B2 Sonos speakers not working

[Shawn Rosvold]

Hi,

My B2 shows 4 sets of speakers. Three sets are Sonos and one is the wired set. I am trying to play music through the Sonos speakers labeled Office. 

On the top left of the UI screen, there is only a volume bar showing beneath the music selection. When I hit the play button nothing happens. No time/progress bar, just a volume bar. When I switch to the wired speakers, the sound works, and the time/progress and volume bars both show.

I have gone to the Sonos app. All speaker setups appear. I have just done an update on the Sonos app. 

Normally the status lights on my Office speakers (Sonos SL1s) are green, but now they are white.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Shawn

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi Shawn

You are correct - When from the B2 Web UI to a Sonos speaker all you get is the Volume bar (which works). There is no status bar. This is (I think) because the music to be played on the Sonos is "given in cache" to the Sonos "system".

For instance if you ask the Sonos to play a short B2 playlist then this playlist remains playable in the Sonos Queue (as seen form the Sonos App) even after the B2 is turned off.

This means that the B2 would/will not know what time/progress is being made and therefor that bar (which is not present) could not actually work for you. 

White Sonos lights are I believe the correct state for them to be in (mine are all white!) 

Fred

[PMB]

Hi Shawn,

Clicking on the Play tab, on the web UI, does not play anything to Sonos - you have to select an Album or a Track to play it.

I have only ever seen an orange or white light on my early Play 1 and my later One's.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Gabriel Blanton]

Hi Shawn,

I haven't had the opportunity to purchase a B2 yet but wanted to let you know about the Sonos status lights. Green means they are muted (or the volume is all the way down to 0). White means operating normally. But, if you have any where you wish the white LED didn't show all the time (e.g. Bedroom) you can change it to off, in which case the LED will only illuminate when it has something to communicate. See: https://support.sonos.com/s/article/226?language=en_US

Cheers,

Gabe

[Shawn Rosvold]

Thanks everyone! I was mistaken about the lights. And I figured out why I couldn't get the Sonos to play.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi Shawn,

For clarity and  closure (for others who may come later to read this Tread to solve a similar issue) could you please tell us what you figured out the problem and the solution to be.

Anyhow

Glad you are now sorted.

Fred.

[Shawn Rosvold]

Hi Fred,

A very simple solution.

So, I hit play album in the center column. Music played through the wired Brennan speakers. I clicked on the Sonos tab and selected Office speakers. No sound. The solution is to click the play arrow album again after switching speakers. Assuming the album would keep playing after the speakers were switched was obviously wrong.

I have one more odd (maybe it's supposed to be this way) thing. When I am playing an album through the Brennan wired speakers I have a volume bar and a time/progress bar on each cut that plays. When I play through Sonos that time/progress bar disappears.

Thanks again for all your help, Fred!

Shawn

[Daniel Taylor]

When you control the Sonos system from the B2's WebUI, the B2 sends the selected album or songs to the Sonos system, but has no way of knowing how far into a song the system has played.  So the progress bar isn't shown when the speaker selection is Sonos.

[Shawn Rosvold]

I just booted up the B2. Before I did anything, the display on the top left (is that called the player?) was showing the first song in the Sixties album, stored under Various Artists. And the progress/time and volume bars were both showing. I clicked the play button on the top left display (player?) and the song played, then started playing the next song. But the song title did not change from the first song. The volume control didn't work, and clicking the pause button didn't either. After the second song played, the album stopped playing, none of the controls worked.

So, I went to the center column, scrolled down alphabetically to Various Artists, scrolled down from the Various Artists list on the top right to the Sixties album, and clicked the play button beside the album. The first song started playing and I hit the forward button to play the next song, which it did. But when I hit the forward button again it played the second song again from the beginning instead of going to the next song in the album. The play button did not change to pause when I clicked on it, so there was no way to stop the music. I tried hitting the reverse button which took it back to the first song that had played from the album. Clicking the reverse button again took it back to the last song I had played from another album before the Sixties album. Clicking reverse again just started that same song again, didn't go back any further in history.

Also, the text in the top left (player?) always showed the first song that played from the Sixties album, even after the second song played. Then the player stopped again after playing the second song. The top left display (player?) still shows the first song and says Source Hard Disc Paused.

Any suggestions? 

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

The B2 from its Web UI, when playing to Sonos speakers, is NOT in direct control of the speakers. The B2 is interfacing with the Sonos Queue system as seen  in the Sonos App.

If you open the Sonos App and the B2's Web UI in two side by side windows, you will see the relationship between the two. Once "set off" by the B2 the Sonos system proceeds to process what it has been sent and there is no (or little) reverse feedback

into the B2's environment. So album art does not change on the B2 (but will I think in Sonos) - Volume changes are still passed form the B2 to the Sonos but progress the progress with the Sonos' playing time is not passed form the Sonos to the B2.

In other words only the "global", one way controls from the B2 will work and sometimes these take time to be acted on.

I agree it is not ideal, but the interface is usable and if you want you can also run the Sonos App in parallel to fine tune your experience.

Fred

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Fred,

I don't have any Sonos kit, so I have a couple of queries to help me understand more precisely how the Sonos setup works.

1.  The B2 WebUI works as normal (as one would expect) and plays music as displayed on the Webui through the B2/ amplifier/ (non Sonos) speakers.

2.  The Sonos system operates by using the B2 only as a library source (using NAS) and the Sonos app (on the PC) is functioning entirely separately from the B2 WebUI (which makes sense to me)

Or have I misunderstood the scenarios?

Regards,

Peter. 

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi Peter,

I think "visually" so bear with me as I try and explain what I think I am seeing happening.

Situation 1 - Sonos system uses the B2 as a NAS (B2's NAS switched ON and visible from the PC/Mac end)

Here you use your Sonos speakers though the Sonos App, having connected the Sonos system (via the App - see below times 2) to the B2's NAS, Making this "a" Sonos "Music Library"

Going into the music library (in this case a copy of my B2's music on my PC), as you dig down you can see the folders that the Sonos sees just like the "Artist" level seen in the middle window of the Brennan UI.

Hope that is all clear.

I will continue in a new post as the images are large and may upset the system.

Fred

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Fred,

Yes, your post does help me understand more clearly how the Sonos element functions; thank you for that.  I see that 10,000 Maniacs and 10CC are the first two artists in your collection, the same in true in mine!

Regards,

Peter.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Continued

Situation 2, Primary means of control is the B2's Web UI after it has "detected" the presence of a Sonos system. Note the B2's NAS is ON.
Below my snapshots of the Sonos screen are to show you what the Sonos "system" is seeing/doing, I am not USING the Sonos App. I AM using the B2's UI

So the start position for Sonos is as below, Paused while playing from Classic FM radio to my "Office" Sonos Speaker and the Sonos Queue is empty.

My B2 start position is  (self explanatory)

So at this point I could select a track and play it to my "attached" Brennan speakers thus

Leaving that playing, I now click on the "Sonos" tab and select one of the Sonos speakers.

Note how the Sonos speaker names match those seen in the Sonos App image.

And how, having selected that Sonos speaker the playing area has changed - we now only have the volume control.

(I will start a new reply and continue)

Fred

On Sunday, 16 May 2021 at 01:13:47 UTC+1 fred.w....@gmail.com wrote:

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

So i now select an ABBA album and play the first track.

and the Sonos App shows this

Between the two the following are actively linked

Volume sliders, Play/Pause and the < > buttons (Random does not link at the moment) and I have no Idea if the Equalizer works (I would think not). Note play stops at the end of that track.

Now, if I select an album rather than just a track to play track this happens

Playlists work in a similar way

(I will continue on a new post)

Fred

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Fred,

OK, I'm beginning to see that my thnking is not correct, so thanks for this!  It's now 2am here and I've had a few alcoholic beverages, so I will go to bed and sleep on this and review in the morning!

Regards,

Peter.

On Sunday, 16 May 2021 at 01:49:17 UTC+1 fred.w....@gmail.com wrote:

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

OK

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Now I will select my other (stereo Paired Sonos speakers called "Living Room") - while doing this Adele continues to play out of my "Office" speaker.

and the Sonos App now looks like this

But my Living Room speakers are playing ABBA.  (so if I click on the "Living Room" in the Sonos App I get)

Fred

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

So to continue

If I now go back to the Brennan Speakers

and select a different piece of music

I can control these as normal

 It is therefore possible to have different music coming out of all your speaker (sets) and to control them from the B2 by "switching" between them. As you do the Brennan UI changes to accommodate the current selection.

What you can not do is select ALL the speakers at once and send time synchronised music to them all.

However the Sonos App allows you to group multiple Sonos speakers together under a single name and in this configuration the B2 can send synchronised music to all grouped under that name.

I understand that there is a Brennan limit to the number of names (currently 20).

I hope all this helps people - please ask me if anything is unclear or if I have missed any wrinkles out (I most surely have).

Fred  

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

OH I forgot to point out----

While you have to have the Sonos App to set up the Sonos speakers,     the App DOES NOT have to be open for the B2 to USE the Sonos setup. Indeed the PC on which the App is resident can be powered off and all will work. I think that

the Sonos speakers must be "self intelligent".

Fred

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Fred,

Thanks for that info.

Quite a lot to absorb!!

Regards,

Peter.

[Gabriel Blanton]

I think the Brennan could be made to control mulitroom music better on Sonos. At least I'm aware there have been projects in the past that were able to figure out the UPnP controls for grouping players etc, so without knowing much about the Brennan's "tech stack" it seems at least theoretically possible for the media playback and grouping control structure of Sonos to be understood and implemented in the Brennan. Perhaps Sonos changed something around these controls, but, so long as there are "any" unofficial, third-party software solutions out there that can control Sonos grouping, then, well, that means the Brennan could also. There's probably open source projects to crib from. Or, for a more official solution, Brennan could work with Sonos's newer APIs, perhaps: https://developer.sonos.com/build/direct-control/control/

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi this forum is now closed 

Please repost at 

www.thebrennanforum.com