Update on the Sonos App from Patrick Spence

Further to my previous posts, I have tried using sort by iTunes compilations to album artist, back again and back to album artist again and the sorting for my music library is still not correct.  I’ve also deleted 4 songs I didn’t require and they are still listed in the Sonos app but obviously won’t play.  Clearly the app is not updating correctly with some albums not sorting correctly, some album art not showing correctly and not removing songs that have been deleted. This is pretty poor, must be getting close to 12 months now.

Another little crisis to report. I tried to update my Sonos library but the system couldn’t add my new music, so I deleted the library and tried exactly the same procedure to set it up again as the one that had been successful before, but no joy. Tried everything else I could think of, but no good. Eventually, as a last resort, I turned off Windows Defender Firewall and tried the original procedure again. No problem - straight in and after a few minutes all my music folders and files were added back into my Sonos library. I’ve turned the Firewall back on again now and it will be interesting to see whether I can update the Sonos library next time the need arises.

Like most I’ve tried just about everything, I have a qnap nas on my home network that has music stored on it.  I’ve never had an issue getting the music to load in Sonos library but since an update probably 18 months ago it hasn’t displayed correctly. Some artwork doesn’t display properly or at all, haven’t been able to work out why some will and some won’t.  But what I have worked out is the music is sorting by artist and not album artist which is causing albums with various artists to display each artist as a separate album.  I have tried using the iTunes sort and album artist sort but because it’s using the artist field it’s not sorting correctly.

Can’t believe we are still having to deal with this, there have been numerous updates but nothing that sorts music library issues. Very frustrating!!!

On my system, the Sonos Music Library is shown in the following categories: Artists, Albums, Composers, Genres, Songs, Imported Playlists and Folders. Folders equates to the folders in my local music library. So what I do is put all the music by any given Album Artist (eg Beethoven) into the same folder in my local music library (eg C:\Users\Fat Fred\Music\Beethoven) and then I can easily find it in the Folders category of my Sonos Music Library.

Thanks Fat Fred, I think I basically have the same, all under music/b/beethoven/album name.

It used to display correctly in Sonos app, but since an update 18 months ago it’s not.  As mentioned it seems to be sorting the music by artist rather than album artist which sometimes can be various. There can be individual artists on an album and it seems this is being used rather than the album artist which would be various, if it was sorted by album artist it would then display correctly.  Hope this makes sense.

See the attached image showing the music library under albums. The first 3 display correctly as they have the same artist, but the 4th is displaying an album for each artist, so each is a single entry. 
If it used album artist it would then display correctly.

I never use any of the Sonos music library categories except Folders. Say I wanted to listen to my recording of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. I would find it in my Sonos music library by clicking on 1. Music Library, 2. Folders, 3. //HPENVY34/E/Music (which is what Sonos calls the local music folder on my PC), 4. Beethoven, 5. Beethoven - Missa Solemnis in D major, Op. 123. That way I would always be looking at my music files the way I've organised them on my PC, not the way Sonos thinks I ought to have organised them.
 

Ok thanks, guess that’s one way around it but still no reason why the app doesn’t display albums properly and that some album art doesn’t show. Cheers 

​@Niffty & ​@Fat Fred 

For Your information…

Music Library - Album Artist metadata change | Sonos Community

FWIW, This thread is over 9 months old. The title really doesn’t reflect the issues currently being posted in here. Besides Patrick Spence is gone and no longer involved with Sonos.

To better make your voice heard regarding a specific issue I recommend starting your own post. By doing so others who have or have had a similar issue will see it and possibly chime in with relevant comments. JMHO.