I use YouTube Music, and after doing a search now, YouTube Music results were at the top of my screen. For My Library results, you will need to toggle the switch at the top, between the list of music services and the results, to see the search results for tracks you have uploaded (this works for me and YouTube). With YouTube, this switch has no writing on it, which is a little bit of an issue, but it should still work:

I’ll see if I can noise someone up about the label still being missing, though I don’t think it is with Apple Music.

I hope this helps.

My big frustration with the new search today, on Android, is that I type the first two letters (slowly as my fat fingers go) and then the cursor leaves the search box and I have to wait for the usually incorrect search to complete, to reposition it and type more.

Good news, it hasn’t aggravated me enough yet that I’ve reverted to the old search. :-)