Putting B2 Play Lists onto my Sonos System

[Michael...@hotmail.co.uk]

Hi Folks

My B2 has over 95K tracks on it now. As we know Sonos has a 65K limit, so for sometime many of my tracks haven't appeared on the Sonos System. I play all my music using the Web UI interface via the Sonos System.

However when some new "young" visited yesterday they immediately want to use their mobiles to drive things and asked whether I had any play lists. Yes I said confidently, only to find these weren't on the Sonos System. It didn't matter as I got them to download the Brennan mobile App and after a bit techie muddle through attitude they were up and running. But it did question as to WHY these play lists weren't on the Sonos. I presume it's something to do with the 95K verses the 65K and the "order" in which the Sonos system pulls the data over (set to do daily) from the Brennan?

Keeps the "old mind box" ticking over, mind you!

Michael

[JFBUK]

Hi Michael,

The audio files on your B2 and the playlist files are two different sorts of objects.

A playlist on the B2 is a simple text file with a set of references to folders and files stored on your B2.

Using the web UI to drive your Sonos output means that the B2 communicates with your Sonos system and write entries onto the Sonos playback queue(s)

for the Sonos system to process. 

As I understand it, the B2 does not simply send a playlist name to your Sonos, it builds a "Package" of all the audio files that form that playlist and sends each of the audio files in the package to the queue on your Sonos system. 

Even if you use the NAS method of working for your B2 and Sonos,  the Sonos system does not understand what the B2 playlist files are so won't index them and make

them visible via the Sonos interface. 

Sonos can interpret other playlist formats such as M3U, WPL and PLS though.

John

[Michael...@hotmail.co.uk]

Thanks John I now understand why the play lists are not showing on the Sonos system. Not a problem, just let the B2 generate the list of CDs etc and send this to the Sonos speaker(s) you wish to hear it from and I presume you switch on the Random Play feature on the Sonos System.

Have fun!

Michael

[john.h...@gmail.com]

Once the b2 playlist or cd list  is sent to the chosen speaker you can save the queue in Sonos as a pjaist fir future use 

I do this all the time 

John 

[Fred Waltman]

I generate playlists from a database of tracks (Hey, I'm a software guy...)

They get copied into the B2's playlists folder (have to use scp -- this folder is not visible thru the NAS)

I also created a folded named "Playlists" in the B2 music folder and copy m3u playlists there as well. After running a Sonos "Update Music Index" they will appear in the "Imported Playlists" folder in the Sonos app.

Three are some issues -- if your artist, album or track name has special characters (e.g. ü, è, ř, ø, or non latin characters) the Sonos will skip it in a playlist. It will play it if you drill down thru the Artist, Song folders but not on playlists. This is apparently due to Sonos using an old version of SMB. There are ways around it but it is a bit tech-y (prefixing the track with  x-file-cifs:// and URL Encoding the path -- except for the slashes (/))

The B2 playlists folder is saved when you do a backup, so you could copy the playlists from there to a "Playlists" folder within the B2 music folder. I don't know if Sonos expects them to have the extension "m3u" and you might have to prefix all the tracks with your share name (probably "music"). I did all this over a year ago and my B2 has been down for a while (just back up!) so it is not fresh in my mind.

BTW, the folder "Playlists" is not magic -- the Sonos will find any M3U files in your library but it seems best to me to put them all in one place.

HTH,

LA Fred

[PMB]

Hi LA Fred,

We are moving to a new Forum page - link - so please post any new messages/answers there.

Paul

Brennan Support.