Exactly the same problem here. Apologies, I created a separate post before finding this one.
Incidentally (separate issue for SONOS / PLEX users) does anyone else find the search function painfully slow? It even slows down the searches for Spotify (etc) when including Plex as one of the sources.
When I search with the Sonos app, it seems speedy. I just cannot play anything anymore. It used to work fine but it has been out for weeks. No network changes, my router supports NAT loopback, etc. I donāt feel this is a Sonos problem, unless they made a change to the Plex integration. It is kind of amazing to me this has been going on so long. Itās like a turntable that wonāt spin.
I agree - this looks like a Plex issue to me, problem is I canāt be sure. Interesting to know you have no speed issues when searching. If I remove Plex I get pretty much instantaneous results from Spotify. If I add Plex it takes perhaps 8 seconds to respond to get any results at all. Itās always done this for me even when the Search was working properly and Iāve learned to live with it. The new issue is new in the past 2-3 weeks.
I just had a Sonos update for my devices but the issue is still there for me.
@tbathurst your speed problem may be specific to your server. When I moved everything to a larger NAS with a large SSD read cache, the difference was stark. Much faster.
Bumping this as Iām getting the exact same thing. Itās been happening for weeks.
My current crappy workaround is to search by album name and select it that way, which is extremely frustrating.
EDIT: still occurring on 1.24.3.5033
I canāt be certain, but the only thing thatās new is Iāve scanned my library for Sonic Analysis and it roughly matches the time since this issue has started. Could be a total red herring but adding it as a data point.
Iām not noticing any particular speed issues. I run on an old HP Gen 8 MicroServer with spinning disks so itās not super quick, but not noticably sluggish.
Iāve always noticed a speed issue. For example - whenever I search for an artist - almost immediately I get results from Amazon Music, Pandoraā¦then a pause and finally a response from PLEX. I have always had this - and donāt think it is at all related to the āunable to browseā issue.
I think it is basically that Amazon has a faster server than meā¦
Iām not so sure, as when I had my library as itunes on my Synology, I got instantaneous results on SONOS. Itās only now itās on Plex itās slow. Ultimately itās only a query on what should be a relatively small set of data. It does seem odd but hard to prove or diagnose where the problem is.
Iām seeing this too, but with one wrinkle. If I search for an artist that is only available on my server, I see the same behavior. But if I search for an artist that is available on both my server and one of my friendās servers, I see an intermediate page listing the available servers I can stream it from. Then if I click into either of the two servers, I see the track list as usual.
This leads me to suspect that this is a bug in the Sonos app, not a problem with Plex per se (though Iām guessing some Plex change exposed the bug on the app).
This is on Plex 1.24.3.5033, running on a pretty fast machine in docker. I did run the music analysis stuff too, FWIW.
Iām having trouble casting to Sonos from the Plex apps, too: Sonos devices are missing from Cast function
This is quite unfortunate. My Sonos system has been useless for Plex music for nearly a month.
Same here
I do however often also gets a timeout error in the Sonos Apps: 1002.
Iām very sure it is Sonos which have changed something. My Plex is very seldomly updated and is older than yours.
Have you engaged with Sonos Support on this matter?
I ended up nuking my Plex install while upgrading my NAS. I did a fresh install on Synology DSM7 and voila, Sonos works again. This was a nuclear option but it sure is nice to have this working again. It hints that problem, when it manifests, has to do with the Plex Server.
Cancel that. Itās back to the same problems again.
I thought I should chime in here. I had a LONG phone call with Sonos support a couple weeks back. Youād think Iād have more to report, but it ended with them asking me to contact Plex support to make sure it wasnāt a problem on Plexās end. If Plex wouldnāt confirm it was their bug, then I could call Sonos back and theyād escalate to an engineer. I just havenāt had the time to trying to figure out where to formally submit a Plex support request.
I will add one interesting thing. The support technician I worked with had me install Sonos on my Mac. I got the exact same behavior. Canāt play artists but can if you search for albums. (You can even search albums by an Artistās name ā thatās my current work around.) Hereās where things get really weird. I signed in using several Plex test accounts that Sonos has for using Plex. The acounts have a few songs in them and have names like SonosPlexTestAccount01 something along that nature. I must have used four or five accounts and in each account, the lack of functionality and bugs were worse than MY plex account. For example, I can āBrowseā my Plex music in the Sonos app. But with these test accounts, even āBrowseā would return error messages like we see when trying to browse Artists ā āUnable to browse musicā. The lady was utterly baffled and gave the impression that these test accounts had just recently worked and that we should be seeing everything. Yet, when signing into these test accounts into Plex via the browser, everything worked. Music could be browsed, played, etc.
My suspicion is that somebody ā Plex or Sonos ā either updated their app and broke/changed an API or a network configuration change is blocking communication. I kinda feel that last one isnāt as likely because why would it block the ability to browse an artist but NOT block the ability to browse an album listā¦
Anyway, has anyone contacted Plex support? At the end of the day, we need to establish whoās responsibility the bug is. That may be difficult as companies so often and so conveniently try to blame the other company in cases like this.
Is there a means to do that beyond posting here? It surely wasnāt obvious to me.
Anyway, there was that big Cert issue that broke remote access for a day or so. That was resolved this morning. I restarted my server and the problem was resolved. Of interest to this thread, my Sonos system now works fine with Plex.
I donāt know. Iām a Plex Pass member. I see you are too? I thought we got support with that? I thought that was literally listed as one of the āperksā of forking over the moneyā¦ But damned if I can find it with a quick Google search. Anyone have any pointers for reaching Plex? Because this thread feels like a bunch of people talking to themselves in forgotten roomā¦
As for Sonos working fine with Plexā¦ Iāve always been able to play music, pause, skip, etc.
The problem is that I canāt search for and then browse artists, which is whatās being reported in this thread. I have to find the music some other way ā searching for an album or going to āBrowseā the entire list of artists and then clicking on a specific artist.
Sorry if I mixed topics. Iād posted about Sonos simply not working at all in another thread. Not working for weeks and weeks. That seems to be better since they addressed the Cert problem this morning that was breaking remote access.
I have your problem, too. The problem of searching for and then browsing artists persists. āunable to browse musicā is the message.
My problem appears to be resolved
I made a change about three weeks ago to open firewall port 32400 and make my Plex server directly available without the relay service. Since then, I have had no recurrences of inability to browse my Plex library from Sonos. Notably, I can re-create my symptoms at will by removing the firewall rule - but as long as I keep the rule is in place, I have no issuesā¦
Hypothesis: Having the Sonos app browse a Plex media library may well rely upon an API integration to Plex.tv. Example: Sonos controller talks to Plex.tv, and Plex.tv talks to PMS. This hairpining of traffic through Plex.tv servers may well rely on Plex Remote Access. In my particular case, Remote Access used to show up with an X, and traffic would forward via the Plex Relay servers; now I have the green check-mark on Remote Access. Speculating further, perhaps Plexās relay servers usually hairpinned the traffic, but occasionally didnāt. And so my on-again-off-again browsing was the result of Plex.tv being able to access my PMS some of the time but not othersā¦
Putting the firewall rule in seems to have cured my issue. I hope it will work for others tooā¦though everyoneās setup is different. It may be worth checking your Remote Access settings and seeing if you find symptoms there? (I suspect any issue that blocks enough packets might well cause the same thingā¦)
As for Plex the company - my Sonos integration used to work rock solid via the relay service, and now notā¦ If youāre monitoring the thread, would you be able to confirm what Remote Access setup is required? And if Plex relay servers are a supported method of Sonos integration, could there be a bug/issue?
