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Connect Amp keeps dropping out audio

  • 19 September 2023
  • 98 replies
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98 replies

Ken_Griffiths

That’ correct but Sonos do issue further builds under the main update the most recent was last Wednesday I believe when mine went from version 76.2-47270 up to v.76.2-49050, this is what I was asking on my original comment, if anyone knew if the release notes are published for these ‘sub’ updates?

No I’ve not seen anything, so sorry can’t help.

buzz

Check for silly things, such as an intermittent network cable. As a test, enable the WiFi. While smaller buffers could make the system more vulnerable to drops when there are communications issues, resolving the communication issues is a good plan. The diagnostics provide a good log of communications issues, if any. Was there any discussion of communication quality while you were working with Support?

A
Userlevel 5
Badge +4

Airgetlam , I do fully acknowledge Sonos’s policy around announcements.  And I do understand it — things that go on internally and not for public consumption.  

however their last update on these issues was prior to v16, when they said something like (and I’m paraphrasing here),  they could make no promises on the efficacy on any forthcoming updates.

 

We’ve now had v16 and v16.1 and they don’t appear to be working.  So I think the time is due for a further update; ie are they still working on it, or is a viable fix not now possible?  Do we stick with the old gear in the hope of a fix or do we look at other solutions ? I have 4 rooms that don’t work as they should and that is a hard pill to swallow without some acknowledgment from Sonos. 

 

regards

Andrew S 

 

 

 

buzz

SONOS staff would be in a better position to comment on memory utilization, but I think that there is a communication issue. If data reaching the player is corrupted or starved and it seems (in the player’s opinion) that the problem can be rectified quickly, the player will mute. If the issue is more severe, the player will abandon the current track and attempt the next track. Obviously, skip a track is not an option for a live stream.

You can find memory availability here.

B
Badge +3

Just quick update on the problem - The new Amp is still working fine and no drop outs so far whereas the Connect Amp in the other room is still dropping out intermittently! I do find that if the Connect Amp is dropping out regularly if I power it down and then power it up again it seems to fix the problem for a few hours which still isn't satisfactory as I dont want to be doing this regularly! It does look increasingly like this is a lack of memory problem caused by Sonos software upgrades eating up more and more memory!!!! As for submitting diagnostics I am not sure it's worthwhile as I submitted numerous diagnostics to Sonos Support (call handlers!!) who insisted it was WiFi interference until finally admitting it was lack of memory! I think anyone with legacy Sonos products has been screwed by Sonos forcing them to spend on new equipment when it isn't necessary for people like me. I dont want any fancy software gimmicks I just want to listen to the radio!!!! Why they cant come clean and issue a software update for the older systems with limited capabilities I dont know but I guess its good for sales!

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

I’d really be curious what is meant by ‘OOM killer’. 

See: https://www.kernel.org/doc/gorman/html/understand/understand016.html

That falls under “should never happen” on an embedded system like Sonos. Someone may have created a memory leak or allocation error when tweaking update coding.

Many tears have been shed by embedded developers over this kind of glitch that can be difficult to find. I’d put them right after “loads and instantly crashes” in programmer pain.

B

Same problem, 4 AMP of which two lose sound...

SONOS did a wrong analysis and accidentally said that there were memory failures in some of the units. But since they only give a 2-year warranty, mine was 2.5 years too old.
How can SONOS sell products that obviously have manufacturing problems and then say that they can replace them with a 30% discount on new ones? Wonder if Tesla would sell cars that stop working after 2 years and say, sorry you have to buy a new car every two years because the warranty has expired.
So bad from SONOS so I will be discontinuing my SONOS system and switching to BOSE...

106rallye
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

I bought my S2 Connect that is suffering from this in 2019….

D

Exact same issues as described above. Started in June 2023 and have followed all the suggestions with no fix other than buying two new amps to replace the Connect Amp. Historical dealings with Sonos help are similarly frustrating - KPI seems to be how quickly they can get you off the call. Answer to everything is - upgrade to a new product with 15% discount - they must not get much training on any of the products. 
 

 

K

That is a minor issue, solved by a input switch between the source devices and the Sonos line in jack.

M
Badge

Sonos did not force any upgrades to operating system software, and in fact went out of their way to continue to support older devices with S1. It remains the consumer’s choice to upgrade to S2 or not. 

It sounds like there are other network issues your system is dealing with, you may want to call Sonos Support directly to discuss it.

Not exactly sure what you mean by « sounds like other network issues your system is dealing with » there aren’t and I’ve done the troubleshooting thing with Sonos for several days and tried everything mentioned in all the posts only to be told at the end that the simplest thing is to get new hardware.

also my system has been running fine with no issues up until last June/July and only got worse from there. 
It was at some point that an update created the problem and they are fully responsible. Apple was doing the same thing until they got sued and now you have to specifically accept that your devices performance can decrease with an update. 
 

I can accept evolution but not at a rate of 5 years, and if that’s the case just let me know in advance so that I can chose in advance so I can make an educated decision on which system to dump over 5K$ into. 

A

Just an FYI , I have this exact same problem, its been going on for about a year now. I always play with 2 zones grouped and every now and then one of the zones just stops for a few seconds and then starts again. both zones are Sonos AMPs gen 1 . 1 is hardwired the other is near a boost which is hardwired. At first i thought one of the ams must be getting old and faulty so i swapped it with another one that has had very little use. and same problem still happens.  its annoying but i have learned to live with it.  I thought it was Spotify at first but it also happens with local music on my server. and only 2 the zone that is hardwired. 

A

I’ve come to terms with the fact this issue will never be sorted, I just power the unit down when the problems start and it works okay for the next week or so. 

B
Badge +3

Hi Buzz no there wasn't any discussion re quality, by the way would it help to fix the IP addresses? Also does anyone know if I added a boost would that eliminate interference although I think they may be discontinued? As for network refresh I have done multiple refreshes!

B
Badge +3

Re reserving the IP addresses I tried to reserve them by changing setting on my hub to always use a specific IP address which I switched to ‘Yes’ but it doesnt seem to save the setting. I assume the hub should recognise the MAC address and then set the IP address that is reserved but as I say it doesnt save the setting to always use the same IP Address!! I have a group of 4 players together!

B
Badge +3

Btw I have hard wired the unit in question to the router and disabled the wifi

 

buzz

Have you checked the PING times?

When you are using SonosNet and because you have older units, there is a small subset of the diagnostics that you can view. Go to http://[IP address of a player]:/1400/support/review and open the Network Matrix at the bottom. Red cells are drawing your attention to possible wireless communication issues. Note that this a static view. Refresh the page to view current data. Also note that the newest SONOS models do not post data here.

B
Badge +3

Can you confirm that this is correct http://[IP address of a player]:/1400/support/review

The IP is 192.168.0.72 so I tried http://192.168.0.72:/1400/support/review but it didnt find it

B
Badge +3

 

buzz

On these older units we cannot rule out hardware failure. Likely, only one unit would fail, but don’t expect Mother Nature to be fair. Experiment with powering down one unit at a time. If the system then works OK when unit ‘A’ is powered down, that’s a big hint, but not proof, that ‘A’ has a hardware issue because there could be a specific network issue with ‘A’.

Since you have older units go to http://[address of a player]:1400/support/review and open the Network Matrix at the bottom. Red cells indicate wireless issues. You can go to Settings → System → About My System to fetch an IP address.

S
Badge +1

I was curious if the new software they just rolled out (which is complete garbage without ability to modify the queue) fixed the issue with old connects? For one of my systems I did cave and buy a port, and it resolved all my issues.

B

We continue to have intermittent drop-outs on all 4 of our Connect:Amp devices, so here’s my update after 1.5 hours on the phone with Sonos today. They said the diagnostics for one of the Connect:Amp devices the chose to investigate showed multiple major alerts, including:

  • Cannot allocate memory to full status
  • Write failed
  • Player crashed: out of memory
  • OOM Killer

These items all sound like they are related to memory issues with the older Connect:Amp product, as Big Bull mentioned in his previous post.

All 4 of our Connect:Amp devices are wired directly to the network switch and they all have their WiFi radios disabled. I would have thought this would prevent a SonosNet network from being created. We do have some wireless speakers (three Play:1 speakers and two One:SL speakers in a stereo link), however, without WiFi turned on for any of the devices that are wired directly to the network I didn’t think a SonosNet network could be formed.

However, the tech on the phone told me to change my SonosNet channel from Channel 1 to Channel 6, and after waiting a few minutes for this to take effect he did a diagnostic on the same Connect:Amp device that had all the memory errors previously and said that it was coming up clean without errors.

This doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m not sure if it is related yet or not, and it is difficult to tell if this has “solved” anything until we run the system for a while and see if anyone reports intermittent drop-out issues.

The tech also mentioned a “stream underflow” error that is caused when we use the same account from the same services (ie. Apple Music) to play two different songs in two different rooms. I don’t know why this should be an issue since it is a “family” account that has permission to play on up to 5 devices simultaneously and our Internet is plenty fast enough to handle it. Has any one ever come across an issues like this?

Finally, after 1.5 hours the tech asked if I would like to be escalated to a Level 2 tech to answer some of my more “technical” questions, so I said yes. However, there were no Level 2 techs available so they will email me to setup an appointment. Fingers crossed.

 

J
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

Hi there.  So I have similar issues as above with 2 connect amps.  (Have posted here eventually the other day,  but haven’t really got anywhere further as I’ve tried all the usual restarts, moving other devices, rewiring, setting fixed IPs, WiFi vs Sonosnet etc.)  These units were fine for years until about summer 23 so very very interested to read about new ‘incompatible’ system software above - as this had occurred to me.  Do others here still have the same problems potentially with memory?

Is it right that hardware can be made unusable because of a software update?  I wonder if this problem is widespread.

B
Badge +3

So far I have tried as suggested by Sonos to give the 5GHz Wifi a different name, turned off auto on 2.4GHz channels so I can force it to be 1, 6 or 11, I haven't tried setting to 20Mhz so will give this a try.

Btw Ken can you give me more advice re your comment “give Sonnet a shot”? I did originally have one C:A hard wired to my switch with ethernet cable and then daisy chained the other 3 C:A’s but this didnt help, do you think it would be better for each C:A to be hard wired to the switch?

M
Userlevel 2

I had the same issue with my only connect amp, an old ZP 120.  I also have 2 x ZP80’s and the original Sonos Soundbar with the original Sonos Subwoofer, yes the ZP 80’s are really old stuff, connected to really nice Marantz and Denon amps but they’ve always worked great, as has the ZP120 until recently when drop outs started.  After reading through many threads here I thought I was f’d for allowing the last update to go through.  However, I think I found a fix for my set up.  If the first zone I chose is the ZP 120 amp and then I added other zones, the ZP 120 will drop out constantly.  But, if I start with any ZP 80 and then add the ZP 120 then I have no problems.  The other thing to know is one of my ZP 80’s is connected directly to my modem router and the Denon amp.  That’s the unit I listen to more than anything and where I usually start grouping items.  So in summary, try using a non-amped connect like a ZP 80 or ZP 90 as the first room before adding Connect Amp ZP100’s and ZP120’s.  If you do not have any ZP 80’s or 90’s (the non-amped connect boxes), you could try picking one up for $25 used and use that to connect to your modem and make that the first link in your groupings to solve your Connect amp issues.  Just tossing that out there for you all, I hope it helps someone.

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