Have you tried unplugging the speaker from power for a couple of minutes and rebooting your router?

No, because I’m not a superstitious weirdo. Slipped and skipped samples are a problem between the host processor and the audio codec, where the buffer under- or over-runs. Rebooting unrelated network equipment can’t help.

You might wait for the issue to happen again and submit a diagnostic for the Sonos staff to look at. Either post the number it gives you and an issue description here or call it in to support.

The usual reason for “it just started happening” is radio interference, might be from your stuff or a nearby neighbor. There are entries in the Sonos FAQ for dealing with it on your own if you want to try that before requesting Sonos help.

Thanks, I did submit diagnostics # 1636554842 earlier.

A lot of folks think Sonos support looks at submitted diagnostics but in general they don’t.

What support does do is respond to support requests, and if there is a diagnostic mentioned they pull it off the server and look at it then.

I always send one in before calling Support, quick and easy to do and then they have all my system data, even that hidden from me, available to answer my issue/question.

Just as a note, YouTube uses the exact same codecs as every other service, if you were having issues with Sonos interpreting those codecs, you’d be having exactly the same issue on all services. 

I’d be putting money on some sort of wifi interference, as suggested by GuitarSuperstar, potentially from outside your own network devices. His suggestion clears one or more potential causes, and is a worthwhile test, at the very least, since the investment in doing so is merely a few moments of your time. No superstition involved, just simple network and software/electronics knowledge, and knowing what helps a large majority of people who post issues such as yours. There’s no guaranty, either, but it helps refine what the potential issue is, so that further assistance can be given as needed. 

However, if you prefer not to receive assistance from the community members in the forum in which  you posted, I’d urge you to call Sonos Support directly to discuss it, after submitting the diagnostic that Stanley mentioned .

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and network.

From my seat this appears to be a classic data starvation issue. Yes, there is a generous buffer for audio streaming from a local hard drive or remote service. If there is a communication issue and the buffer is empty, the unit will mute. If fresh data seems to be arriving, the player will wait and continue the track. If the stream seems to be interrupted, the unit will move on to the next track if possible. This is not possible for some services. I have seen units trapped in a “race” situation where the buffer has been starved, communication issues continue to be severe, the unit mutes while a new block of data is arriving, but the block is corrupt, the unit might unmute briefly while attempting to deal with the corrupt block(s) or optimistically wait for a block that seems to be in progress. The units might mute for many, many seconds struggling with a difficult communication issue before spitting out a small burst of music then muting once more.

This sort of issue leaves clear tracks in the diagnostic.

That doesn’t really reflect my issue at all. My Sonos is making a loud SKRRRTTTT!!!! sound for a split second, every few seconds. As a person experienced in digital audio software and hardware development, I don’t see anything that can cause this other than a bug in the Sonos stack that is writing garbage into the output buffer, or that is letting the buffer position overrun into an area of memory containing non-audio data. That is why I am blaming the 13.2 software release, that I just got updated to.

It does seem odd that this issue appears to be unique to your setup, and is not impacting other owners of PLAY:3s such as myself. 

Hi @jwbaker 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Looking at your diagnostic, I see you have no Play:3s, but you do have a Play:1. I’ll assume that’s the speaker you’re having the issue with. Although it is reporting decode errors (I think the reported changes in bitrate might be what you’re actually hearing - if there is no such change, then the stream will not be played correctly and will sound like the non-audio data you mentioned), they likely stem from the WiFi transmission errors also reported. I recommend you read our reducing wireless interference help page and remove any sources of interference from within 1m of both the speaker and the router (keep in mind what might be on other sides of walls).

I’m also seeing DNS resolution issues which might be a result of those same transmission errors, but I’d still recommend you reboot your router by removing power for one minute, and repeating this several times a year.

I hope this helps.

Play:1, you are right. It’s been a really long time since I bought it, I forgot which is which.

Why should the bitrate be changing in the middle of a track? Is it trying to be adaptive and if so, is that a Sonos thing or a Google thing?

I just ran the diagnostics on my Wifi and it reports 18mbps to my Sonos, and 250+ mbps to all other devices on my network. The Sonos is literally 1 meter away from the wifi access point. This seems like more than enough network throughput for even the highest quality AAC stream from YouTube, no? The ISP connection reports > 600 mbps download speed test.

Hi @jwbaker 

Yes, 18mpbs would normally be enough bandwidth, but some packets are failing so 18mbps might not be enough. I’d expect a lot more than 18mpbs at 1m from the router anyway. I’d like to minimise these lost packets to see if it helps - please separate the speaker and the router a bit more (or connect the two with an ethernet cable) for further testing with YouTube Music. 

The bitrate changes might be expected, but they seem to be followed by decoding errors. YouTube would be the source of the bitrate changes if it is Variable Bitrate. There is a known issue with audio artefacts and decoding errors in some cases while using YouTube Music and S1. Although you use S2, I’d like to test if this issue is only related to YouTube - could you please try playing another service for a day to confirm?

Edit: It looks like VBR is expected. The audio artefacts are from decoding issues.

2nd Edit: Removed some inaccuracies.

OK, just FYI, these voodoo statements about my wifi are just making Sonos look bad. Everything else in my house works perfectly. LG TV, Roku, Oppo streamer, Chromecast, even Sonos for the fifteen years until last month, everything but my Sonos with the latest software. I’m trying to report a software defect here.

Once you have decided that the issue must be [...] or cannot be [...] you are likely to be blindsided.

My experience has been that SONOS will mute if the data is corrupted. For some reason your data stream results in a burst of noise. To me this implies two issues. First, SONOS should mute, but does not. Second, there is an interference issue on your network. If the data stream was clean, any failure to mute when dealing with corrupt data would be moot.

It’s good that the other units on your network are performing well. This implies that there is an interference issue local to your PLAY:1 or that there is a hardware/software issue with PLAY:1. Don’t overlook the possibility of a PLAY:1 hardware issue.

And frankly, the way Sonos uses the network is in an entirely different method than all the devices you listed. 

The possibility of a software defect is not zero, but relatively close to that. If it was indeed a software defect, there would likely be hundreds or thousands of posts about folks experiencing the same thing. So far, that’s not the case. But if it was, certainly that would be exposed by the diagnostic.

Don’t forget that your network doesn’t exist in a total vacuum. It can be impacted by many types of influences outside your control.