Sonos 8.6 finally drops SMBv1. Sort of.

by Volker Weber

43afd4eb00284a01cacd0a41e6a9845c

Easily overlooked by some popular blogs which never got past the What's New:

The Sonos app for Windows will now set up a music share using HTTP for local file sharing instead of the now-deprecated SMBv1 protocol. If you’re sharing your music library with Sonos, you will need to re-set up your music share after this update is finished.

And a very welcome change for Playbase users:

The Playbase audio is getting kicked up a notch, with a refined soundstage that feels even wider. We’ve also adjusted the equalizer with smoother bass, clearer TV dialogue, and less pronounced high frequencies.

After updating to Sonos 8.6, make sure you re-run your Trueplay tuning to optimize your Playbase for the room it's in.

It took a dozen runs of the update process until all my players had updated. There is a temporary problem with the update servers.

More >

Comments

It took seven attempts for the update to go through. Looking forward to Airplay 2 though in July...

Markus Dierker, 2018-06-13

I also just started the update to 8.6.
6 out of my 6 Sonos devices were blinking orange/white and controller said update failed. First the about-my-system function couldn't find any device anymore, but after waiting they reappeared, all at 8.5.

Guess I'll wait some days and try again.

Torsten Pinkert, 2018-06-14

Is it only SMBv1 or no SMB at all? I have my music library on a NAS and I don‘t want my PC running 24/7.

Thomas Gamradt, 2018-06-14

Sonos 8.6 maintains compatibility with your NAS.

Prior Sonos versions forced you to enable SMBv1 on Windows if you wanted to share your local library. Windows 10 1709 no longer installed SMBv1 by default and Windows 10 1803 breaks it completely. We have to get rid of this giant security hole.

It is not Sonos' initiative but a reaction to Microsoft. And since it can now talk to Windows shares without SMBv1, the world is a better place.

Volker Weber, 2018-06-14

"Is it only SMBv1 or no SMB at all?" - Yes, have the same question. I share my library, which is on a NAS, via SMB. Had to run SMBv1 on my NAS because of that. So can I now use SMBv3/SMBv2 with Sonos? Not sure how to share my library on my NAS via HTTP?

Michael Urspringer, 2018-06-14

Try this: remove library from Sonos. Disable SMBv1 on NAS. Add library on Sonos. Good luck!

Volker Weber, 2018-06-14

Fromthe Sonos forum: „We aren't removing support for SMB at this time, and you will continue to need to use it for NAS drives, but Mac computer and Windows computers now both have the ability to share using our implementation of HTTP file sharing using the Sonos app“ - I read it this way: Still SMBv1 needed :-(

Michael Urspringer, 2018-06-14

Update of 6 speakers worked like a charm. I guess I do not need to update Trueplay, as I understand this is only relevant if you own a Playbase.

The SMB thing is not easy to understand. I guess this *only* relates to sharing (playing) local files from your PC. I have my library on a Synology NAS and this access still requires SMB1 (with only allowing SMB >1, Sonos was not able to access it, with allowing SMB1, everything worked without the need to reinitialize the library)

I think they just implemented a strange http-based „hack“ to allow „safe“ playing of local files from Windows PCs. Or did I misunderstand this?

Jonas Rathert, 2018-06-14

Correct. „We're still looking into options for NAS drives but don't have any specific details I can share. The HTTP share is created by the Sonos app, which NAS drives don't and can't run. I'll make sure to let you all know if there's any news regarding NAS sharing away from SMB1 that I can let you in on in the future.“ - https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/support-for-smb-v2-or-v3-6787081?sort=dateline.desc#comments

Michael Urspringer, 2018-06-14

What is so difficult in implementing a SMB v2 client in the Sonos speakers? Or is this as well considered insecure?

Jonas Rathert, 2018-06-14

A hack it is. Oh dear.

Volker Weber, 2018-06-14

This is really a very, very sad story of Sonos becoming just as any other company and loosing all credibility within only a couple of months. They do not listen and communicate, but just implement an incomplete(!) workaround as MS forced them finally to do something re SMBv1 - after their customer asked for an alternative since years and they never did anything except saying “we are looking into it”.

I am also “looking at options” now. Any realistic ideas?

Jonas Rathert, 2018-06-14

And a bad one at that.

Modern SMB dialects aren't exactly rocket science. If I can use them on a tiny wifi router which is even more resource constraint than a older sonos speaker it should be quite easy to implement for the sonos engineers. But hey, what do I know :-)

(and let me guess. still no ipv6?)

Daniel Meyer, 2018-06-14

@jonas: maybe the upcoming airplay 2 stuff, if you are using any Apple devices. A word of warning: stay away from the Denon Heos system. Its even worse than Sonos. Other than that: some suggestions would be welcome.

Daniel Meyer, 2018-06-14

Markus, do you have 7 Sonos players?

I have 5 Sonos players, and it updated only 1 player on every run. So i had to run the update 5 times to get all players updated.

Manfred Wiktorin, 2018-06-14

@Manfred: I've 9 Sonos players and they all got updated this morning in one single run.

Torsten Hoffmann, 2018-06-14

Manfred, I have 14 in total (maybe two of those weren't powered up) grouped into 6 zones. But I like your guess anyways.
At the end it all worked out and past experience showed me that in general the update procedure is quite robust - So far I cannot recall ever having had a messed up Sonos setup after an update (maybe once a long long time ago).

Markus Dierker, 2018-06-14

5 Sonos players, no problems with the update at all. Had to re-run Trueplay tuning for my Playbase as expected. To be honest, I haven't noticed a difference in audio quality yet, but nonetheless a welcome improvement. I'm surprised, so many seem to rely on local music libraries in times of streaming services.

Martin Kirchler, 2018-06-14

Well, there are quite a few albums in my local library which none of the popular streaming services currently provide. Also some of the albums on those streaming services are incomplete, for example a best of album of a band with some tracks missing because there are live recordings and the publisher doesn't have the rights to make those tracks avaiable to the streaming provider.

So yes, even in 2018 local libraries are still a thing for some of us :)

Daniel Meyer, 2018-06-14

That's why I'm using Apple Music. 45 million songs and everything from my iTunes library, no matter where it came from. Before that I've used a combination of Spotify and Google Music with my uploaded music, but Apple Music as a one-in-all solution is more effortless.

Martin Kirchler, 2018-06-14

Currently you can mirror your local library to Google Play Music and stream it from there (up to 50.000 songs) for free.
The problem is that Google Play Music does not seem to fly so changes are coming and hardly anyone knows what is going to survive (and what not).

It seems that many people are still used to that speakers run for more than 20 years plus. Compare that to the smartphone market where capable devices often become obsolete just a few months after product launch.

My Sonos stuff still works and fits its purpose but some years ago I decided that dumb speakers (sometimes pimped with Bluetooth) are a better fit for my personal requirements.

This does not make Sonos a bad product at all but I don't own any of their newer devices. I won't bet on Apple either. Their support cycles are longer but not infinite.

For "intelligent" speakers I am not aware of any other vendor that I would trust for supporting their devices any day longer than Sonos did so far.

Henning Heinz, 2018-06-14

Lets look at local library and NAS separately.

Playing from your local library is a tricky business. So far Sonos has set up Windows file sharing but this is becoming increasingly difficult since it depends on you trusting the network you are on, your firewall settings and the protocols enabled. Instead of dealing with the different restrictions in different versions of Windows, Sonos has opted in adding the transport into their own app. Windows is a multi-tasking environment where you can handle music streaming on the app level instead of using file sharing.

NAS is a different scenario. Right now, most NAS support SMBv1 and some even depend on it. Nerds might be switching off SMBv1 in their NAS or even disable the protocol on their smart switches but that is most likely a minority. It becomes even more of a minority since we like to disable telemetry that would otherwise tell Sonos there actually are still people out there using NAS as a source.

Personally, I cannot remember the last time I bothered with adding any music tracks to my NAS library or even playing from it.

Volker Weber, 2018-06-14

Auf einem Synology DS216 Play bricht alles zusammen, wenn man SMBv1 deaktiviert. Aktiviert man es wieder ist die Musikbibliothek wieder da.
Ich hatte mich schon gefreut SMBv1 deaktivieren zu können, war leider nichts.

Johannes Kordt, 2018-06-14

Das Update war bei mir (wieder) ein Riesenkrampf. Ich hab die Schleifen nicht gezählt. Aber das war bei mir bei allen Updates seit 8.0 der Fall. Jedesmal unzählige Anläufe, Abbrüche, Wiederholgungen. So gesehen funktioniert dieses Update bei mir so gut wie bei den letzen Malen auch.

Volker Berding, 2018-06-14

Heute früh: Update mit 2x neu anschubsen (1x auf iPhone, 1x auf MacBook Pro) - fertig. Kein Problem für mich.

Stephan Perthes, 2018-06-15

Do I understand it right that they have replaced SMB1 with HTTP ? Not HTTPS ?

Oliver Barner, 2018-06-15

No, they did not replace SMBv1. What they did is use an HTTP transport to stream music from your Windows desktop controller to your Sonos player. I think they already had existing code that streams music between players.

Volker Weber, 2018-06-15

Old vowe.net archive pages

I explain difficult concepts in simple ways. For free, and for money. Clue procurement and bullshit detection.

vowe

Paypal vowe