A week of my wife wasted with an errant Sonos One Gen2. Disappointing customer service

  • 30 December 2020
  • 24 replies
  • 270 views

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After a week of trying to fix an errant Sonos One Gen2, that keeps going offline overnight, I am no further forward.

I’ve had some excellent support from the Sonos community on here, with some great suggestions but alas none of the suggestions have worked.

I have even swapped the speaker over with an existing speaker - the fault remained and no problems with the good speaker that was proved to the ‘problem’ room. i.e. it is the speaker at fault, not where it is located.

Sonos customer services have been woeful, and are refusing to replace the speaker despite it being proved beyond reasonable doubt that there is an issue with this particular speaker.  I have spent thousands on Sonos kit and would have expected better.

This morning’s classics included the call centre suggesting the problem is that I have an alarm set on a speaker in a different room, and then I have too many speakers - I have 14 versus a max limit of 32.

I’m thinking that there is an issue with the Gen2’s - one of the community suggested a faulty wifi card in the speaker.  That would make a lot of sense.  I am getting better technical support from this community than Sonos themselves.  I’ve bought my last Sonos speaker.

If anyone else picks up this post and has any ideas why my speaker is going offline overnight I’d be eternally grateful for any suggestions, although to be fair I think I have exhausted all possible options.

Thank you to those who have already made suggestions.  If only I was being shown the same level of support from those that have profited from my purchases.

 


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24 replies

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When you say it goes offline overnight, how do you get it to reconnect? Does it go offline at the same time every night? Does it ever go offline during the day? 

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Hi

Sorry for your frustration and I know that you have tried some of these actions but see my post:

https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/tips-tricks-resolving-random-issues-impacting-sonos-devices-6845346 

 

To avoid repetition of Qs and As, here are some related threads:

I ventured the opinion that, in the absence of any obvious network fault or other explanation, there was a possibility of a faulty unit.

Sonos Support is evidently clutching at straws. @blueskychris you have the legal right to return/exchange the product. Regretfully I suggest you exercise it.

 

For what it’s worth, I’m not aware of any pattern of such faults in the One/g2. An isolated manufacturing fault is quite feasible though, perhaps a dry joint which reacts to temperature changes.

blueskychris,

I’m guessing it’s been tried, but just in case... I can’t see a factory reset of the speaker mentioned in this, or the other threads, has that option been tried?

blueskychris,

I’m guessing it’s been tried, but just in case... I can’t see a factory reset of the speaker mentioned in this, or the other threads, has that option been tried?

Suggested here, and I believe the OP followed up.

blueskychris,

I’m guessing it’s been tried, but just in case... I can’t see a factory reset of the speaker mentioned in this, or the other threads, has that option been tried?

Suggested here, and I believe the OP followed up.

Ah yes, thanks @ratty, I missed that in my read through the threads. I assume Sonos support might have looked at that option too, but thought it was worth checking.

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Hi folks - thanks again for all the help - and to @ratty for curating my various posts!

Sonos are clutching at straws, you are quite right.  I am pretty good on the legal side but have avoided having that conversation with the call centre as I wanted to give them a chance to fix it without being a bumptious git! However, I mentioned that the brand (and my advocacy of it) is losing its lustre and they have thus have escalated the matter to a technical manager (so who was I speaking to before…?) who will allegedly call me back but they don’t know when.  I have formally asked for a replacement.

I have spoken to Sky Tech team (have a sky q system here) and they have said that there is nothing wrong with my network based on remote tests they have performed, and the fact that 13 other speakers are working fine is a clear indication that the speaker is the problem not their wifi or network.

It is odd that the speaker works during the day but goes offline overnight - @GuitarSuperstar it is (I think) between 2.30am and 6am based on when the status lights have flashed on my system and I’ve been awake to see it!

I will post again when the problem is resolved, and thank you all for your kind suggestions.  I hope there is a problem I can help with in return one day.  Best wishes for a happy new year everyone (if only Covid 19 would go offline!).

@blueskychris .  I have to say i am impressed by your tolerance and cheerfulness in the face of adversity! 

I haven’t followed this saga, so please forgive me for not trying to go back through it all.  Losing connection overnight makes me think ‘IP address lease renewal’, but I am sure you must have covered that off.  Plus there would still be the question of ‘why just this speaker?’. 

I hope Sonos do the decent thing, rather than suggest increasingly implausible causes.  I  am sure we are all keen to hear the outcome.

Losing connection overnight makes me think ‘IP address lease renewal’, but I am sure you must have covered that off. 

Yup. The OP subsequently reserved an IP.

Besides, a renewal failure would surely occur 12 or 24 hours after the enforced morning reboot.

 

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Losing connection overnight makes me think ‘IP address lease renewal’, but I am sure you must have covered that off. 

Yup. The OP subsequently reserved an IP.

Besides, a renewal failure would surely occur 12 or 24 hours after the enforced morning reboot.

 

I don’t think that post shows that a reserved IP address was assigned just that the OP was aware of the suggestion - hence my post above. :) 

Losing connection overnight makes me think ‘IP address lease renewal’, but I am sure you must have covered that off. 

Yup. The OP subsequently reserved an IP.

Besides, a renewal failure would surely occur 12 or 24 hours after the enforced morning reboot.

 

I don’t think that post shows that a reserved IP address was assigned just that the OP was aware of the suggestion - hence my post above. :) 

That post, et seq.

It is odd that the speaker works during the day but goes offline overnight - @GuitarSuperstar it is (I think) between 2.30am and 6am based on when the status lights have flashed on my system and I’ve been awake to see it!

 

That’s standard behaviour when an automatic update is scheduled. Does the errant ONE match the firmware version of all other components: ‘System → About my System’? Perhaps it’s trying to update itself but failing.

 

Scheduling updates

To schedule when you’d like your Sonos system to automatically update, you can select one of the following two-hour periods by tapping Scheduled. If audio is playing or an alarm is scheduled during this period, the update will be postponed until the next available update window.

The two-hour periods available are Morning (5:00am - 7:00am), Afternoon (12:00pm - 2:00pm), Evening (5:00pm - 7:00pm), and Overnight (2:00am - 4:00am).

If you’d prefer to check for updates manually, you can disable automatic updates in the Settings tab under System > System Updates > Update Automatically.

 

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/225?language=en_US

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Morning everyone, 

Thanks for the IP suggestion @John B - Sonos told me not to do that, but out of frustration I did try this overnight last night, together with forcing my sky router to use Channel 1 (as opposed to Auto assign) so there could be no clash with Sonosnet on 11.

At 5am this morning all units were showing in the app, but the two speakers I group in the Bar (a play 5 and the faulty Sonos One) were ungrouped having been grouped when I went to bed.  In the ‘About My System’ page, all speakers were listed, but oddly no data.

As I was looking at the app, thinking I’d cracked it, all speakers went offline.  I rebooted the router.  All speakers remained offline. At 6am the speaker in our bedroom started flashing (no alarms set btw).  All speakers then came back online, except for the faulty Sonos one.

So despite successfully managing to reserve the IP addresses, the speaker still isn’t playing ball.

In an attempt to leave no stone unturned I have checked the gov.uk website this morning.  This confirms there is no requirement for Sonos speakers (or any other inanimate audio device for that matter) to practice social distancing.  So its technological aloofness cannot be attributed to Covid 19 measures. 

Perhaps it being located in the bar is the reason it goes offline overnight - possibly it is waking up with a hangover, with its bigger brother Play 5 (also located in the bar) better able to take its drink.  But a check of the contents of the beer fridge and optics confirms no missing grog.  So that isn’t it either.

Thank you @Smilja for the firmware suggestion - which makes a lot of sense.  I can’t see how to check the firmware in the ‘About my system’ - the version number relates to the App (which is up to date!). However, the speaker performs a software update on initial install, and the app reports my system is up to date.  One would hope the Sonos team would have checked that when I ran the diagnostic.

The promised call from the Technical team is yet to materialise.  Perhaps they were just fobbing me off to get rid of me.

 

This Christmas, Sonos has really been the gift that keeps on giving...

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the IP suggestion @John B - Sonos told me not to do that

What? Reserve IPs? They really are producing contrarian advice these days. One does have to wonder ...

 

but out of frustration I did try this overnight last night, together with forcing my sky router to use Channel 1 (as opposed to Auto assign) so there could be no clash with Sonosnet on 11.

Oh, I thought we’d covered IP reservation a few days back. Maybe it got missed in all the fun.

Make sure the Sky router is also using a 20MHz bandwidth channel at 2.4GHz.

 

The fact that players are bouncing on and off the network (that’ll be what caused the ungrouping and the flashing at 6am) and the About display isn’t populating suggest continuing packet loss, so it’s conceivable that the Bar speaker is indeed suffering along with the rest rather than anything hardware related.

When we looked at your network matrix there was a lot of interference around the place. Channel 11 tends to be a bit noisier in general, in part because microwave ovens are centred around 2450MHz. Try moving SonosNet to ch 1 and the Sky box to ch 6 or 11.

Lol.  Always look on the bright side……

I look forward to the next update.

Happy New Year

Has it ever been wired overnight?  (Sorry again for being too lazy to hunt down the history.)

The system firmware version should be in the info for each speaker.  Are you saying there is no information about the speakers?

@blueskychris Looking back, you only posted a partial network matrix. Can we have a full one please? 

The system firmware version should be in the info for each speaker.  Are you saying there is no information about the speakers?

It didn’t populate. 

In the ‘About My System’ page, all speakers were listed, but oddly no data.

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@John B yes experimented with wired overnight.  I’m also now in need of some wiring, but I will connect to the beer fridge for that :joy:

@ratty it did populate in the end - I think my timing was just off.  But I can’t see where the firmware bit is in About my system.  In terms of ‘version’ (if that is what I am looking for) the dodgy speaker is showing under version:

12.2.2 (build 61183220) - which is the same as all my speakers except for my two SubsGen3’s which are 12.2.2 (build 61138251)

I’ve had an exasperating email from Sonos which clearly shows that the person I spoke to hadn’t noted the issues, fact pattern and the steps attempted.

So, to save my sanity and everyone else’s on this community, I have called John Lewis this morning.  No quibble - they are sending a replacement out straight away and collecting the other one.  Sky have also offered to upgrade my sky q hub to the new carling fangdango version - normally this is charged for but they are doing it for free as a goodwill gesture. They don’t believe this is their problem so incredibly generous of them to offer this. Standby for questions about getting a Sonos system to work when you have changed the router (lol).

When I finally get this sorted I will invite you all around to the infamous bar for a beer, as a thank you.  

Best wishes all

Chris

 

 

 

12.2.2 (build 61183220) - which is the same as all my speakers except for my two SubsGen3’s which are 12.2.2 (build 61138251)

These are up to date apart from a typo (the Sub/g3 is 61.1-83251)

 

Standby for questions about getting a Sonos system to work when you have changed the router (lol).

If you have a wired Sonos component it’s easy: plug into the new router and power-cycle all the Sonos units to refresh their IPs (which you might, despite Sonos’ apparent advice, want to subsequently reserve as before to avoid addressing mishaps).

 

And whatever you do (although i don’t think you would) do NOT factory reset anything.

If you change the SSiD and password on the new one to match those of the current one it might make life easier all round.

Even if that works, you should still follow the advice from @ratty to power cycle everything on your network.

@blueskychris, According to your profile you’ve got quite a few Sonos components. You’d probably be better off running them on SonosNet rather than on WiFi.

@blueskychris, According to your profile you’ve got quite a few Sonos components. You’d probably be better off running them on SonosNet rather than on WiFi.

His network matrix says he already is.

@blueskychris, According to your profile you’ve got quite a few Sonos components. You’d probably be better off running them on SonosNet rather than on WiFi.

His network matrix says he already is.

 

Ah, I got confused by … then.

If you change the SSiD and password on the new one to match those of the current one it might make life easier all round.

 

Not a good idea to enter into SonosNet/WiFi mixed mode.