Typically, this is a network issue. Which mesh system are you using?

Go to http://[IP address of a player]:1400/support/review and click on the Network Matrix at the bottom. Red cells indicate wireless issues.

A duplicate IP address can cause this. You’d think that I am too smart for this. I once had an issue with an old NAS, similar to what you are describing, and I thought that it was time to retire the unit, but I’m not used to intermittent NAS drives. Finally, I swallowed my pride and checked for duplicates. … Darn! … A few weeks prior I had replaced my router and moved the DHCP range slightly, but I forgot about a hidden, palm sized, seldom used device, with a fixed IP address that was now inside the new DHCP range. You guessed it -- IP address was the same as the NAS.

SOLUTION:

Well, in the end, this problem of Sonos instability and speakers not all joining quickly when grouped, songs skipping regularly, was solved by pulling the last one ethernet cable out of the central speaker, and forcing Sonos to use the house wifi for all music streaming.  Everything is rock solid now. 

Normally, conventional thinking is to use ethernet connection whenever possible.  But in my case, and I’m sure others, the conversion of your system to SonosNet when you do this, can cause some distant speakers to not operate smoothly.

This likely only works in a robust mesh wifi system, like we have running here (central wifi router, 4 distal wifi points, each ethernet backhauled).  Even with all 16 speakers playing music, I am stilling getting gig speeds to my other devices on the network.

For some having the problems described, you might try ditching the ethernet connections, see if notice a positive change.

Stephen

If one or more SonosNet players have a difficult wireless connection and the SONOS system has the WiFi credentials, one or more players might flap between SonosNet and WiFi.