Sonos is forcing people to buy new hardware as they've broken the Connect:Amp and they refuse to fix it

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A
Userlevel 4
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We have a Sonos Connect connected to a Denon Amp via optical connection. The Denon is connected to hard wired speakers throughout the house.   It worked wonderfully for six years until about six months ago.  We also have the cutting out problem. Sometimes we get several hours without a drop, other times it drops every few minutes.    I actually installed a new router several months ago after being led to believe it was a network problem.  That did not solve  the problem.  I have the Sonos on a dedicated wireless port.  I have tried using different channels on the advice of Sonos support.  Nothing has solved the problem.   I agree that this is a problem caused by the Sonos hardware upgrades.  Can anyone tell me how can I revert my Connect back to pre upgrade when it worked without any problems?  We are retired and on a fixed income and I really do not want to throw good money after bad.

Thank you!

I’ve reverted my two connect amps back to S1. The procedure for doing this is documented here

Although it seems simple, it isn’t foolproof and it took a few goes to re-establish the amps on the network via the S1 app (it took some time for my iPhone to establish the necessary wifi connection to the connect amps).

It’s early days (only been a few hours!) but so far, so good.

A word of caution - you’ll lose all settings associated with your account such as streaming services and music library paths. These will all need to be re-established again.

And once you’ve reverted to S1, you’ll have to tell all the users in your house to avoid the constant Sonos reminder to upgrade to S2 (there’s no way to remove this reminder if you only have S2 compatible devices in your network)

M

We have a Sonos Connect connected to a Denon Amp via optical connection. The Denon is connected to hard wired speakers throughout the house.   It worked wonderfully for six years until about six months ago.  We also have the cutting out problem. Sometimes we get several hours without a drop, other times it drops every few minutes.    I actually installed a new router several months ago after being led to believe it was a network problem.  That did not solve  the problem.  I have the Sonos on a dedicated wireless port.  I have tried using different channels on the advice of Sonos support.  Nothing has solved the problem.   I agree that this is a problem caused by the Sonos hardware upgrades.  Can anyone tell me how can I revert my Connect back to pre upgrade when it worked without any problems?  We are retired and on a fixed income and I really do not want to throw good money after bad.

Thank you!

A
Userlevel 4
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My vote is a hardware issue.

You’re correct. It’s a hardware issue caused by Sonos writing code which the hardware can no longer keep up with. 
Sonos themselves are telling us this when we call them with this issue ‘your hardware is overloaded. Buy new hardware’. 
 

Like @britcowboy , I don’t understand why many posters are so keen to ignore the obvious. Surely Occam’s razor applies? Perhaps you’re all android users but my parallels with iOS updates rendering equipment obsolete hasn’t elicited a response but seems to be a decent analogy to the situation that connect amp users are facing today.

I shall revert to S1 and report back. 

 

buzz

My vote is a hardware issue.

B
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

 

I used to think that it was a network issue but the surefire way to temporarily fix the problem is to reboot the connect amps and to use Spotify instead of Qobuz, all of which supports the memory buffering theory.

The obvious conclusion is that Sonos, like Apple, has rendered its older hardware obsolete through unnecessary software upgrades.

So the choice as I see it is to;

  1. roll back to S1
  2. buy the new Amp
  3. jump ship to bluesound

But let’s be clear about this - this is definitely a problem which has been created  by Sonos 

 

 

Out of curiosity, have you tried a system restart? By that I mean:

shut down Sonos devices and router, wait a few minutes, and then restart the router;

when it’s fully running and wifi is running, restart Sonos devices one at a time;

set fixed ip addresses for Sonos devices. 
 

There are numerous cases on these forums where this has resolved issues where the app can’t connect to system/devices. 

I’m just asking/suggesting trying this as the drop-outs might be network/ip issues rather than memory issues in the devices. 
 

Either way, I can’t believe that Sonos would risk deliberately sabotaging customers’ devices, whatever you might think to the contrary. The legal ramifications would be disastrous to them, if found out. 

FYI I've tried system restarts, reserving ips, having the CA being on WiFi and off WiFi (it's always connected to ethernet) I've tried having different devices as root bridge, I've changed sonosnet channel, I've reterminated the speaker connection. I've gone through Sonos diagnosis on the phone, sending diagnosis information to them. They told me it was a memory issue and the only solution is to buy an Amp

B
Userlevel 4
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I don’t think that Sonos is deliberately setting out to sabotage devices but the careless coding of new firmware updates is having the same effect. 
 

You have not a shred of evidence for this assertion.  The facts simply do not support it.  In particular, the tiny number of users who have supported this claim.  On the very rare occasions that an update has introduce a bug, even one affecting a tiny proportion of users, there have been dozens, even hundreds, of users posting within days.

As I've said before, which you're not reading, there are quite a few people reporting issues with connect amps, but they are getting told its a environmental issue on this forum. Also when I rang Sonos, it came up as a known issue with connect amps. I'm not saying it's a conspiracy by Sonos to force people to upgrade, I never have, you're making that up, but they don't seem particularly interested in fixing it. I had zero problems with this device until June 2023, the same time others seem to have started symptoms. Either it's a massive coincidence or that update caused an issue.

 

I don't know why you're so keen to defend Sonos against any issue btw, I love most of my Sonos devices, I don't hate the company, but the company isn't beyond criticism or probing questions being asked, it doesn't need you to defend it.

B
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

I note that you have wired your Connect:Amp and "disabled Wi5". So you are presumably not aware that this is a misconfiguration of your system? Unless you wanted to prevent the use of SonosNet for some reason? Or is everything wired?

This would not explain dropouts on the CA itself, though.

 

Only the connect amp has the WiFi off, this was something I suggested to Sonos support to reduce load on the connect amp and Sonos agreed it should help. This isn't a misconfiguration, it's hardwired to ethernet, and it's not the root bridge in my sonosnet

It is sub-optimal at best.  Another question for you, if I may?  Do the dropouts occur only when the C:A is being used alone, only when grrouped with other speakers, or in both of those scenarios?

And a related question.  When you group speakers, from which Sonos speaker to you start the group?

What's sub optimal about it? I've turned off sonosnet on the connect amp to reduce the load on it, but for your information I've tested it as part of sonosnet and had the same symptoms.

The dropouts occur in both of those scenerios. I don't tend to group this speaker that often, but when I do, it's usually another speaker being the coordinator, but like I said, the speaker on its own, alone, ungrouped, also drops out, so I think the grouping is a bit irrelevant. In fact today I had loads of drop outs listening to a podcast which was driving me mad, as I was missing bits.

J

I don’t think that Sonos is deliberately setting out to sabotage devices but the careless coding of new firmware updates is having the same effect. 
 

You have not a shred of evidence for this assertion.  The facts simply do not support it.  In particular, the tiny number of users who have supported this claim.  On the very rare occasions that an update has introduce a bug, even one affecting a tiny proportion of users, there have been dozens, even hundreds, of users posting within days.

J

I note that you have wired your Connect:Amp and "disabled Wi5". So you are presumably not aware that this is a misconfiguration of your system? Unless you wanted to prevent the use of SonosNet for some reason? Or is everything wired?

This would not explain dropouts on the CA itself, though.

 

Only the connect amp has the WiFi off, this was something I suggested to Sonos support to reduce load on the connect amp and Sonos agreed it should help. This isn't a misconfiguration, it's hardwired to ethernet, and it's not the root bridge in my sonosnet

It is sub-optimal at best.  Another question for you, if I may?  Do the dropouts occur only when the C:A is being used alone, only when grrouped with other speakers, or in both of those scenarios?

And a related question.  When you group speakers, from which Sonos speaker to you start the group?

jgatie

Sigh.

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

 

I used to think that it was a network issue but the surefire way to temporarily fix the problem is to reboot the connect amps and to use Spotify instead of Qobuz, all of which supports the memory buffering theory.

The obvious conclusion is that Sonos, like Apple, has rendered its older hardware obsolete through unnecessary software upgrades.

So the choice as I see it is to;

  1. roll back to S1
  2. buy the new Amp
  3. jump ship to bluesound

But let’s be clear about this - this is definitely a problem which has been created  by Sonos 

 

 

Out of curiosity, have you tried a system restart? By that I mean:

shut down Sonos devices and router, wait a few minutes, and then restart the router;

when it’s fully running and wifi is running, restart Sonos devices one at a time;

set fixed ip addresses for Sonos devices. 
 

There are numerous cases on these forums where this has resolved issues where the app can’t connect to system/devices. 

I’m just asking/suggesting trying this as the drop-outs might be network/ip issues rather than memory issues in the devices. 
 

Either way, I can’t believe that Sonos would risk deliberately sabotaging customers’ devices, whatever you might think to the contrary. The legal ramifications would be disastrous to them, if found out. 

Thank you for the suggestions. I have followed them all and to no avail. 
 

I don’t think that Sonos is deliberately setting out to sabotage devices but the careless coding of new firmware updates is having the same effect. 
 

 

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

It’s no more deliberate than Apple’s policy of rendering older iOS devices obsolete through OS ‘upgrades’

And I don’t buy the solid state memory degradation argument as, if you bother to check other users’ experiences, you’ll see that multiple connect amp devices in the same installation experience the same problems at the same time. 

 

jgatie

I don't dispute anything except the accusation that Sonos is purposefully sabotaging older devices in order to force you to upgrade.  It's patently absurd, especially when the average lifespan of solid stare memory is a far more likely reason.

N
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

 

I used to think that it was a network issue but the surefire way to temporarily fix the problem is to reboot the connect amps and to use Spotify instead of Qobuz, all of which supports the memory buffering theory.

The obvious conclusion is that Sonos, like Apple, has rendered its older hardware obsolete through unnecessary software upgrades.

So the choice as I see it is to;

  1. roll back to S1
  2. buy the new Amp
  3. jump ship to bluesound

But let’s be clear about this - this is definitely a problem which has been created  by Sonos 

 

 

Out of curiosity, have you tried a system restart? By that I mean:

shut down Sonos devices and router, wait a few minutes, and then restart the router;

when it’s fully running and wifi is running, restart Sonos devices one at a time;

set fixed ip addresses for Sonos devices. 
 

There are numerous cases on these forums where this has resolved issues where the app can’t connect to system/devices. 

I’m just asking/suggesting trying this as the drop-outs might be network/ip issues rather than memory issues in the devices. 
 

Either way, I can’t believe that Sonos would risk deliberately sabotaging customers’ devices, whatever you might think to the contrary. The legal ramifications would be disastrous to them, if found out. 

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

 

There’s more than two so obviously counting is beyond you. Put away the insults until you have mastered basic arithmetic. 

 

There was once an actual problem with a single Sonos model, the Playbar.   That thread had thousands of posts in a few days, along with a dozen or so other threads about the same issue.  This thread hasn’t even hit 25 posts.  So 2, or 12, or even 25 users, means nothing.  The advice stands - Put away the tin foil hat.



Apples to oranges comparison in terms of user base and size of installed base. 
 

Regardless of that fact, even Sonos themselves consistently diagnose the problem as a lack of memory or do you dispute that too?

jgatie

 

There’s more than two so obviously counting is beyond you. Put away the insults until you have mastered basic arithmetic. 

 

There was once an actual problem with a single Sonos model, the Playbar.   That thread had thousands of posts in a few days, along with a dozen or so other threads about the same issue.  This thread hasn’t even hit 25 posts.  So 2, or 12, or even 25 users, means nothing.  The advice stands - Put away the tin foil hat.

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

“Multiple users?”  There’s two.  Two out of millions.  Put away the tin foil hat. 

 

There’s more than two so obviously counting is beyond you. Put away the insults until you have mastered basic arithmetic. 

jgatie

“Multiple users?”  There’s two.  Two out of millions.  Put away the tin foil hat. 

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

I registered just to post on this issue as I am also suffering the same problems. 
I have two connect amps in a simple system. They’re connected by wifi to ubiquiti access points and a full ubiquiti network.

My system problems started in May 2023 when I changed from an iPhone XR to a 14 pro. I was constantly unable to access the Sonos devices despite my wife’s iPhone 12 seeing the connect amps just fine. In addition, my laptop and PC had no problems accessing the connect amps. The problem was solved by resetting the app on my 14 pro but I noticed that a number of other users were also posting problems with 14 pro devices. At the time of the troubleshooting, Sonos diagnostics was advising that the connect amps were old (only 6 years) and running out of memory, especially when using higher bit rate services such as Qobuz. 
 

Fast forward a couple of months and my wife’s iPhone started being unable to connect and the dropouts started occurring with weary monotony regardless of which device we tried to use to access the connect amps  

The dropouts happen to both amps and often at almost (but not exactly) the same time if they’re in party mode.

I used to think that it was a network issue but the surefire way to temporarily fix the problem is to reboot the connect amps and to use Spotify instead of Qobuz, all of which supports the memory buffering theory.

The obvious conclusion is that Sonos, like Apple, has rendered its older hardware obsolete through unnecessary software upgrades.

So the choice as I see it is to;

  1. roll back to S1
  2. buy the new Amp
  3. jump ship to bluesound

But let’s be clear about this - this is definitely a problem which has been created  by Sonos as it’s too much of a coincidence that Sonos system dropouts started occurring to multiple users at the same time as a new software update was rolled out. The fact that Sonos diagnostics also shows that the units are running out of memory also points to shoddy implementation of the software updates.  Sonos’ refusal to acknowledge or fix the problem is pushing me away from the product.

 

 

K

I don’t know how much of this issue is from trying to keep the Connect Amp having to cope with S2. I decided to stay on S1 back in the day, and none of any of my 12 units have any problems, including Connect Amps/Connects and even including two Bridge units. I was never interested in any S2 updates to what is a settled home audio system of 5 zones, and S1 with the few occasional security patches continues to not disturb any existing functionality twelve years after purchase.

B
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

I did already highlight the possibility of a ram module ‘perhaps’ being an issue in my very first post here (as a bit of a guess) - as I said these things may not last forever. I also suggested things like removing unnecessary services, playlists etc. as it might be something along those lines… here is a chart that shows some (not all) Sonos products and their memory limitations…

I suspect the Connect:Amp in this case may have some bad memory areas and it’s just not coping like the other Connect:Amps or any other devices in the same system setup. I can’t prove these things, of course, but it just looks quite likely to me. if Sonos Support say it’s perhaps time to upgrade, then personally speaking I would take that onboard. These decisions though, are for each one of us to consider. My personal policy for such items is that anything over 5 years old electrical wise, normally gets moved on/replaced.

I don't have loads of services, but besides I have a lot of devices, I don't want to gimp my Sonos system because of one device, and there's no evidence it'll help anyway.

Also I currently only have one connect amp, I had to ditch another when Sonos made it obsolete with the S2 upgrade (which I'm still super happy about), so I don't know if it's a problem with all of them or not.

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

If you are near the limit on bad memory and update the firmware it may be enough to push you over the limit and start causing problems.

I do wish we had more access to system internals, being able to see more of what is going on inside would allow us to have actual answers rather then having to make educated guesses.

Ken_Griffiths

I did already highlight the possibility of a ram module ‘perhaps’ being an issue in my very first post here (as a bit of a guess) - as I said these things may not last forever. I also suggested things like removing unnecessary services, playlists etc. as it might be something along those lines… here is a chart that shows some (not all) Sonos products and their memory limitations…

I suspect the Connect:Amp in this case may have some bad memory areas and it’s just not coping like the other Connect:Amps or any other devices in the same system setup. I can’t prove these things, of course, but it just looks quite likely to me. if Sonos Support say it’s perhaps time to upgrade, then personally speaking I would take that onboard. These decisions though, are for each one of us to consider. My personal policy for such items is that anything over 5 years old electrical wise, normally gets moved on/replaced.

buzz

Just to update on this, I have 4 CA’s which are only 6 years old so no I don’t expect them to last forever but I do expect more than 6 years of life out of them! All 4 exhibit dropout problems, I replaced as advised one of them with the newer Amp and guess what this one has been working fine for weeks!! The problem as I see it is that Sonos have issued multiple software updates that have eaten up the memory space causing dropouts! A lot of these updates are providing system enhancements which quite frankly I’m not interested in as all I want to do is stream live radio programs! As a result I have to scrap 4 CA’s which would normally work perfectly well and replace with the newer Amp’s which won’t do anymore than my 4 older CA’s for what I want.🙁🙁🙁🙁

Consider the possibility that a certain part, probably a section of RAM in this case, tends to fail at a certain age. In a perfect design/manufacturing environment all units would fail at exactly the same time. But there are variables, such as production batch, operating environment, etc. that introduce variability. Large service centers become familiar with the typical failures and can often tell the customer what is wrong, once a model number is given. In many cases it is not necessary to power up the unit before making the repair and the unit will be fine when powered up. This does not necessarily mean that all units will fail, but the units that have failed, are typically for the same reason in a high percentage of cases. And the reason may change over time as parts age.

Mother Nature is never fair.

If there is an intermittent area in RAM, firmware updates are risky because the memory footprint moves around during the update. Think, changing socks while running. It is possible that a routine or two end up in the bad section of RAM or the data cache is involved. The next firmware update may result in the bad area being mapped out of daily use. Also, the failure could be intermittent. This can result in some firmware updates being successful, while others fail.

In your specific case I don’t think that we can generalize that all CONNECT:AMP’s are having your issue, but your’s might all be from the same batch. This Community is similar to a hospital. After a quick tour, even during a pandemic, it’s easy to conclude that “everyone” is sick, but if you look out the window you’ll see most people are well and going about their business as usual.

Manufacturers are reluctant to share failure data with the public because there is high risk of a misunderstanding. I’m aware of a speaker model (not a SONOS product) where there was 100% failure of new speakers and replacement parts would fail in shipment. After some research it was determined that a single person on the assembly line was not following procedures over a three day period. This is a decades old incident and speakers manufactured before and after this incident are still functional. An early news release about this incident could have crippled the company. When the public gets wind of this sort of incident, only the failures are noted.

If you pay close attention in this Community you'll notice a few cases where SONOS was aware of a production issue for a batch and out of warranty failed units were replaced. There was no indication of the batch size. It might have been only a couple dozen units.

B
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

@britcowboy,

I’m really sorry I can’t help with your Connect:Amp issue here, but at least your thread was pushed to the top of the tree a few times for other community users here to perhaps see your thoughts.

Aspersions are, of course, quite easily cast. It would be nice to see some clear evidence from you, in support of some of the comments made. I’m just not seeing that at this moment in time, personally speaking.

I'm not sure what you mean by that? Sonos told me on the phone that there's an internal note that says the connect amps are getting old and may have these issues. They told me to refrain from using shuffle and crossfade, which I don't use on it anyway. How can I prove this phone call? I don't record them? I don't understand why you'd assume I'm lying? What would I have to gain? Also you can see other people have been told the same from Sonos, so unless we're all collaborating our stories, it makes it more likely it's true, right?

I don't know what evidence you could want?

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