Contributor I

Airplay 2 and play count bug

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
July 15, 2018
20 replies
1238 views

My iTunes music listening scheme relies on play count being updated and Sonos didn’t support that so I wasn’t a Sonos user. But we got a Playbase as a sound bar for our TV and liked it a lot and enjoyed the streaming functionality.

Since Airplay 2 support - which would allow me to stream directly from iTunes like I do the Airplay speakers I had - came out, I decided to pick up a Sonos One to play with. Airplay directly from iTunes, and Sonos streaming capability - best of both worlds, right?

I set my shiny new Sonos One up today and…hit an unexpected snag.

If I would play music using iTunes to my computer speakers and using Airplay to also stream to the Sonos One at the same time - the play counts in my Smart Playlists would NOT be updated. However, if I started streaming to a second non-Sonos Airplay speaker (so, computer speakers, Sonos One and an additional Airplay speaker), the play counts WILL be updated.

So: Airplay to Sonos - no play count update. Airplay to Sonos + non-Sonos - play count update. This makes no sense. When using Airplay, the Sonos speaker should just be a dumb client being driven by iTunes which should update the play count.

Is this a bug in the Sonos Airplay implementation? Is there a setting somewhere I failed to set? I am new to the Sonos galaxy.

Any insight would be very welcome.

Cheers all.

play count

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Airgetlam

In all honesty, I think this is an Apple issue, not a Sonos issue. In this scenario, the speaker is just a "receiver" or "target", and it shouldn't make any difference. whether it's a Sonos speaker, or an Apple TV, or anything else.

Bruce

J

John B

Just out of curiosity, why did you buy a Sonos One to play with Airplay 2? Why not just use the Playbase?

imgod2

Lyricist III

I have the same problem, and your suggestion to Airplay to Sonos & non-Sonos speaker works. The play count in iTunes is working.

Airgetlam

That's absolutely fascinating.

Bruce

R

RextynAuthor

Contributor I

I have the same problem, and your suggestion to Airplay to Sonos & non-Sonos speaker works. The play count in iTunes is working.

True, but that's a crap workaround. But I'm glad that someone else is seeing the same behavior - that verifies that this isn't somehow unique to my setup.

I would like to replace my existing Airplay speakers with a couple of Sonos Ones, but this play count issue is a deal breaker. Sonos made a lot out of adding the Airplay support and having it delivered broken like this is a huge let down.

My next move is going to be to completely scrub the Sonos app from my Mac and see if this behavior persists. Part of me wonders if you are using to Airplay to play to only Sonos devices if it is doing some sort of end-run around Airplay by somehow employing the Sonos app - which as we know, does not update the play count.

I have no proof of this (and I could totally be wrong), but this behavior doesn't make any sense and I need to examine all the angles. I DID notice that when Airplaying from iTunes to the Sonos One, if one opens the Sonos App, it will show what song is playing on the speaker including the album artwork. And if the speaker is merely acting as a dumb Airplay audio client, that seems like odd behavior.

Airgetlam

You lost me on that last bit. The controller shows what you're playing if it's streaming something from Pandora on the speaker, why would it not show what your streaming from your Apple device?

Bruce

imgod2

Lyricist III

I think it is because we have to play through the Sonos Controller to get the audio to work, where as the other non-sonos speakers connect directly via Airplay. What I did was to select my Apple TV as another audio source t test, and like you said, it works.

imgod2

Lyricist III

You lost me on that last bit. The controller shows what you're playing if it's streaming something from Pandora on the speaker, why would it not show what your streaming from your Apple device?

It does show on iTunes and the Sonos Controller (Concurrent). Not sure why forwarding audio to the controller (via Airplay) does not increase the play count in iTunes.

R

RextynAuthor

Contributor I

You lost me on that last bit. The controller shows what you're playing if it's streaming something from Pandora on the speaker, why would it not show what your streaming from your Apple device?

No. If I am streaming from music from iTunes to the Sonos One using Airplay, I would expect that the Sonos One is acting as a dumb Airplay audio client. Such is the nature of Airplay (with audio devices) and would be the desired behavior. But if I open the Sonos app (which is theoretically not involved in this transaction) it reports the song name and album artwork of what is being played to that speaker. I would not have expected that behavior.

imgod2

Lyricist III

I have the same problem, and your suggestion to Airplay to Sonos & non-Sonos speaker works. The play count in iTunes is working.

True, but that's a crap workaround. But I'm glad that someone else is seeing the same behavior - that verifies that this isn't somehow unique to my setup.

I would like to replace my existing Airplay speakers with a couple of Sonos Ones, but this play count issue is a deal breaker. Sonos made a lot out of adding the Airplay support and having it delivered broken like this is a huge let down.

My next move is going to be to completely scrub the Sonos app from my Mac and see if this behavior persists. Part of me wonders if you are using to Airplay to play to only Sonos devices if it is doing some sort of end-run around Airplay by somehow employing the Sonos app - which as we know, does not update the play count.

I have no proof of this (and I could totally be wrong), but this behavior doesn't make any sense and I need to examine all the angles. I DID notice that when Airplaying from iTunes to the Sonos One, if one opens the Sonos App, it will show what song is playing on the speaker including the album artwork. And if the speaker is merely acting as a dumb Airplay audio client, that seems like odd behavior.

Yeah, agreed. I noticed the problem a few hours ago, and I logged in to the community to see if anyone else had that same issue.

Your workaround works, so I am good for now.

Thanks for the solution.

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