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The latest on the Sonos App from Nick Millington

 

Update: December 10, 2024

 

This is Nick Millington, Chief Innovation Officer, with another update on the Sonos app.

Over the past several weeks, we have been beta testing several features and fixes, with a particular focus on improving system setup and the reliability of adding new products, volume control and responsiveness, and Local Music Library search, sharing and stability. 

Our latest release, now available, includes improved music playback error handling as well as several fixes specifically for Android users: Group volume improvements, Album art for music library and support for users moving between multiple systems.

 

As we enter the New Year, we will continue our cadence of major and minor releases, focusing in particular on restoring Playlist Editing and Snooze Alarms, plus improvements to Local Music Library and overall responsiveness. We acknowledge that even as we have rolled out improvements to group volume, some customers continue to face issues with volume control as a result of connectivity issues between certain players and the app. We are committed to making significant improvements here in our upcoming updates. Likewise, we know our work is not yet done when it comes to improving usability of Local Music Library, and have heard your feedback around requests such as returning A-Z scrolling and improving queue management. We will provide further updates on this as soon as we are able.

 

As always, you can also view detailed updates on each new release, including today’s release as well as previous ones, on our Release Notes page. 

So Nick Millington, I updated my sonos app on 2 of my android phones and now neither of them can now connect to my system, only showing that I have a media device connected and not my 5no. amps. - even removed and downloaded the app. This undoubtedly will require me to 'yet again'  go through the process of setting up my system as a new system, which will require me to access my rack system to identify each amp and also reload the two other devices which I did not update and which are working fine - Nice work Nick have a Happy Christmas!

 

PS when will you also sort out the problems with Mixcloud where I am still unable to access any of my numerous playlists. This has been in issue reported by other Sonos sufferers on many occasions and yet seems to fall on deaf ears!


Greetings forum members:

We each are affected differently by the deficiencies in the new app. My main problem is the inability to use the new Tunein to access my carefully curated previous radio stations. Is there any alternative to new Tunein for playing radio stations where I have to input the unique URL manually? This used to be a seamless built in part of the original sonos program, and except for a money grab by Tunein, I can’t see any upside for sonos getting rid of Tunein. I am certainly not going to pay Tunein to listen to my free radio stations without commercials. Has anyone figured out a way to listen to stations not on sonos radio or Spotify or apple  besides Tunein? I appreciate any help. I have not bought a single new sonos product since the app was changed. I am an original sonos owner from day one, and would upgrade some speakers if the app were able to play my radio stations. Thanks for your time.


The simplest solution for Sonos would be to save/show the manually entered radio stations under favorites. Just like before!
There are obviously commercial interests in not doing exactly this and instead entering into a cooperation with InTunes, which is surely profitable for InTunes. Just an assumption of course, as technical reasons are not apparent. 😉 It is therefore certainly difficult to openly discuss alternative ways of using your own URL streams with Sonos without advertising, as this contradicts Sonos' intentions and will certainly be immediately prevented by Sonos...
Or Sonos could finally talk openly about it and bring this function back. That would be a trust-building surprise.


As I understand it Sonos can’t index over 65k. So how would they find the non-indexed items?

If the Synology MS Audio app can do a Random100 playlist on this library, certainly Sonos can do it too.  They need to expand their indexing capabilities.


Android app has an issue loading m3u playlists causing replication in the queue.

I have found that:

* Request a playlist of > 99 tracks and the error manifests replicating to huge totals

* Replication appears to be limited but figures vary - a 100 track playlist replicates 475 times to a total of 47,500 queued tracks. A 101 track playlist replicates to 47,571 which is 471 times so there is a pattern/limit there somewhere...

However:

* Request a playlist of < 100 tracks and all is fine with no replication

* It does not make a difference if some of the referenced files do not exist

* Request a large playlist (>99) from the desktop controller and there is no replication

So it would seem that the Sonos bug relates to a playlist track count of > 99 causing a load loop.

 

I am seeing this as well, i initially thought an algorithm was being applied to a local library .m3u shuffle but this makes more sense. My queue when this playlist is playing is over 55K. (https://en.community.sonos.com/general-feedback-and-conversation-229090/can-the-algorithm-be-disconnected-from-local-library-shuffle-6924288)


Use SonoPhone or the old “orange” app as a workaround.  When you load your M3U playlist into the queue using those apps the queue will not duplicate your playlist.  When you look at your queue in the new app it will show the proper number of tracks.

Sonos needs to fix this.


So when does the update arrive that enables me to access my music libraries via the Sonos iOS app. My Sources only include my TV.  Before May, it used to work perfectly. After updating to the latest firmware, iOS app, desktop controller… access still denied. Remember when it was automatic by browsing and selecting it?  I want that back. Period.  P.S. My permissions and sharing are wide open.


So when does the update arrive that enables me to access my music libraries via the Sonos iOS app. My Sources only include my TV.  Before May, it used to work perfectly. After updating to the latest firmware, iOS app, desktop controller… access still denied. Remember when it was automatic by browsing and selecting it?  I want that back. Period.  P.S. My permissions and sharing are wide open.

 

About 5 months ago.  You will need to remove your current library and add it again as a networked SMB v2/v3 share.  See this link:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/add-your-music-library-to-sonos

 

Pay special attention to the “Share your music folder on the network” section.  You must configure the share, unlike the old way of just adding a music folder. 

 


So when does the update arrive that enables me to access my music libraries via the Sonos iOS app. My Sources only include my TV.  Before May, it used to work perfectly. After updating to the latest firmware, iOS app, desktop controller… access still denied. Remember when it was automatic by browsing and selecting it?  I want that back. Period.  P.S. My permissions and sharing are wide open.

 

About 5 months ago.  You will need to remove your current library and add it again as a networked SMB v2/v3 share.  See this link:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/add-your-music-library-to-sonos

 

Pay special attention to the “Share your music folder on the network” section.  You must configure the share, unlike the old way of just adding a music folder. 

 

   I did that previously. When I updated the S2 controller on my wife’s newish iMac running Sonoma, that app found the existing libraries. I can play from the desktop controller but, the iOS app is giving the Access Denied hand of death. Continually. I’ll attach a couple of screen grabs to show how I set the network paths.

   Sonophone (the black background) has no issues finding it and playing the music; it was instantaneous just like Sonos used to be. The other is a screen grab from my iPhone. I’ve tried adding it in several times but no luck. My permissions are set to “Everyone” and I’ve applied them to the Sonos Family Room folder and all of its contents. I did take the step about a month ago to update the speaker firmware and desktop controllers and, as usual, the iOS app. Admittedly, I “do” hesitate to call Support as I don’t want to be unplugging and replugging speakers and the router for an hour+ when, IMHO, it’s a patch that Sonos should have released months ago. Just sayin’.

   Note: I run an old OS on the Bradleys share and, have deleted the iTunes library from my wife’s iMac. The Sonos Music Room is THE only library I’m concerned with.  Also, the Sonos Music Room folder resides on a Crucial X8 SSD and, I’ve checked with them to confirm that the SMB version is indeed set by the iMac. I can’t imagine a two year old iMac running a very recent OS would utilize SMBv1.

 


Isn’t a password required?


Isn’t a password required?

Yes but, for the sake of this post, I left that out.  Believe me, I’ve tried any and all options and triple-checked the iMac user name...etc.


https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-and-music-services-229131/music-library-disappeared-6923969?postid=16829731#post16829731

Have you watched this video.  Unfortunately I don’t have Mac so I’m pretty blind on these Apple issues.


It used to be that I could do a search on Sonos, select an album, and then save it under Albums on Sonos.  Similarly, with Playlists and Songs.  So I had quite a lot of these which now I cannot see, play, add to, or edit!
Is that valuable feature to be returned to us, please?!

 


https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-and-music-services-229131/music-library-disappeared-6923969?postid=16829731#post16829731

Have you watched this video.  Unfortunately I don’t have Mac so I’m pretty blind on these Apple issues.

I have.  Thanks for the link though, McPac.


This is a business decision. Sonos wants to play the subscription card like the rest of em. I’ve been a sonos customer since the play:3 came out. I’ve always struggled with it. I decided to give Gen2 firmware a shot and wow, suckier than ever. I’m selling my Sonos gear. Great sound, horrible business model.

 

 


This is a business decision. Sonos wants to play the subscription card like the rest of em. I’ve been a sonos customer since the play:3 came out. I’ve always struggled with it. I decided to give Gen2 firmware a shot and wow, suckier than ever. I’m selling my Sonos gear. Great sound, horrible business model.

 

 

Sonos has clearly stated, both on this forum and in the press, that there are no plans to move to any type of subscription plan.