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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K

If you are on S1, it should not be the same issue. Folks have eliminated the issue via a rollback to S1, per some posts here.

One thing to do is to open a new thread, submit some diagnostics when there is a problem, refer the diagnostic numbers in the first post in the thread, and give a shout to Sonos staff that is present here by doing this: @Corry P 

K
 

If it does turn out that older play 1 units/Subs and the like that have been moved to S2 are also going to be affected in future, Sonos responses may be different than if just a few Connect Amps are being affected. 

Muddy waters.

As has been expressed here, pulling active support and breaking something that was working are two different things.

Ken_Griffiths

Hi,

We have been a SONOS dealer for years and have sold hundreds of setups each year.

Count me in on tracking this issue. Since last summer we have had multiple clients reporting audio interruptions. This has been affecting multiple different devices across multiple different setups we have sold. The most common device we’ve witnessed having this issue is the Connect Amp. Although we have also seen similar issues with the new Amp as well.

 

SONOS has been a reliable product for years, I hope to see this resolved!

Pity you did not join the forum here sooner and report your issues, as it may have helped others (and Sonos) to have identified the issue sooner, rather than later. I assume (hope) you’ve been in touch with Sonos since the Summer in an effort to resolve the matters you encountered with your installations?

A
Userlevel 1

SONOS has been a reliable product for years, I hope to see this resolved!

From personal experience in my early years of using Sonos, and from thousands of posts here I know that a large majority of such issues are in fact down to network issues, fixed by user intervention with their network. How do you distinguish between these usual issue in the cases you refer to, and this specific issue, that is due to Sonos? Quite a challenge, I would think, and not one that I envy you for having.

You are correct that the network is paramount. Majority of the homes we service the network as well as A/V and security equipment. From large homes to the simplest of setups. However when my client’s network consists of a router and a switch which SONOS has had no problems with since the installation around 2017. Now they and a wave of others are reporting the same issue and timeframe. I have to seek out what has changed.

Especially after the holidays we have gotten an increased number of calls.

A
Userlevel 1

Hi,

We have been a SONOS dealer for years and have sold hundreds of setups each year.

Count me in on tracking this issue. Since last summer we have had multiple clients reporting audio interruptions. This has been affecting multiple different devices across multiple different setups we have sold. The most common device we’ve witnessed having this issue is the Connect Amp. Although we have also seen similar issues with the new Amp as well.

 

SONOS has been a reliable product for years, I hope to see this resolved!

Pity you did not join the forum here sooner and report your issues, as it may have helped others (and Sonos) to have identified the issue sooner, rather than later. I assume (hope) you’ve been in touch with Sonos since the Summer in an effort to resolve the matters you encountered with your installations?

I personally have had to call SONOS support about this issue twice last week. The best I can get from them is to try and mitigate the problem by hardwiring any devices not already on the physical network. Else they will suggest upgrading. Which is an extreme shock for clients to hear that the system needs to be replaced after 6-7 years of use for $700 each amp.

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

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. 

 

T

I have the same issue with my amp! After reading through many of the comments. It is apparent that the software upgrade caused the issue. Sonos should offer a way to reset these amps

melvimbe

I personally have had to call SONOS support about this issue twice last week. The best I can get from them is to try and mitigate the problem by hardwiring any devices not already on the physical network. Else they will suggest upgrading. Which is an extreme shock for clients to hear that the system needs to be replaced after 6-7 years of use for $700 each amp.

 

$700 for the Connect:Amp?

Replacing the connect:amp with Amp will be ~$700 each no? 

 

On first read, it sounded like he was saying that the original purchase was $700.  I see it now.  

Danny
Ken_Griffiths

 I’m guessing once the leak is found and plugged, everything will likely work fine again. However we can only guess at these things as outsiders looking in

Right; perhaps Sonos may fix the issue and then move on to S3, leaving the old units that are memory limited on S2 and not allowed into the S3 environment! 

I’m not quite so sure, personally speaking. My own thoughts are that any envisaged system ‘split’ next time around, might perhaps be invisible to the end-user, under the umbrella of the same Sonos App, so that any devices seen as being low on available memory/processing power etc; stand-still in terms of their own development and capability, maybe with the added option of storing/restoring system features and backups from a "cloud" based resource via a users account login/credentials  - who knows what longer-term development plans may lie ahead for ‘older’ Sonos device sustainability🤔?

Many things seem to be server/client based these days, with more and more things being centralised and pushed towards the server-side.

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.

melvimbe

I suspect that the issue doesn’t impact all Connect:Amps in every situation. It could very well be that a particular batch/run of Connect:Amps has memory that isn’t holding up as well as others.  Or perhaps when the Connect:Amp is in a larger system, or playing a stream with certain characteristics, it has these issues..  This would explain why we are not seeing the volume of complaints you’d expect if every Connect:Amp in the wild was impacted, and why the issue was not discovered in testing prior to release.

It should be mentioned that dropout are a symptom of quite a lot of different issues.  The most common issue we see around here is network setup.  So that’s why people tend to address that potential issue first.  Also, you can’t assume that anyone who has a Connect:Amp and drop out issues has this hardware issue.

Regardless of any of that, if Sonos support is saying the hardware can’t handle the software they provided,  I would be looking to get something from Sonos as a replacement.  I believe you can get a 30% discount on upgrade even if you’re not experiencing issues with your legacy equipment.  I don’t know if asking for a full replacement, or better discount, is realistic considering the device is out of warranty, and you’ve gotten years of service out of it already.  Then again, I understand why people don’t want to pay anything to upgrade a device they were perfectly happy with.

 

I know why people are told it could be their network, but internally at Sonos this is a known issue, so it's a bit annoying when it's likely to be this issue.

The device was working perfectly until summer 23, so I don't want to buy a new (expensive) device, during a cost of living crisis, when it appears to be an issue Sonos has introduced with new firmware.

 

Disagree regarding your first comment.  If someone is complaining about network drop outs with their Connect:Amp, it’s most likely to be a network.  At the very least, network issues should be eliminated before assuming it’s a hardware problem.

 

Danny
A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

I suspect that the issue doesn’t impact all Connect:Amps in every situation. It could very well be that a particular batch/run of Connect:Amps has memory that isn’t holding up as well as others.  Or perhaps when the Connect:Amp is in a larger system, or playing a stream with certain characteristics, it has these issues..  This would explain why we are not seeing the volume of complaints you’d expect if every Connect:Amp in the wild was impacted, and why the issue was not discovered in testing prior to release.

It should be mentioned that dropout are a symptom of quite a lot of different issues.  The most common issue we see around here is network setup.  So that’s why people tend to address that potential issue first.  Also, you can’t assume that anyone who has a Connect:Amp and drop out issues has this hardware issue.

Regardless of any of that, if Sonos support is saying the hardware can’t handle the software they provided,  I would be looking to get something from Sonos as a replacement.  I believe you can get a 30% discount on upgrade even if you’re not experiencing issues with your legacy equipment.  I don’t know if asking for a full replacement, or better discount, is realistic considering the device is out of warranty, and you’ve gotten years of service out of it already.  Then again, I understand why people don’t want to pay anything to upgrade a device they were perfectly happy with.

 

I know why people are told it could be their network, but internally at Sonos this is a known issue, so it's a bit annoying when it's likely to be this issue.

The device was working perfectly until summer 23, so I don't want to buy a new (expensive) device, during a cost of living crisis, when it appears to be an issue Sonos has introduced with new firmware.

 

Disagree regarding your first comment.  If someone is complaining about network drop outs with their Connect:Amp, it’s most likely to be a network.  At the very least, network issues should be eliminated before assuming it’s a hardware problem.

 

The trouble is that what could be a firmware issue is being dismissed (quite rudely in some cases) by forum members as a network issue because the symptoms look the same and network issues are the most common source of problems.

It’s only when we get Sonos Help involved that they can discount network issues and interrogate the offending connect amp units to show that there is a memory issue.

However, there is no willingness on Sonos’ part to solve this problem - and this is for hardware which was only discontinued four years ago. The message now is to buy new hardware. But how long will that be good for? Another four years? I don’t have the wherewithal to be spending $1,500 (after 15% upgrade discount) on a couple of Sonos Amps every four years.

My rollback to S1 has been glitch free for the last ten hours so here’s hoping that I just saved $1,500.

However, people who have to stick to S2 for other reasons won’t be so fortunate.

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.

B
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

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.

buzz

My vote is a hardware issue.

melvimbe

 

Disagree regarding your first comment.  If someone is complaining about network drop outs with their Connect:Amp, it’s most likely to be a network.  At the very least, network issues should be eliminated before assuming it’s a hardware problem.

 

The trouble is that what could be a firmware issue is being dismissed (quite rudely in some cases) by forum members as a network issue because the symptoms look the same and network issues are the most common source of problems.

 

 

The vast majority of times, these are network problems, despite people claiming that they know there is nothing wrong with theirr network.  I guess I’m understanding a bit of skepticism when we see these claims.  As far as them being rude, this your first day on the internet?  😀  The thread title sort of set the tone, even if OP didn’t mean to imply that Sonos was intentionally causing the issue.

 

It’s only when we get Sonos Help involved that they can discount network issues and interrogate the offending connect amp units to show that there is a memory issue.

 

Yes, because only Sonos has the tools to properly diagnose the issue.

 

 

However, there is no willingness on Sonos’ part to solve this problem - and this is for hardware which was only discontinued four years ago. The message now is to buy new hardware. But how long will that be good for? Another four years? I don’t have the wherewithal to be spending $1,500 (after 15% upgrade discount) on a couple of Sonos Amps every four years.

My rollback to S1 has been glitch free for the last ten hours so here’s hoping that I just saved $1,500.

However, people who have to stick to S2 for other reasons won’t be so fortunate.

 

Sonos tends to be quite about these issues.  We don’t know the scope of the problem, in terms of how many units are impacted and how/if the issue can be fixed.  We can’t assume that silence means their just ignoring the issue, as that has not been the case before.  I’m sure some would just like to role back the change, but if the change brought in a new feature, or fixed a bigger issue, that’s not a viable option.

 

Danny
B
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

Still getting the issue. An occasional reboot will stop the issue for a week or two. It's gone very quiet here, waiting for an update from Sonos…

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

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)

Bumper
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Same issue here, 4 connect amps hardwired, went through all the trouble shooting and was told that my hardware is at the end of its cycle and I should upgrade lol

so before I buy 4 new amps with their measly 15% discount…do I really want to dump more money into a company that burns their own products with no fix in sight? They rendered the hardware useless with the upgrade without telling you…that’s liable. 
Perhaps it’s worth a class action lawsuit?


I personally would not jump at replacing 4 connect amps that Sonos EOL’d (released in 2015) with 4 Amps (~2018). But that’s just me. 
 

Def take Kumar’s advice and run them in S1, maybe Sonos fixes this or offers a better upgrade deal, wait it out imo. 

jgatie

I’m beginning to think this entire thread is a bit of over the top theatrics trying to get Sonos to replace a couple units for free just to get a few posters to shut up.  It’s certainly been tried before. 

A
Userlevel 2
Badge

Well I spoke too soon (which is why I asked if any of my optimism was backed up by release notes).

My CA is as bad as ever. 

Ho hum. Whatever the solution is it won’t be a Sonos product. I will buy a cheap Bluetooth amp and simply connect to that from my phone when I need to. Not as seamless as the CA but, as my phone will be about 1 metre from the amp, I am fairly sure I won’t get drop outs. 

And had been tempted by Sonos’s double discount on their upgrade program but I simply refuse to spend any more with them whatever the deal ☹️

 


Same here.  Even with a nightly shut down my CAs start ok but break up & stop working later in the day.  Ready irritating.

 

 

 

I thought maybe a nightly restart might help. I automated it with a smart power plug. Slight nuisance is Sonos devices forget what they were playing after a restart but I could have lived with that had it rectified the drop out problem. 
It didn’t solve the problem. 
 

Tried changing the SonosNet channel - my CA is not the bridging device. No improvement. 
 

Have seen the other suggestion is a downgrade to S1 but would need to think that through as I have multiple Sonos devices and so need to ensure I don’t fix the CA problem and end up with problems on other devices (or simply that they don’t work with S1).

 

The idea of staying on an older version of S2 app feels impractical given my apps auto update. And if I update them I don’t do them one by one.


 

 

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

And here come the “me too” register and post once “accounts”.  Yeah, that’s never been seen before either. 🙄

I’m beginning to think this entire thread is a bit of over the top theatrics trying to get Sonos to replace a couple units for free just to get a few posters to shut up.  It’s certainly been tried before. 

Your cynicism knows no bounds. You probably think the moon landings were faked too.🤣

Just because we’re at 20 posters and counting when you earlier claimed only two reported instances of this problem 😎

You’ll be checking IP addresses next 😉

A

Just joining the members who have this issue. have had it a while now but i thought it was a problem with my home network. happens a few times a day on 2 zones that i group and play all day. hardware is Sonos amp gen 1 

J

I am unable to speak to previous "fake" accounts. I found this thread (the previous one actually) in an attempt to diagnose my problem via a Google search. I may make a separate thread in an effort to ask specific questions without derailing this discussion.

 

JD

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