I noticed the same problem.

My setup:
MacBook Pro 2017 (macOS 10.15.2) <-- WI-FI 5GHz --> Router MikroTik 952Ui <-- Wire --> Sonos ONE <-- SonosNet --> Sonos ONE SL 

I submitted my diagnostics:
Your confirmation number is: 1132744257.

Steps to reproduce:
- Using macOS
- Connect to Sonos speakers using AirPlay (in sound preferences, under the volume adjustment icon)
- Go to youtube.com using Chrome (84.0.4135.1)/Safari (13.0.4) browser
- Start playing a video (any video will do)
- Stop the video for say 30 sec or more
- Start playing the video again
- The video is played without sound for about 40 seconds
- After about 40 sec the sound plays synchronously with the video

The interesting point is that there is traffic to Sonos after starting playing a video but the sound comes after some time:

I am having the same problem and it drives me crazy as I pause a lot. 

It is officially a Sonos issue now.  I just rejigged my home theater with a Yamaha receiver.  Airplay on it works absolutely flawlessly.  Like it should.  Sonos just hasn’t implemented Airplay right and has a ways to go. 

I have not been able to figure this problem out either. HOWEVER I do have a fix. I have been trying to figure out what the issue was and why it might happen. Sitting here watching a podcast and then it hit me. What if your computer told your Sonos something was always playing but no audio was actually playing.  Boom - play this video when you connect and minimize the tab. 

Enjoy only connecting to sonos once….now if only we can have a default to Sonos audio feature

Ryan, with all due respect, this is not an “issue” that you’d need someone to submit diagnostics for, this is design which you (as in Sonos) can easily test by:

1. Using macOS
2. Connect to Sonos speakers using AirPlay (in sound preferences, under the volume adjustment icon)
3. Go to e.g. youtube.com using your favourite browser
4. Start playing video (any video will do)
5. Stop the video for say 30sec
6. Start playing video again

Anyone using Mac in your team can do these diagnostics, this is caused by design not by user-end issue.

Hi Sonos Management team,

This post appears to be going on for over 8 months now and I just purchased brand new Home Theater - 5.1 Surround Set and experiencing exactly the same issue with both, Beam and ONE SL’s. 

Unfortunately, this is unacceptable for $1,300 speakers set to not be able to play Apple Music for longer than 10 minutes without glitches with disconnecting/pausing and requiring re-connection that takes few minutes to play music again.

Can someone please review this issue ASAP with Airplay random pauses and advise how to resolve it? It just appears to be embarrassing to return such a great home set for this simple but major issue.

Thank you,

Alexander Sivokho

Same issue here with a Sonos Beam+Sub. Pausing the audio stream interrupts the AirPlay 2 connection somehow and i have to deselect/reselect Sonos as AirPlay target to reestablish the connection every time. Very annoying. Streaming source doesn’t seem to matter much, but in my case it’s mostly Audible on an iPhone.

I have the new SONOS Port and it also tells Airplay to timeout during pause for any length… This thread is 6 months old, why has SONOS admin not piped in yet?  This is a big annoyance to have to change output device away and back again to reset each time I hit pause.  Why cant pause have a timeout delay or not even disconnect?

Hi all.

This was brought to my attention on another post - thanks @joycean 

I have done some investigating and found out the following:

• AirPlay 2 requires that a buffer be filled prior to playback. Airplay 1 does not. As live system sounds cannot be buffered (you’d need time-travelling software code), when AirPlay-ing from macOS system settings AirPlay 1 is always used.
• AirPlay likely times-out if no data is sent (ie. silence), though I cannot find a figure for this period.
• AirPlay 1 is not supported by Sonos, but tends to work. Therefore, if you are using AirPlay 1 and sending all system sounds to Sonos, it works, usually, but may have issues like those described here. As AirPlay 1 is not supported by Sonos, we will not be addressing these issues.
• macOS Applications (like Safari, Apple Music and Spotify) do support AirPlay2, but you must initiate the connection from that application, not the Mac’s settings. The media stream can then be buffered to the speaker and synced for playback.

In our own testing, we were unable to produce this issue when using AirPlay 2. If you experience these issues while using AirPlay 2 (initiated at the application level rather than at the system level), we would very much like to hear about it. Please get in touch with our technical support team if this is the case, as this is something that we would want to resolve (be it a networking or software issue).

It would be interesting if any of you could recreate the issue as you have before, but while having one media paused (YouTube for example), start something else playing over the AirPlay 1 connection - when you restart the paused media, does it play through Sonos immediately? I suspect so, as the second media playing will have kept the connection to the speaker live. I suspect @eldiets1’s fix of having a minimised window does exactly this.

I hope this information helps you all to use your Sonos speakers with your Apple products in a satisfactory way.

Thanks a lot @John B and @Corry P for your inputs. I hope you understand the frustration it produces in your customers to join the Sonos family in pursue of great audio and connectivity, only to find the simplest of use cases doesn’t really work all that well.

Maybe supporting AirPlay 1 in full would help, judging by the comments above… just a suggestion! :)

Looking at immediate solutions, I’ve just found in a Reddit thread a third-party solution: Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil. It’s a bit pricey, but well worth the $ considering it gets the job done and supports a ton of audio targets beyond Sonos.

Same here.  Pausing for more than a few seconds cuts out the Airplay and it disconnects.  I use the overcast app for my podcasts and I do pause.  A lot.  Same for not finding Airplay when I walk into the room after a while.  I have to switch my iPhone to Airplane mode and back, to find the speakers again.  This is bad, Sonos, and needs an update, pronto.  Especially since the problem is quite replicable. 

this dirty fix works like a charm

It is so incredibly silly, that this is required for a high-end sound tech.

Just to want to add I’m also having the same issue when streaming via airplay 2 to an amp. 

Macbook Pro (Mojave) > Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 Router > AMP

It’s super annoying having to disconnect / reconnect to Sonos every time media is paused. The weird thing is that it seems the device is still connected via airplay under network settings, but there’s just no sound. The amount of time that something is paused in order for this to happen also seems irregular. Sometimes I can pause for a minute or two and everything is fine. Other times I pause for a few seconds and then have to disconnect/reconnect (also it seems the reconnection process takes longer to happen once the problem has been triggered, than it would when starting a fresh connection via airplay.)

It’s slightly disappointing that this thread is now over 7 months old, there has been no Sonos response and this hack is still the only thing that ‘fixed’ the issue

I abstained from writing a post in the community for so long. I have been facing this horrible problem for more than two years. I did not even talk to Sonos because looking at the state of affairs in the community forums, it seemed to be a futile exercise. It makes me sad that such a high end, costly product has these petty and stupid issues which must be a hygiene factor. 

With all respect, community managers from Sonos only scratch the wounds by asking members to recreate the issue. This is the limit. There are tens of threads where people are so desperately looking for solution to this. Do you really think they are all making this up.  

Count me in, have same problem.

MacBook Pro 2017 playing any Youtube or something from browser over Airplay. Go and pause. after 2 minutes try to resume. No sound for more than 30 seconds but Video continue playing 

@Sonos , do you have any update on this?  I still like my Sonos Beam, but this problem is well documented by now and there are tons of people who would appreciate a workaround or a fix! 

I have 2x Play 1SL and experiencing the same issue with Mac OS 10.14 and 10.15.

It is very frustrating and destroys the good experience of using the speakers.

@Sonos you must provide some response after years of reporting on the issue.
It’s a major bug!

This itself, makes me reconsider my opinion about the brand and I am not recommending it to a friend.

I’m pretty sure there’s a timeout in the AirPlay 2 protocol, but I’ve not done the research that you have….yet.

I am having the same issue.  Thinking I will be returning my Sonos One and going with the HomePod instead.

Obviously Apple don’t document their protocol (because Apple), but the best unofficial spec I have found is at http://nto.github.io/AirPlay.html although it does not mention timeouts specifically.

The problem affects me as well. Every time I try to play music from my Macbook Pro (16”, 2019) via Airplay to the SONOS speakers (pair of 2 SONOS One’s) it will work however, as soon as I pause the music (or youtube video) and I try to resume later it would not play any sound. It really sucks. If SONOS does not fix this I definitely would not recommend the brand to anyone who wants some good airplay ready speakers. 

Hi everyone,

When using AirPlay 2, this shouldn’t be an issue, however a lot of apps through the MacBook Pro will use AirPlay 1 which can have this behavior. I’d be happy to pass some extra information along to the team to look into this further, in case there’s something else going in. If you can get this to occur regularly, can you recreate the issue, then submit a diagnostic and let us know the confirmation number in here? Let us know what device was sending the AirPlay stream, and what software the stream was coming from. Thanks!

yep same issue here. i have to deselect sonos speaker and then reselect it after a pause.

Found a fix!

A third-party application for Mac called SonoAir works consistently for me. When you launch the application it will detect all Airplay compatible devices and add them to the sound menu. Your speaker will show up as “Speakername+.” Select that one and it should connect immediately (much faster than previously).

I’ve tested a number of intervals and across multiple applications (Spotify, Youtube, Chrome, local sounds) pausing or closing these apps completey.  I have been unable to recreate the issue that I was having beforehand.

The only downside is there is a delay in sound output. This can range from 1-5 seconds at times. I was experiencing delays using the native configuration but I don’t believe it was this long. The app is free (I won’t link the site so please Google the name of it) but the developer accepts donations to continue improving it.