Sonos, why did you stop my music?

  • 6 October 2018
  • 5 replies
  • 513 views

What gives Sonos the right to come into my home and stop me using equipment that I paid for to play my musc from my server in my home?

It is outrageous and unacceptable behaviour.

It might have been acceptable if Sonos said you can’t upgrade until you confirm your email address, but to maliciously stop the system working Is despicable.

A big red flag for future customers and raises big questions around privacy issues and Sonos real motivation for this. Trust has been lost.

As an early adopter and until now admirer of Sonos, I’ll not be replacing my player when it reaches end of life, which I now expect will be artificially induced by Sonos.

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5 replies

Userlevel 3
Badge +3
Hmmm, not sure if I understand the issue you encounter. I’m running the latest Sonos app, no issues playing my music off the NAS
Userlevel 7
Badge +23
I'm guessing this is a troll post, as it is the one and only post from this person. No other posts indicating whatever issue this person has. Lots of hyperbole, zero actionable feedback.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
DaveyC joined back in Jan 2018 so it isn't a drive-by post.

DaveyC, If you want help tell us what is wrong and describe your setup a bit. If you just want to vent, at least tell us what music Sonos has stopped in hour home so we aren't left in suspense.
Hello all. Thanks for taking time to reply to my post. Apologies that I wasn't clear. I really posted in order to just air a complaint and not in expectation of a technical solution.

My view is the problem lies with the Sonos business management and only they can fix, if they are interested which seems unlikely.

They have employed a system which stops your fully functional product working unless you comply with what they say and install an update. They could have said, "comply or no updates", but they chose "you can't use your equipment until you comply"; i.e. bricked.

In principle, this is just wrong. No doubt, small print somewhere helps them get away with that legally, but nonetheless it is extremely objectionable. There's no technical justification. Maybe they want me to have new "features", but I don't. It was all working just fine until they stopped it working.

I read elsewhere some dubious justification about confirming email addresses, but if it was only that, then why not just send me an email and I'll click the link, which is what they did during the update anyway. Like everyone else, I registered when first setting up my system quite a few years back and have used the same email in support exchanges, so what's the real reason? I'm inclined to guess it's probably more connected to subscription services and IoT stuff like alexa.

I have a zone player connected to my hifi and when I installed it in 2009, there was not so much of interest in the way of internet music services other than radio. The compelling Sonos features then were multi-room and the ability to stream from a local source. For me that hasn't changed much and I'm happily getting everything I want out of my Sonos and could even live without it being able to connect to the internet (unfortunately not an easy option).

So, I appreciate the market and Sonos' business model has changed a lot in recent years. I may well be in an old-fashioned minority and perhaps for many this kind of update is a necessary evil (like clicking OK on those 47 page licence agreements to use your phone), but still for me, when Sonos say you can't continue to use your Sonos until you do what we want, they are overstepping the mark!
OP is clearly struggling with the forced registration prompt after a firmware update. Not sure why everyone else fails to recognize this?!

DaveyC, I'm afraid you will have to follow the mandatory registration steps in the Sonos app. There's no way around it other than not updating the system in the first place.