Sonos S2 cannot connect to USB drive on ASUS ax3000/ax58u router

I have the same problem. I have a relatively new ASUS RT-AC67P router. When I plug in an old external hard drive into its USB port (actually an old Thinkpad X60 laptop drive in a Sabrent external hard drive enclosure), I was able to get my Sonos system to connect to it, index it, and play music from it.

But that old X60 drive is too small to hold my entire music library, so I went to replace it with a brand new Toshiba 2TB external hard drive. As with the OP, after I enter the path and credentials. Sonos accepts everything, but after 5 seconds it fails with an error message, “//192.168.x.x/toshiba/music is no longer available. The device where the music files are stored may not be powered on, or the path may have changed.”

I’ve tried emptying the folder so there are only a handful of songs (<1000). I renamed the toshiba partition since it originally was called “toshiba_ext”, in order to remove the “_” character (since I saw some posts saying that Sonos doesn’t allow the “_” character). I’ve rebooted the router and power cycled all my Sonos devices. 

Any suggestions?

Does the new drive have any fancy settings for security or access?

Or the router that might follow the old drive?

Can you see the share from your computer?

Could you rename the share to match the old drive?

Thanks Stanley_4 for responding.

I’m not aware of any fancy security settings on the new drive, or on the router.

The share is visible from my Windows 11 computer without any problem (can read/write to it).

I haven’t tried renaming the share to match the old drive but can try that and report back.

In the ASUS router log, I’m seeing errors like this:

Jul 27 15:42:12 smbd[3918]: [2023/07/27 15:42:12.315863,  0] smbd/smb2_server.c:401(smb2_validate_message_id)

Jul 27 15:44:41 smbd[4166]:   smb2_validate_message_id: client used more credits than granted, mid 1025, credits_granted 0, seqnum low/range: 1025/0

I’ve found other posts with people getting this kind of error when using an ASUS router with Sonos (e.g. https://www.snbforums.com/threads/samba-issue.78029/, https://www.snbforums.com/threads/sonos-and-usb-attached-hdd-drive-issue.79102/). One person solved it by ditching the router and switching to a different one, but I just bought mine 6 months ago so I’d prefer not to go that route.

The new drive likely has a much higher data transfer rate than the old one (which is almost 15 years old) -- could this explain why the problem only occurs with the new drive?

(Note that the Sonos system consists solely of Sonos One and Sonos One SL’s, so I think that makes it an S2 Sonos system. Regarding SMB protocols, I can’t find any documentation as to what SMB protocols are supported by my specific ASUS router [ASUS doesn’t publish a manual or specifications for it on their website], and its GUI doesn’t provide an option to turn on/off different SMB protocols.)

If the router has SMB2 -- which it does from the log messages -- Sonos will attempt to use it. There is evidently a known issue with Sonos, SMB2 (and possibly 3) and large directory trees. If the music is broken into smaller subtrees you may be able to index each subtree individually. Sonos accepts up to 16 share/folder entries. 

I found some discussions of the error message.

Couple suggestions: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/samba-issue.78029/

Many more hits: https://gibiru.com/results.html?q=smb2_validate_message_id%3A+client+used+more+credits+than+granted&cx=partner-pub-5956360965567042%3A8627692578&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8

Trying to keep my life simple so I’d rather not have to figure out how to split up a large collection. 

The question is why using a different router solved the problem (for at least one other user). I suppose I can try and see.

Splitting is easy, just make some new folders and drag/drop your music to them.

My current setup is //share/Current/ with sub-directories under Current of A to Z.

To split it up I’d rename Current to Current-A and add Current-J and Current-R then drag J through Q to Current-J and R to Z to Current-R.

Then remove Current as the Music Library and add the three new, AJR ones there.

If you need more, smaller splits just pick letters that work for you.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Given that I still have this problem when I use a library that is 1/20th the size of my full collection, I don’t think splitting it into smaller folders will be the solution.

I found several other posts on this forum about Sonos not indexing music libraries on USB drives attached to routers; it looks like the SMB2 protocol is part of the problem (e.g. one fix is to disable SMB2 on your router), and that Sonos is supposedly working on a solution. 

Unfortunately my ASUS RT-AC67P router doesn’t have the option to turn off specific SMB protocols. While I could try flashing third party firmware onto it, I’d rather not while the thing is still under warranty.

Instead I will try flashing firmware on an old Netgear router and see if I can get that to work.

A Raspberry Pi is always an option. Lots of unused ones out there you can often have for asking.

Live Journal: Stan  https://stan-miller.livejournal.com/

You could use the gateway option with your music stored on your router if that would work for you.

Thanks for the suggestion, Stanley_4.

I took an old Netgear R4500 (Costco version) which I was able to convert into a WNDR4500v1 (retail version) and then flash FreshTomato onto it in order to control the SMB protocols. Sonos is now happily indexing the music library. 

Any resolution to this problem.  I am running S2 for my system, ASUS AX-3000 and it is running SMBv2.  The initial transition to S2 went well, but I have been unable to add any new pieces to the music library.  The old music continues to play.  There are not many files.

Any attempt to update the library results in “music files not available”.  The log on the server indicates: “smb2_validate_message_id: client used more credits than granted, mid 1026, credits_granted 0, seqnum low/range: 1026/0”

Any suggestions?

If you can temporarily configure the router to use SMBv1 only you may be able to complete the indexing scan.  

Thank you for your suggestion… unfortunately for this router, there is no option to force it to use SMBv1 in the GUI, though I could try to re-use an old router that had only SMBv1… I have read elsewhere that the “credits” is a SMBv2 addition.   

Just as a follow up, for others who are having this problem.

As one of the earlier posts by ratty suggested, it appears that I was running into a size problem, even though I only have 517 songs in that shared drive.

For my problem, I have created a new shared drive on the same hard drive device on the ASUS AX-3000 USB port and I seem to be able to add new songs which are properly loaded by Sonos.