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I have a hardwired Connect, and various WiFi speakers (Sonos 1, Play 3 and Playbar). System has been working fine up until recently, but I now have an issue connecting to my Sonos system from the S1 controller and Spotify from my iMac (High Sierra 10.13.6). The S1 controller connects the first time after a start-up or restart, but if I quit, or the computer goes to sleep the app can’t connect back to the system, Spotify lists all my devices but these are always greyed out and cannot be used.

I can’t honestly said when this started as I’ve only just noticed it in the past week. I use both the Sonos S1 App and Spotify App on my iPhone and iPad most of the time, and I have no problems connecting using these smart devices.

I’ve gone through all the troubleshooting variables; turned off the modem, unplugged my broadband connection and all devices several times, checked ethernet cables etc. Smart device Apps continue to work perfectly, so there can’t be an issue with my WiFi, my desktop doesn’t. I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled the S1 controller, but this hasn’t fixed anything. When I rebooted in safe mode the Sonos S1 controller worked fine with no problems at all (I could quit out of the App continually and it would still connect), Spotify doesn’t work in safe mode so couldn’t test. I did create a new user and found that Spotify could connect to my devices again, but the S1 controller couldn’t connect at all, not even after startup. I just get the “Sorry, we can’t connect to Sonos. Let’s try some things” error message.

So, when logged in as the main user: the Controller works the first time after a startup (then doesn’t after a quit or sleep) and Spotify can’t connect at all. When logged in as a new user: Spotify connects and the Controller can’t. 

I assume there is something stopping the Controller (and Spotify in my main user) from connecting to the Sonos system. I haven’t installed any new software, have the latest versions of both Sonos and Spotify Apps, my Firewall has Sonos checked, and I’ve turned off all anti-virus software, so completely stumped. Sonos support couldn’t help, only confirmed the Mac was preventing the connection, and to contact Apple. My computer is way out of warranty so I won’t be able to get any help from Apple, but everything else works well, and as I’ve said this has only started recently.

Has anyone else had this issue, or have any idea what could be causing it?

Hi @Anthony_45 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Given that safe mode works, I also have to assume that in safe mode some piece of software that’s blocking Sonos communications is not being loaded. The prime suspect for this would be a firewall, VPN or other security software. If you have McAfee firewall, I believe there’s a setting which mimics the Private/Public Network setting of Microsoft Windows - you’d need to set your Mac’s connection to Private, in this case, within the McAfee app.

Unfortunately, you might have to start uninstalling applications, one at a time, to know for sure which is causing the problem. If you do have McAfee, I’d start with that.

 

Thank you Corry, yes indeed it was my anti-virus that was causing the problem. I spent most of the day trashing prefs and stopping startup apps from launching. Spotify got fixed once the prefs + cache were deleted and I logged back in again. But the only way I could determine if it was the anti-virus (I was using Sophos Home for Mac) that was causing the problem with the Sonos Controller was to uninstall it, that fixed the issue. I guess the reason why Sonos connected on startup was because the Sophos app loaded later. Sophos is always being updated in the background and obviously at some point it changed the way it worked. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way to change the settings to allow Sonos network access. I’ve flagged it with Sophos support, and for now it’s off my computer, and Sonos is back doing it’s thing. Thanks for highlighting the possible culprit. Cheers.

Hi @Anthony_45 

Glad to hear you found the issue! Thanks for updating us!

 

There was another thread about someone having issues with Sophos, in the last week or so. I’m afraid I don’t recall what their resolution was, unfortunately, but might be worth a google search (no, I don’t really recommend the search on this forum, sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s poor.)

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