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Strange folder names on Music Library hard drive

T
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  • T-S
  • Chromatic Producer I
  • 345 replies

While hunting down a problem with Music Library files not being recognized by some of my components (after installing a new Asus WiFi router) I found folders on the music library hard drive with names like:

FTOY07~G
_OLYYS~F
_WTT9Q~P

This is shown in Finder on macOS when I browse the drive. If I insert the drive directly to a Mac, these folder names are not shown. Instead I find that they have unusual characters and quotes. Possibly also long file names.

Names like:

[RI028] "Mu"

'Ignacio'

Fax|Nmlk

 

If I index the Music Library with only ‘old’ Sonos components (like Connect) active there is no problem on these components.

If I index the Music Library with only ‘new’ Sonos components (like Play1 & 3 and Sound Bar) active there is no problem with these components.

However when I mix ‘new’ and ‘old’, one of the categories will fail to find these folders when I try to play on these components. Which it is depends on which I indexed last.

Maybe long file names will also produce these errors.

-

Previously I had an Airport Extreme and this problem did not exist. I guess the strange folder names are some kind of aliases created by macOS and that this scheme breaks when connecting to the Asus server. According to creation date on the folders with the strange names it seems to me this naming happened when I ripped my CD and copied to the hard drive, a long time ago.

Possible solutions:

  1. Rename all problem folders (and files?) I tried this with one folder and it worked. Pretty sure this is a solution but it’s a lot of work.
  2. Change to a disk with another file system. Since all my gear was Apple the disk is currently formatted in Mac OS Extended (journaled). Could this work? Which file system format is safest to use? Maybe Fat32?

Best answer by T-S

Problem solved.

I made backups on the hard drive, reformatted it to FAT32 and then put all the files back again, without changing any filenames. As far as I can tell that solved the problem. All files I had probelms with are now found by all components and I did not have to change any file names.

So, just a quick recap. If some Sonos components say they can’t find files in your music library and you notice you get strange file and folder names (like FTOY07~G and _OLYYS~F) when looking on your hard drive when it’s is attached to a router (in my case Asus Zen AX), and you don’t see these names when the hard drive is attached to the computer try the above method.

Small note: Regarding the disk name. FAT32 is case insensitive and the hard drive name was automatically forced to upper case on macOS Somona. But on the other mac (running Mojave) I could give the hard drive a name with lower case letters. I then noticed I got a ‘1’ added to the hard drive mame in Terminal. It might be better not to do that, better to only use upper case for the hard drive name.

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7 replies

Sotiris C.
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  • Sotiris C.
  • Sonos Staff
  • 731 replies
  • March 18, 2025

Hello ​@T-S, welcome back!

If I index the Music Library with only ‘old’ Sonos components (like Connect) active there is no problem on these components.

If I index the Music Library with only ‘new’ Sonos components (like Play1 & 3 and Sound Bar) active there is no problem with these components.

However when I mix ‘new’ and ‘old’, one of the categories will fail to find these folders when I try to play on these components. Which it is depends on which I indexed last.

Can you please clarify and provide a bit more information to the above?

In regards to the name of folders, as it is not really Sonos-related, with my response your thread moved to the top of the latest activity list, maybe other Community users can provide some advice and assistance here.

I hope this helps.

 

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T
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  • T-S
  • Author
  • Chromatic Producer I
  • 345 replies
  • March 18, 2025

Hi!

I tried to write all the details so some one having similar issues might find it when searching. Can you specify what’s unclear or missing?

I realize the problem is probably not primarily Sonos related but it affects Sonos components in an unexpected way.

Some searching and chatboting lead me to suspect the problem lies in the file sysem on the disk in relation to the Asus WiFi router. Files with unecpected characters might trigger something called “8.3 short filename (SFN) aliasing system”, used primarily by older Windows file systems like FAT12, FAT16, FAT32.

Still not sure which solution to use I will try to provide more information if I solve the problem.

T
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  • T-S
  • Author
  • Chromatic Producer I
  • 345 replies
  • March 18, 2025

Initial tests (using a small USB stick 32 GB) indicates that formating to FAT32 might be the solution. Doing that I see no files like “FTOY07~G” when the disk is attached to the WiFi router. They all have proper names even if quotes and question marks are present in file names.

After indexing it worked on all new (S2 compatible?) components directly. The older Connects first found no music at all but after reindexing, and restarting it seems like it works.

Solutions for 8.3 short filename (SFN) aliasing system problems often mentions formating to exFAT but my Asus router does not support that (which is really bad) so FAT32 was the closest I got.

Now I will migrate my library to FAT32. Hopefully that solves the issue. I’ll report back, but it might take a while.

Airgetlam
  • Airgetlam
  • 42584 replies
  • March 18, 2025

Note that Sonos doesn’t set or create file names for your music files themselves. It only, at best, creates a playlist, which refers to your individual files, which are created/named by other apps. 

Essentially, Sonos points to your files, it doesn’t create/copy them. 

Bruce
T
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  • T-S
  • Author
  • Chromatic Producer I
  • 345 replies
  • March 19, 2025
Airgetlam wrote:

Note that Sonos doesn’t set or create file names for your music files themselves. It only, at best, creates a playlist, which refers to your individual files, which are created/named by other apps. 

Essentially, Sonos points to your files, it doesn’t create/copy them. 

Thanks, yes that is correct. The files, filenames and metadata are created by various software through the years. As long as my router and computer was Apple it just worked with Sonos. Attached hard drives was probably different Apple file systems, never really thought of it. The one I use now is formated on a Mac, pretty sure it’s HFS or HFS+.

But now with an Asus router it seems I have to format the hard drive with the music library to FAT32. I hope that’s the solution. Maybe it had been better to discard strange characters, but they were usually produced automatically by ripping software.

Airgetlam
1 person likes this
  • Airgetlam
    Airgetlam
T
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  • T-S
  • Author
  • Chromatic Producer I
  • 345 replies
  • Answer
  • March 20, 2025

Problem solved.

I made backups on the hard drive, reformatted it to FAT32 and then put all the files back again, without changing any filenames. As far as I can tell that solved the problem. All files I had probelms with are now found by all components and I did not have to change any file names.

So, just a quick recap. If some Sonos components say they can’t find files in your music library and you notice you get strange file and folder names (like FTOY07~G and _OLYYS~F) when looking on your hard drive when it’s is attached to a router (in my case Asus Zen AX), and you don’t see these names when the hard drive is attached to the computer try the above method.

Small note: Regarding the disk name. FAT32 is case insensitive and the hard drive name was automatically forced to upper case on macOS Somona. But on the other mac (running Mojave) I could give the hard drive a name with lower case letters. I then noticed I got a ‘1’ added to the hard drive mame in Terminal. It might be better not to do that, better to only use upper case for the hard drive name.

T
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  • T-S
  • Author
  • Chromatic Producer I
  • 345 replies
  • March 20, 2025

Also worth mentioning for any one else using Asus Zen AX. The format option in the server administrator  page seems unreliable. When I tried formatting using that option the router could not even mount the disk it had formated by itself! Formating to FAT32 on MacOS Somona worked. It only says “FAT (MS_DOS” but it’s FAT32.

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