After multiple conversations with Sonos, they believe it’s a Plex problem. Sonos’s system is showing that music library access is being denied. However, Plex results show up in Sonos search and I am able to play Plex items from there.
I can also successfully cast to Sonos via PlexAmp.
I am having problems with Sonos doing Shuffle All from Plex running on my NAS. I have to try to start shuffle all from Sonus 10-15-20 times before it starts. It never starts when I select shuffle all, I always have to use play after Sonos is in the Shuffle All mode. Once I have Shuffle All selected, I just try play several times, then repeat selecting Shuffle All and then Play until it starts. Once it starts it will play all day. Each time it fails I will see the connection lost message. I will also see the connection lost message when it does start to play. I use Plex instead of Sonas to select tunes because my library is too large for Sonos.
I have also tried changing my password, reclaiming my server and re-authorizing Sonos all without resolution.
Furthermore, even when casting from Plexamp to Sonos, whicle this does cause Sonos to play the media, the dashboard states nothing is playing which means play counts do not increment - which I rely on for some of my smart playlists.
Seems to be Sonos/Plex integration requires a LOT of attention from Support - I’m not sure of any official way to reach the Plex Support team as a Plex Pass member.
Dont get me wrong, Plex is an amazing product and I’m so grateful for the efforts by the team - which is why it’s so frustrating when things dont work as they should.
I’m happy to test any potential fixes/provide more logs but I think that 401 unauthorized is a big clue as to what’s happening.
I also had the “Unable to browse music” error message. I was able to resolve the problem by navigating to a deeper menu.
In the Sonos app (S1) on IOS.
Reproduce Method 1
Go to “Search” at bottom menu
Search for an artist that has never been browsable in Sonos.
Go to that artist entry for Plex Result
Get “Unable to browse music” error message.
Reproduce Method 2
Go to “Browse” at bottom menu
Go to “Plex”
Go to “By Artist” Result
Get a specific (maybe cached) truncated list of artists such as 100 artists out of 10000
Solution
Go to “Browse” at bottom menu
Go to “Plex”
Go to “Other Sources”
Go to the Plex library and server that is troubling you. Example: “Music on MyCloud”
Go to “By Artist”
From this menu you can browse all the music without getting the “Unable to browse music”. It also has the added benefit of making the problem resolved for Reproduction Method 1 and Method 2.
Thanks for the reply.
The error appears as soon as I go to Browse > Plex so this unfortunately doesn’t solve my issue
As the logs posted show, Plex server is returning a HTTP 401 (unauthorized) error in response to Sonos trying to connect.
@alepine - Thanks for the reply. Just like @philius99 , the solution does not work for me. The error appears as soon as I go to Browse → Plex. I don’t have the ability to select “Other Sources.”
Just a quick update on my issue - I have raised a separate post on the forum but my 401 error has been resolved without me changing anything on my side but I still have the same issue browsing Plex through Sonos
