Randomly playing music in the middle of the night

  • 18 December 2017
  • 24 replies
  • 23515 views

Since I added a SonosOne to my existing setup (I already had a 5 and two 3's in my living room, hooked to my Dot, and another Alexa in the house), I've had Sonos start playing music randomly in the middle of the night a few times. They have all been days where I had played a lot of music ... can't imagine how that is related, but it seems like more than coincidence. I live alone and have no pets, so nothing could be causing this - doesn't make sense.

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24 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +20
Is this on a specific player?
Userlevel 7
Badge +21
Do you have a neighbor that might have connected to your WiFi, and could be doing this as a practical joke? Did you set an alarm and possibly forget about it (or is it possible that someone else might have?)

Had you been giving commands to play music through Alexa? Did you stop the music through Alexa ("Alexa, stop [on room name]"), or through the Sonos app when you were done?
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You may have paused your music on the sonos units and not the dot.
If you are using the line-in input from the dot and hit the play/pause button on Sonos (or use the Sonos app) it will mute the speakers, However, if your dot keeps feeding music into the line-in of your Play5, then after a break between songs or a period of silence then Sonos sees it as a new line-in autoplay session.
To keep this from happening, make sure that you turn off your music through Alexa if you're using the line in.
Okay so I stumbled across this thread because I myself now randomly have this same exact thing happening. The music is only playing in my bed room (ugh!) and happens at any moment but typically after I’ve used the speakers. I’m most instances it’s after there has been the sound of rain playing to fall asleep. And every time it is the same few songs playing. In my case it’s very explicit rap music. Last night I fell asleep to rain and woke up at 2am to something about “gettin’ it”. I can’t figure this out! And like the original post I too have Alexa integrated into my set up through a dot.
So, have you checked if you have an alarm set in the controller app? i.e. is someone playing a prank on you? Do you have Spotify? Have you played anything from it recently? In order to "break" someone else's connection to your Sonos using Spotify, you have to play something from the Spotify app yourself, otherwise they'll be able to send music to you remotely.

You haven't mentioned what speakers you have. Do you have one that has a line in? Have you checked to see that whatever is playing isn't coming in via that?

Might be worth running a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of the next occurrence, and then calling in to Sonos to discuss the issue.
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Were these problems ever resolved, since I had a similar problem last night.

I have a new Sonos ONE with Alexa. I fell asleep to a rain playlist being played in spotify on a sleep timer, but it came back on in the middle of the night (about 2am) and then again a bit later (about 4am).

I did have an alarm set, one by Alexa for 0730 and one in the sonos app for 0700. So neither should explain what happened.

Any ideas?

David
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
best way to diagnose is submit a diagnostic from your controller...settings...advanced. Post the number here and Sonos can look to see what triggered the music start. You don't have cats do you - cat's love turning Sonos on.
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Thanks Chris, that's very helpful.

The diagnostics number I got in the controller under advanced settings is: 1982824233

Do I just wait for someone from Sonos to take a look, or should I contact support?

All best

d
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Thanks again, Chris, I've now been in touch with support about this. It looks like it's something to do with Alexa / the cloud, i.e. not Sonos's end of things, but they're looking into it to fix it, which would be nice since I would like to use Alexa rather than Sonos for sleep-timers and alarm.

All best

d
I also had this happen to me last night when asleep. Glad I'm not the only one who got woken up by it. Hopefully it gets fixed soon!
I too have had this issue last night. All of a sudden my Play One with Alexa built in started playing in the bathroom. It was the same music that I had been playing several hours earlier and had paused it with Alexa 'Stop' command. Then an hour or so later the Kitchen Play 3 started playing the same music the Bathroom had been playing which had not previously been playing in the kitchen. Never happened before (to my knowledge, could have happened during the day when we are out but will never know). Any ideas, my other half was not impressed, I was already awake.
ME TOO and its happened a few times, last night at 5:07 AM and it was loud and terrifying. This needs to be fixed!!!!! it is not an enjoyable experience at all. I do not have alarms, it is alexa related, we need a fix other than disconnecting alexa from sonos!!
Userlevel 7
Badge +20
ME TOO and its happened a few times, last night at 5:07 AM and it was loud and terrifying. This needs to be fixed!!!!! it is not an enjoyable experience at all. I do not have alarms, it is alexa related, we need a fix other than disconnecting alexa from sonos!!

I know that this will be the last thing on your mind at 5:07 AM but if you are able to submit a diagnostic as soon afterwards as possible it will help Sonos to investigate.
Did anyone get a resolution from this? I’ve had this happen every night this week between the hours of 2am and 6am. Playing the same song that neither me or my wife have ever heard of. Both iPhones turned off and Spotify disconnected from sonos account. Submitted a diagnostic (confirmation number 1431973579) and emailed support. I’m going to start turning the both of my speakers off at night until there’s a fix.
Userlevel 7
Badge +20
Just a thought, do you use Alexa to control your Sonos devices? If so, using your iPhone can you open the Alexa App>Reminders & Alarms and make sure that there are no alarms set.
I did have Alexa connected to both sonos speakers but had never used it to control them - i've disconnected that this morning. There were no alarms or reminders set (and there never has been)... the plot thickens...
Userlevel 7
Badge +20
And you've checked that there are no Alarms set-up in the Sonos App - sorry had to ask. 🙂
Ha, yeah, checked that - the 3 nights its happened have been at different times - around 2am, then around 4am, then 6am this morning. I've even checked outside to see if there's someone stood on my drive with an iPhone laughing...
Userlevel 7
Badge +20
🙂 We'll need to wait for Sonos to look at the diagnostic then.
The only time I have seen this before, is with Spotify, where the users mobile device drops from the network and an instruction is sent from the Spotify App and doesn’t reach the speakers, then at some random point later on, it sends the instruction again and then the music starts playing.

I think the first question to ask is 'Did I request this music earlier on my mobile device'? ... if so, find the device and the App that was used and make sure the App is not allowed to run in the background on the mobile.

Hope the diagnostic gets to find the culprit. It’s not nice to be woken in the middle of the night with loud music blaring, with no apparent explanation. ?
That does sound like a logical explanation - but as I think I mentioned in my first post, the music that plays is something that neither of us have heard of (neither the artist or the song). I let the music play onto a second track, this morning, to see what would happen and it plays another song we've never heard of... So it seems like it's playing a playlist or something. Fingers crossed the diagnostics shed some light on it - both my Sonos 1 and 3 are now turned off at the wall, for the time being!
Userlevel 7
Badge +26
The diagnostic shows in both of those rooms that the last commands to play music have come from a Spotify account over the direct control interface. To start a connection with a Sonos system and a Spotify account, you need to be on the same wireless network. After a connection has been established, you can disconnect from the wireless and remain connected until those Sonos devices start playing something other than Spotify. As soon as that's done, you'd need to get back onto the wireless to re-establish control.

My advice, play something that isn't Spotify on Sonos, and change your wireless network's password. Note that if you do change the wireless credentials, you'll need to wire one of your Sonos devices into the router temporarily so that you can change the password to the new one.
This just happened to me. Is 4:40am in the morning. I’m tired. Here’s the diagnostic number
538580303
Save me.
This just happened to me. Is 4:40am in the morning. I’m tired. Here’s the diagnostic number
538580303
Save me.

If you have a Spotify subscription and if you are using Spotify Connect, then see here.