Can't cast FLAC to Sonos (Arc + Era 300)

[Sanizzle]

Issue description:

Hi there,

I’ve been experiencing Symfonium for a few days and u gotta say it’s a great great app on many levels.

My music is on a Plex Server at home.
I can access my FLAC library on the go, outside of my network with no problem, everything works flawlessly (FLAC or MP3’s).

Now here comes the strange thing,
I first tried to play some FLACS on different Sonos Ones (1 device at a time), one on my bedroom, one in my bathroom, and everything play fine, no delay, no buffering, perfect.

Then I tried to play the same FLAC songs in my main room (Sonos ARC playbar + 2 Era 300 + Sonos Sub), and then the song doesn’t want to start, or play 1 or 2 seconds, then buffers, or skip, endlessly.
I tried to play MP3s 320kbps in the same room from Symfonium, and then I have no problem, everything plays fine.

Also I want to add that I finally downloaded Symfonium because I wasn’t able to cast from Plexamp to Sonos properly, and I was very happy at first.

It might be some settings i need to do regarding the FLACs but I don’t know where to start, so happy to have your feedback guys.
Don’t hesitate to let me know if you need more details or logs.

Thanks

Logs:

Upload description: Sanizzle

Additional information:

 
Plex server says that the song is being direct played
 

Reproduction steps:

 
The song is skipped everytime, after less than 1sec, endlessly.
 

Media provider:

Plex

Screenshots:

 

 

 

  

[Tolriq]

Looks like the device have some issues with gapless, try to disable gapless in the renderer settings.

[Sanizzle]

Like this right?
Then should just press play? It wasn’t really changing anything earlier. Will try it again.
Don’t you think it’s strange that it’s working perfectly on other Sonos Device but that for this specific Group of devices it’s not?

[Tolriq]

Yes that option, you may need to stop cast then cast again.

And yes it can happen when in the group there’s a device that have issues or support less things.

Try other FLAC with different bit rate or bit depth

[Tolriq]

One test you can do also is cast that FLAC file from the phone storage to remove Plex from the equation.

[Sanizzle]

Thanks for those advices:

I’ve played after relaunching the app, still no luck
Then i tested other FLACs 16/44, still no luck.
I decided to go with Jellyfin with the same files, no luck.
And finally put those files on my Google Pixel locally, and played it with Symfonium again casting on Sonos: same problem.

It has to come from Sonos then but I don’t know how to identify it.
I might have to regroup the Arc, Eras and Sub and try it, but eventually I would like to play it on this group…

[Tolriq]

Try to cast to each device one by one too ?

Can you provide logs without gapless too they are easier to follow as in theory no media change directly by the Sonos.

[Sanizzle]

Hi Tolriq,
I’ve managed to run my tests yesterday, and posted it on the Sonos forum:

FLAC can't be played on ARC Playbar | Sonos Community

It seems to be an ARC issue, dont u think?

[Tolriq]

Yes it seems, specially with the first answer and the fac that it’s the same from plex.

[Sanizzle]

What’s strange is that direct play from TIDAL App (same FLACs) plays without problem, even if not at the best quality it seems…

[Tolriq]

If it’s not at best quality then it’s not the same files They probably transcode.

You either send the raw data or your transcode to some other format. There’s no a lot of magic here.

[Sanizzle]

I regrouped the ARC + ERAs 300 + Sub, then tried the FLAC from the Library directly from Sonos, it worked…

Then I did the same from Symfonium >> Plex and… It worked!!!

I can’t explain why and how… But I’ll take the win!!

Now I’ll try to change the server, as Plex as multiple things I don’t like, such as not handling the multiple artists etc…

Will take a chance on LMS… Will read about it in the forums.
Thanks for the support Tolriq