Sonos iOS app often fails to connect

  • 10 January 2021
  • 16 replies
  • 402 views

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Why does the Sonos iOS app often fail to connect? This has been a problem with both Sonos 1 and 2. Works for a few days then stops working. Same issue across different iPhones and iPads. All devices and speakers have full wifi signal. Only thing that fixes it is a full app reset which is a pain. What is the solution. Any response about rebooting routers or access points will be ignored. 10 years later, we’re well beyond basic trouble shooting of an unstable code base. What say you??


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16 replies

Try switching off wifi assist https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205296

Also, switching off private address may help https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT211227

 

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Try switching off wifi assist https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205296

Also, switching off private address may help https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT211227

 

Thanks, I will try disabling private address. Wi-Fi assist is not applicable for my iPad 

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Try switching off wifi assist https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205296

Also, switching off private address may help https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT211227

 

Thanks, I will try disabling private address. Wi-Fi assist is not applicable for my iPad 

It appears that neither of those are options on my iPad which is the device that disconnects most often 

Describe your network for us (with model numbers). Are any of the SONOS units wired to your network? Have you reserved IP addresses for regular network clients? Can you correlate these events with anything? Perhaps with an update? Is there a BRIDGE in your SONOS system? Duplicate IP address?

Submit a diagnostic and post the confirmation number here. SONOS staff can comment.

For the record, I’m not experiencing this issue. I’ll agree that endless reboots will not fix fundamental issues. There could be a hardware failure of some sort. One should never assume that the issue must be [ … ] or cannot be [ ...], else one is likely to be blindsided.

You’d think that I’m too smart to be victimized by a duplicate IP address, but I once forgot about a little seldom used palm sized address device hidden away in a cabinet as I reconfigured my network. It duplicated the IP address of an ancient NAS that I initially thought was failing. Fortunately, I swallowed my pride, checked for duplicates and …. darn!

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Describe your network for us (with model numbers). Are any of the SONOS units wired to your network? Have you reserved IP addresses for regular network clients? Can you correlate these events with anything? Perhaps with an update? Is there a BRIDGE in your SONOS system? Duplicate IP address?

Submit a diagnostic and post the confirmation number here. SONOS staff can comment.

For the record, I’m not experiencing this issue. I’ll agree that endless reboots will not fix fundamental issues. There could be a hardware failure of some sort. One should never assume that the issue must be [ … ] or cannot be [ ...], else one is likely to be blindsided.

You’d think that I’m too smart to be victimized by a duplicate IP address, but I once forgot about a little seldom used palm sized address device hidden away in a cabinet as I reconfigured my network. It duplicated the IP address of an ancient NAS that I initially thought was failing. Fortunately, I swallowed my pride, checked for duplicates and …. darn!

Three Play:3, Two Play:1

All connected via Wi-Fi, DHCP for IP addressed, no reserved IPs. No bridge, all updated to the latest S2 version. Two iPhone,

one iPad and Mac Pro all on latest software, all randomly disconnect from all Sonos devices, sometimes while it’s playing music which is really super frustrating.

 

 

 

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How can I assign static IP addresses for the sonos speakers? Will that help? Honestly both the iOS app and Mac app are terrible. They both refer to each other for advanced feature. I wish there was advanced setting and monitoring app for administration functions. 

One cannot assign a fixed IP address using the SONOS controllers. This can be done in most routers. Most routers will call this “reservations”, some will call it “fixed”. As in my drama above, reservations are not a guarantee against duplicates, but they will lower the risk. In SONOS systems duplicates can show up after a SONOS firmware update.

Are you using multiple access points?

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Single access point. My Ethernet router is the DHCP router. Will reserving IP address fix the problem? I don’t think I have IP collision 

From my seat I don’t have enough data to determine the fundamental issue. Some of your symptoms are consistent with a duplicate IP address. Address reservation is a great way to prevent issues.

Make sure that the phone/pad is using your WiFi. This is not as silly as it seems. In my area the cable company’s router provides WiFi for your home and a public WiFi access point for any cable company customer who passes by. The idea is that their customers have Internet access everywhere. It’s a variation on ‘Guest’ WiFi access. If you are using the public access point you’ll have access to websites email, and most Apps, but you cannot control your SONOS system because, as far as SONOS is concerned, you are not at home. If you have set your phone/pad to use this public WiFi, pay attention to which network you are using.

Submit a diagnostic and post the confirmation number here.

You can use FING to scan your network. It will highlight duplicate IP addresses.

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From my seat I don’t have enough data to determine the fundamental issue. Some of your symptoms are consistent with a duplicate IP address. Address reservation is a great way to prevent issues.

Make sure that the phone/pad is using your WiFi. This is not as silly as it seems. In my area the cable company’s router provides WiFi for your home and a public WiFi access point for any cable company customer who passes by. The idea is that their customers have Internet access everywhere. It’s a variation on ‘Guest’ WiFi access. If you are using the public access point you’ll have access to websites email, and most Apps, but you cannot control your SONOS system because, as far as SONOS is concerned, you are not at home. If you have set your phone/pad to use this public WiFi, pay attention to which network you are using.

Submit a diagnostic and post the confirmation number here.

You can use FING to scan your network. It will highlight duplicate IP addresses.

Thanks for the tip on FING. I’m assuming the “generic” IP addresses are the Sonos speakers? All other devices report themselves accurately. No duplicate IP addresses. I guarantee iOS devices are on my Wi-Fi. Is it possible that the Sonos speakers could be trying to join another nearby network? Again, this is where some sort of admin interface would be great, feel like I’m in the dark on the speakers configs. I’ve submitted dozens of not 100s of diagnostic reports, next time it fails to connect I’ll post the number here. Is there a way to view the reports I’ve submitted or is that lost when the app is reset?

Simply submitting a diagnostic doesn’t accomplish much because there is no notification to staff that you have had an issue and submitted. With enough motivation staff can dig up your submissions, but it is extra work for them. When you post here or call support, it is expected that you will give the confirmation number. It is best to submit within about 10 minutes after an event because fine detail scrolls out of the buffer. Also, a reboot trashes most of the data.

When the controller is working, go to Settings → System → About My System. Here all of your units should be listed, along with their IP and MAC addresses. Due to an Apple restriction, FING on an iDevice cannot display MAC addresses. MAC addresses are formatted: aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff. aa:bb:cc is unique to a manufacturer and dd:ee:ff is unique to the device port. A device may have multiple ports. Sometimes a device might return extra data, such as a name, to FING, but I have not found this data to be consistent. For example FING might display ‘Toms iPhone’ on your iDevice, while another device will not display anything useful. In some cases I’ve seen an indication that an entry is a SONOS player, but the room name is not displayed. FING can only display devices that reply to a general query at some point. Devices seen in an earlier scan, but currently not replying, will be listed as offline.

Unlike phone/pad, SONOS devices are not designed to roam. Your SONOS devices only allow one SSID (WiFi network name) and password to be defined for WiFi.

An alternate way of using SONOS is to wire one or more SONOS units to your network. SONOS will create a private network and ignore WiFi. WiFi will ignore SONOS. If you go this route, it is best to remove the WiFi details from the SONOS system. This connection method is known as “SonosNet”.

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Diagnostic report # 1875837512 submitted today. Sonos working all morning (except Spotify Radio which may or may not be related) on multiple speakers using multiple iOS devices. All of sudden, unable to connect from anything. What is the deal?? When is this going to be fixed?

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And again today. Diagnostic Report # 911195842 submitted 

Hello?? Is anyone there? When is Sonos going to get better? There’s no reason to fall off the network 

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Hi @pbirke, thank you for reaching out to the Sonos community and letting us know about your concern. Sorry for the late response. Upon checking the reports that you submitted, the diagnostics contain only controllers' information or the mobile device you used to trigger the report. The troubleshooting steps recommended by our community members in this thread are very helpful. This usually caused by network communication problems between your Sonos devices and your router (or if you have multiple routers within one network). We really appreciate you for sharing your feedback with us, your frustration is understandable. To further help you with this, it would be best to contact our support team with your full network setup including the make and model of your network devices to look into this. Our support has the tools to check what's going on in your system and to remotely access your device to address the issue. Please feel free to reach out in the future if you have any other questions.

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Again today. Diagnostic report #336055338

anyone suggest a better product?

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Hi @pbirke 

Thanks for sending the diagnostics - unfortunately, just like the rest, that diagnostic only contains information about your controller, not the system. This is due to a network configuration or compatibility issue, not a fault with your system. As you’ve been putting up with this for so long (and really shouldn’t need to), I highly recommend you get in touch with our technical support team, who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and network. I think in your case, the best time to send a diagnostic is before you have the issue (while the app is connected).