There have been other reports of this, but I’m not certain how they were resolved. I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it.

There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and network.

Thanks Bruce.  Sonos has not been helpful and has provided conflicting info.  For example - 1 rep says if more then five speakers grouped, at least one MUST be connected with an ethernet cable directly to my modem/router.  Another tells me to NEVER connect with an ethernet cable, as of I’d committed a crime.

Others reporting this issue have apparently managed to get free updates to Ports for their Connects. You might want to find a different support person...

I’ve seen reports of this and have not yet been able to attribute this behavior to a particular player model. My overall impression is that this behavior started with a recent firmware update and may be associated with particular network conditions.

SONOS is data driven. Each call to support is a data point. A lot of data points about a subject will attract management attention. Working with SONOS support will hopefully give them a better idea of the problem scope.

With respect to wired or not wired. I feel that wired is always faster and more robust than wireless. I try to wire as many clients as practical, SONOS or otherwise. Each wireless environment is different and conditions can vary over time. Just because “it has always worked” does not guarantee that “it will always work” as conditions change. For example; I’m living in an urban area and can sometimes see almost 100 WiFi access points. Thankfully most of them are weak, but there is a medical facility next door that had been quite a pain when I first moved here. Wireless SONOS was a risky bet. Recently, the facility has updated somewhat and is not as much of a pain. We have also updated and our access points are more capable.

The SONOS diagnostics are quite good. Unfortunately, we don’t have access to the data here. If you get a capable support person, they have insight. Submit a diagnostic within about 10 minutes of experiencing an issue because fine diagnostic data scrolls out of sight after a while.