I've done EVERYTHING possible. NO MATTER WHAT Sonos Connect keeps interrupting playback

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36 replies

Airgetlam

Yes, please. Much if not all of that diagnostic data is for the previous ten to fifteen minutes, it’s thought. You’d be better off catching the error data within 10 minutes of the issue occurrence.

Bruce
I
Badge +1

Submit diagnostics and post the confirmation number here.

120604493

I just submitted them. However, the units have not been played much (if at all) today. I can always wait until the next fault. generate that diagnostic report, and then post THAT number here, right?

 

Anyway, thanks for the help.

 

buzz

Submit diagnostics and post the confirmation number here.

I
Badge +1

Since the older unit is S1 only, you only have one CONNECT in your system.

Am I correct that you have two SONOS CONNECT’s? Have you physically swapped the units?

We cannot rule out hardware fault.

An orderly Mute typically occurs when there is a communication fault that starves a unit’s data feed. It’s difficult to determine exactly when data starvation started because there is a data cache of several seconds. When the cache is empty, the unit will Mute.

Have you checked the Network Matrix to verify that the unit is wired to the network?

Yes, I have two SONOS CONNECT. Prior to last week I had an S1-compatible and an S2-compatible running on the S1 application. However, since I replaced the S1-compatible unit with a new (used) S2-compatible unit I upgraded to the S2 app. I had to.

 

So, you have three CONNECT’s. One is S1 only and two are now S2? While you are fussing with this I recommend keeping the S1 unit powered down.

Do you experience any issues with only one CONNECT powered? We have not ruled out any hardware issues. A defective CONNECT can create some “turbulence” on the network.

Submit some diagnostic confirmations here. Factory Reset destroys all diagnostic data for the reset unit. Reboot destroys most of the data. Fine diagnostic data begins to scroll out of view at about 20 minutes. SONOS staff has access to the diagnostics.

Since the older unit is S1 only, you only have one CONNECT in your system.

Am I correct that you have two SONOS CONNECT’s? Have you physically swapped the units?

We cannot rule out hardware fault.

An orderly Mute typically occurs when there is a communication fault that starves a unit’s data feed. It’s difficult to determine exactly when data starvation started because there is a data cache of several seconds. When the cache is empty, the unit will Mute.

Have you checked the Network Matrix to verify that the unit is wired to the network?

Yes, I have two SONOS CONNECT. Prior to last week I had an S1-compatible and an S2-compatible running on the S1 application. However, since I replaced the S1-compatible unit with a new (used) S2-compatible unit I upgraded to the S2 app. I had to.

 

So, you have three CONNECT’s. One is S1 only and two are now S2? While you are fussing with this I recommend keeping the S1 unit powered down.

Do you experience any issues with only one CONNECT powered? We have not ruled out any hardware issues. A defective CONNECT can create some “turbulence” on the network.

Submit some diagnostic confirmations here. Factory Reset destroys all diagnostic data for the reset unit. Reboot destroys most of the data. Fine diagnostic data begins to scroll out of view at about 20 minutes. SONOS staff has access to the diagnostics.

 

No. Not three connect units; the S1 can’t “play nice” on the S2 application and was replaced with a new (used) CONNECT that is S2 compatible. The Old S1-compatible now just sits on a shelf. I don’t know if I will sell it on or merely recycle it. So while there may be three CONNECT units in my domicile only the two S2-compatible variants are connected to the network. The upstairs unit was the first unit that I bought.

Again, PRIOR to swapping the old S1 variant it was the only one of the two units that did NOT have this issue - always the newer-hardware S2-compatible CONNECT upstairs. That is, my original CONNECT was/is S2-compatible (but I wasn’t running S2 until about a week ago) and was the one that would always hiccup while the old S1-compatible one never hiccuped, again both running S1. Now the new (used) S2-compatible unit also hiccups.

Ironic because when dealing with Sonos support one of the first things suggested was to upgrade to S2, and like I said, I did all of this in good faith, so much as even finding another unit to buy (which now feels like throwing good money after bad) that I knew to be S2-compatible...and now things are WORSE.

I am not sure about any issues with only one of the two connected; Having only one unit is a colossal drag because it is quite often that I play something entirely different in the subterranean playground than what’s playing on the whole house CONNECT. However, these two units (running under S1) were fine for years without the hiccups - there was a time when both units could run at the same time without hiccups (sync’d or not) as well as running separate files in each unit, at the same time or having only one operating and there were no hiccups.

IF it happens that running only the whole house unit “solves” the problem then I guess I’ll just stop using the 2nd unit and rely on my laptop pointed at my .mp3 library via windows media player. That’s a sad state of affairs - to make one product work you have to stop using the other.

When you say submit some diagnostics here how do you mean? Is it possible to simply submit diagnostics in another fashion? That is, can I create a diagnostics file and drag and drop here in this discussion? I thought that Sonos frowned upon submitting diagnostics unless first asked by someone from Sonos to do so.

buzz

Since the older unit is S1 only, you only have one CONNECT in your system.

Am I correct that you have two SONOS CONNECT’s? Have you physically swapped the units?

We cannot rule out hardware fault.

An orderly Mute typically occurs when there is a communication fault that starves a unit’s data feed. It’s difficult to determine exactly when data starvation started because there is a data cache of several seconds. When the cache is empty, the unit will Mute.

Have you checked the Network Matrix to verify that the unit is wired to the network?

Yes, I have two SONOS CONNECT. Prior to last week I had an S1-compatible and an S2-compatible running on the S1 application. However, since I replaced the S1-compatible unit with a new (used) S2-compatible unit I upgraded to the S2 app. I had to.

 

So, you have three CONNECT’s. One is S1 only and two are now S2? While you are fussing with this I recommend keeping the S1 unit powered down.

Do you experience any issues with only one CONNECT powered? We have not ruled out any hardware issues. A defective CONNECT can create some “turbulence” on the network.

Submit some diagnostic confirmations here. Factory Reset destroys all diagnostic data for the reset unit. Reboot destroys most of the data. Fine diagnostic data begins to scroll out of view at about 20 minutes. SONOS staff has access to the diagnostics.

I
Badge +1

Am I correct that you have two SONOS CONNECT’s? Have you physically swapped the units?

We cannot rule out hardware fault.

An orderly Mute typically occurs when there is a communication fault that starves a unit’s data feed. It’s difficult to determine exactly when data starvation started because there is a data cache of several seconds. When the cache is empty, the unit will Mute.

Have you checked the Network Matrix to verify that the unit is wired to the network?

Yes, I have two SONOS CONNECT. Prior to last week I had an S1-compatible and an S2-compatible running on the S1 application. However, since I replaced the S1-compatible unit with a new (used) S2-compatible unit I upgraded to the S2 app. I had to.

Each of the two CONNECT units has its own CAT6E connection; each connection is physically and electrically OK; I do not run WiFi (though I have enabled it while troubleshooting just to see if that would make a difference. It didn’t and it still doesn’t..

Each unit halts playback / continues - that is this problem happens with both CONNECT units, whether running independent streams, whether when only one is running, and when both are grouped (which I almost never do). That said, prior to me REPLACING the downstairs unit (S1-compliant unit only) I never once heard THAT unit have the issue. Ironically after buying a replacement S2-compatible CONNECT for the downstairs unit now THAT unit also has the issue. I cannot recall swapping the units when the S1-compatible unit was on the network.

I have even checked the network cables within the house on the odd chance that there was a wire or two loose in a CAT6E termination. No luck - all network lines are OK (I verified these with a DMM that allows pin-to-pin integrity of a cable to be checked along with a CAT6E cable long enough to get to both ends).

The first set of audio players that I owned was the Turtle Beach Audiotron. Clunky interface and a limit of 32,768 songs is what caused me to buy the CONNECT, and for a long while I was quite happy as this problem didn’t start until a year or 18 months ago. That said...THEY ALWAYS WORKED - I never had playback skip or halt. Not once. And...I had five of them around the house and they were all access a .wav library rather than /flac because there was no codec support for flac in those units. I think they were early 2000’s vintage. Again I would like to point out that despite their clunky interface THEY. ALWAYS. JUST. WORKED.

One thing that I DID love about the Audiotron was that you could assign the units a static I.P. (which I did) as well as dial-in how much buffering was desired to make sure hiccups didn’t happen etc. Thus I could always ping the IPs as I had assigned them in blocks of .5 and blow the start of the gateway’s DHCP address span. There were a LOT of user-accessible settings (which made it tough for non computer types to deal with it). I had really hoped that the CONNECT would have offered the end user the same kind of control, but I also understand that Sonos went for a much broader market and put what seems to be about 99% of such settings outside the access of the user.

 

I just want reliability. This feels to me like having a really nice car with the “fun” feature of having the engine simply shut off for anywhere from two to ten seconds before restarting itself. Can you imagine how you would feel driving such a car?

 

As a man once said “Just give me something that works. Consistently”

buzz

Am I correct that you have two SONOS CONNECT’s? Have you physically swapped the units?

We cannot rule out hardware fault.

An orderly Mute typically occurs when there is a communication fault that starves a unit’s data feed. It’s difficult to determine exactly when data starvation started because there is a data cache of several seconds. When the cache is empty, the unit will Mute.

Have you checked the Network Matrix to verify that the unit is wired to the network?

I
Badge +1

Did you ever eliminate the GS108 switch to see if it was playing any part in your issue?

Also I would at least try your locally stored music library on a gigabit Ethernet-linked NAS too, (even if you have to borrow one to try from a colleague, if necessary) at least that will eliminate other network issues around your USB connected storage.

Yes. Switches were compliant. I also swapped a different mfgr gigabit switch. Made no difference.

I
Badge +1

The entire library is .flac; I keep the 320 kbps mp3 library separate (a copy of the .flac, just more portable as it were for other devices and also other PCs (ironically still running windows media player which CONTINUES to work)). The other PCs are not pointed at the flac library,

 

I don’t have my mp3 and flac files in the same library; the entire point of buying the CONNECT was native .flac support.

 

This “hiccup” happens when:

  1. I am playing only one of the two CONNECT,
  2. I am playing both of them (grouped), but I almost never do this as the main unit feeds a whole-house analog balanced line distribution system. The 2nd CONNECT is only for the Subterranean Playground.

I have tried having the music (albeit a smaller version of the library) on a local internal drive. Same issue.

This happens with albums and playlists. I almost never play only one song so I can’t really address that use case. ALSO...playlist length does not matter - whether 30, 258, or 900 songs, the hiccup will occur.

The hiccup does not seem to be a function of the file size either; something this happens with short songs but other times it happens with long songs. Absolutely no consistency.

I have checked my main Audio processor (to which the whole house CONNECT is connected) when the fault happens to see if maybe the TOSLINK-out was hiccuping. The audio processor never loses sync, so IF there is a hardware fault it’s in THAT Sonos CONNECT - perhaps it’s losing blocks of data somehow. That said, the output is always silent when this happens - never Gaussian noise etc, just silence.

The ONLY thing left that I can think of would be to take the analog outs into the processor (the output of the processor feeds the whole house analog distribution system). I suppose it’s possible that there’s a flaky DAC but that said, I don’t know if the S/PDIF is served from the same digital location (i.e. pre DAC) as the TOSLINK. So yeah, that’s the only thing left - take the analog signal and see if the hiccuping stops. Ironically I just wanted to use the digital out and let the audio processor handle everything. HOWEVER this happens on both CONNECT units, and on the 2nd unit I am NOT using a digital out, so it seems once more not related to the DAC etc.

Again, I’ve fully reset the gateway more than once. I’ve checked every LAN connection to every switch. I’ve powered-down the switches, and yes, even tried a USB to CAT6 connector on the odd chance there are issues with the NIC on the main PC. That, too made no difference. All PCs and CONNECT units are on the same gigabit switch so there’s no real heavy lifting for one to see the other. I’ve rebuilt OSs and run all manner of diagnostics.

Ironically, the PCs around the house can all see and play flawlessly the mp3 versions via media player.

I’m sick of all of this. I head that NAD makes a beautiful but pricey unit. The problem is that I need two, and they are WAY expensive.

So, so, so frustrating and made all the worse by the pull down menu support personnel in chat etc. I’ll never ask them for help again. Even after submitting diagnostics they still couldn’t tell me anything apart from what’s in the pull down menu help tree.

 

 

 

 

J

That's a sad story. It must have been very frustrating. One thing that doesn't surprise me is that moving from S1 to S2 made no difference. Given the nature of the problem there is no reason to think that would help.

If streaming lossy music works OK then there are really only two things that could cause the issues;

1. Getting the music from local drive to router.

2. Network not coping with larger lossless files.

(I should mention that my Sonos plays lossless FLAC streamed or local faultlessly,  so the equipment is up to the task.)

Do you experience the issues when playing through the Connect only or just when grouped?

If you provide more information on what you have connected to what then someone on here might be able to help.

PS. What happens if you stream lossless? Or play local mp3s?

Ken_Griffiths

Did you ever eliminate the GS108 switch to see if it was playing any part in your issue?

Also I would at least try your locally stored music library on a gigabit Ethernet-linked NAS too, (even if you have to borrow one to try from a colleague, if necessary) at least that will eliminate other network issues around your USB connected storage.

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