Yeah I'm mostly joking. It seems like the whole thing is such a mess anyway, they may as well plough forward. Trying to go both directions at once is just going to make things worse.
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Sonos Can't Release Old App for Customers Unhappy With Design Changes
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Yeah I'm mostly joking. It seems like the whole thing is such a mess anyway, they may as well plough forward. Trying to go both directions at once is just going to make things worse.
Does anyone know the version or how to tell if my speakers have upgraded to the newer firmware that works with this crappy app? I’m pretty certain they haven’t updated automatically, but I need some way to find out.
I hear that, I just really like the hardware and I already spent a ton of cash. For some reason AirPlay constantly cuts out for me with my Sonos system (I have many speakers). Then again, it's random speakers, so it could be a problem within the hardware where the speakers are not communicating with each other, or Sonos' awful software may also be the culprit.
Sorry to hear. It's shocking that hardware companies can effectively change the product you purchased with a software update, products that you would not have purchased had you known that they had these limitations and or awful controlling software, which they did not have at the time of sale. When I was on that call with Sonos, I said that the changes in software changed the entire Sonos system and is was as if someone walked into my home and physically replaced the system I purchased with one that I did not and would not buy. There was about 15 seconds of silence before they could muster up more excuses.
I would normally agree with you, but you're assuming that Sonos has properly backed everything up, has good source control methods, and has software revisions. Given how Sonos got into this mess in the first place, I would not be the least surprised that half of the things they updated can't be reverted and is lost code.
You give them too much credit. If they were competent, we wouldn't be talking about this mess in the first place.
I've got version 16.3 of Sonos Controller for Mac. It works fine… but doesn't seem to be available on sonos.com for download. In fact, it seems that there's no desktop app of any kind available on sonos.com
www.sonos.com
Also, I find their web app a gross assumption of what I want in a smart speaker.
Sonos App and Web App Controller - Sonos
Higher resolution audio. Improved design. Increased security. Smarter software to keep your system up to date. Welcome to Sonos S2.
Also, I find their web app a gross assumption of what I want in a smart speaker.
South Park nailed it years ago with the Human CentiPad episode.
Remember, you agreed to this...via that EULA you had no choice but to agree to and which can change at any time.
It's sad that the subject was iTunes when that concept has gotten so much worse and been abused so much more broadly in the more than a decade since.
I have a number of Sonos units. Play 1s, Play 3s, Ones, One SL, Playbar, Sub and they are distributed throughout our living space in our house, all were working perfectly without problems running the S2 app on an old 2012 Mini which was limited to Catalina, most of our music was music files we had taken from our own CDs plus online music from a Spotify account. While we could have survived with the Spotify account, we have some favourites which I could not find in their library.
When the new app came along we suddenly had the 913 error and were unable to access our own music, I probably added to that error in that one "solution" I saw was to turn file sharing off and on to reset it but the old mini now refuses to restart file sharing and doing this on a newer system worked as a file share but the Sonos App still refused to connect.
Buried deep within the Sonos support page was this little gem which has now restored access to my saved music including playlists:
This has worked and restored our music collection but did it really have to be broken quite so badly and communicated to their users so poorly.
I suppose I can try OCLP on my old 2012 Mini now that it is not really usable on Catalina.
When the new app came along we suddenly had the 913 error and were unable to access our own music, I probably added to that error in that one "solution" I saw was to turn file sharing off and on to reset it but the old mini now refuses to restart file sharing and doing this on a newer system worked as a file share but the Sonos App still refused to connect.
Buried deep within the Sonos support page was this little gem which has now restored access to my saved music including playlists:
This has worked and restored our music collection but did it really have to be broken quite so badly and communicated to their users so poorly.
I suppose I can try OCLP on my old 2012 Mini now that it is not really usable on Catalina.
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I have to use the Sonos app because Music can only play via AirPlay to newer speakers. My older Play 1s and Play 5s, are not available speakers in Music when I make a selection--only my newer Sonos Ones, Moves and Roams are visible. And my speaker groups don't always include one of those newer speakers. Those older speakers can play via AirPlay, as long as one of the speakers in a group is a newer one, and is the lead speaker / first one selected in the group.
Technical question along these lines: if I do play music over AirPlay from my phone, is the phone the source, or is the speaker going to AppleMusic directly to get what I said I wanted to play? The Sonos app just tells the speakers what to go get, for example. The app doesn't pull the song down to my phone and then pump it to the speakers. My 19 Sonos speakers play background music the entire waking day, and my poor iPhone battery would be toast if the phone was the direct source, like in a BlueTooth-to-speaker configuration.
Also, in my family's use-case, we put on a long playlist (often an AppleMusic playlist) using the Sonos app and let it play all day. Let's say I am the one starting the music off, and then leave the house. The music plays on as instructed--the Sonos system doesn't even care that I left. Anyone else in the house can open the Sonos app and work with the running playlist (even if that AppleMusic playlist is not their playlist) and skip songs, etc. It is this functionality that opened my wallet and left kidney to Sonos the first time I saw a Sonos system in a friend's house ten years ago.
If we used the AppleMusic / AirPlay configuration in our house, and I leave the house with my phone while music is playing, the music is going to stop playing--unless someone tells me that the phone isn't the direct source, but only sends instructions to the speakers, and the speakers fetch the music. Also, in the AirPlay configuration, my phone is the only one that can control the music.
I am fortunate that the only problems I have with the latest issues is the clumsiness of the app--my system still works. And I truly feel your pain if you're one of the unlucky ones. Losing full functionality of my Sonos system and leaving my house crickets-silent, would we devastating: much like being up in an airplane, and all of a sudden the comforting and reassuring drone of the engines suddenly goes silent.
As I've stated in a previous post, I am just not down with using products like Sonos. Physical media is where its at for me and so many other individuals. Sure having 1 or 2 Bluetooth speakers outside or near the pool is fine but investing in a full system and spending hundreds and probably thousands of dollars on a product that in a few years will be replaced with the new new new product they offer...
Why not invest in a high end system that doesn't require updates? I still play CDs in my trucks or plug my device into the 3.5 mm to Lightning port. You can't say this is inconvenient and if you do.. its like really? Invest in an awesome tower setup for your home and put cassettes, CDs and vinyl to use. It sounds better and is the way to go! I've seen so many examples where artists entire catalog is pulled from a streaming platform or streaming all together (look what Snoop Dogg did after he acquired Death Row Records... he tried to make it an NFT label and get people to spend HUNDREDS on an NFT to gain access to the catalog that so many had already spent money on via cassettes, CDs, vinyl, digital purchases, etc.).
Sure people are upset at Sonos but don't forget the original HomePod, for many, ended up DEAD or "bricked" as some call it. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255371474?sortBy=rank. I know people that bought 3 or 4 of these for $349+ tax. I mean could you imagine spending $1,000 on a sub par product that it killed off a few years later due to a software update. Why not just buy a real sound system? It doesn't make sense to me!?!??
Why not invest in a high end system that doesn't require updates? I still play CDs in my trucks or plug my device into the 3.5 mm to Lightning port. You can't say this is inconvenient and if you do.. its like really? Invest in an awesome tower setup for your home and put cassettes, CDs and vinyl to use. It sounds better and is the way to go! I've seen so many examples where artists entire catalog is pulled from a streaming platform or streaming all together (look what Snoop Dogg did after he acquired Death Row Records... he tried to make it an NFT label and get people to spend HUNDREDS on an NFT to gain access to the catalog that so many had already spent money on via cassettes, CDs, vinyl, digital purchases, etc.).
Sure people are upset at Sonos but don't forget the original HomePod, for many, ended up DEAD or "bricked" as some call it. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255371474?sortBy=rank. I know people that bought 3 or 4 of these for $349+ tax. I mean could you imagine spending $1,000 on a sub par product that it killed off a few years later due to a software update. Why not just buy a real sound system? It doesn't make sense to me!?!??
You don't have to stream music from the internet to use the AirPlay protocol. I'm able to play my local media from my iPhone and Mac on my Sonos speakers via AirPlay without issue.
Yes, I know, the point was that I went with Sonos because I wanted to use their more robust and reliable mesh network and avoid AirPlay. The fact that Sonos recommended using AirPlay to play local music as a workaround was unacceptable coming from a company who initially sold their mesh network as a reason to buy their products. Airplay may be good for some, but not for me. I have 21 Sonos speakers, subs and soundbars and several always cut out on and off randomly while using AirPlay. This does not happen with I use my Sonos mesh network.
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I agree with you. I relied heavily on their app because airplay is just not good. It's relatively slow and sometime cuts out and I've been having issues with volume control since iOS 17.0 not to mention the huge list of airplay devices that appear when you choose speakers, something you have no way to edit or customize.
We do this at my work all the time but we spend quite a bit of time making sure it's backward compatible in every case we can, except security stuff of course. Once you start changing API's in the cloud and don't make them backward compatible it becomes extremely tough to go back.
I think the troubles began with the second app the S2 app, having had Sonos devices back in 2014, when 6 DSL was all you could get, it was never slow or sluggish, roll on some years later S2 app and 512Mb connection and performance was not the same, the latest app on a 1 GB connection, even worse.
First and original Sonos app is the touchstone for stability and performance!