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

B
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

Hi,

 

I'm recreating this thread, as the discussion wasn't finished, but it was locked. I also wanted to make it obvious this is a Sonos issue, not a client environment issue.

 

https://en.community.sonos.com/components-and-architectural-228999/connect-amp-keeps-dropping-out-audio-6885634/index2.html

 

I've been following this for a while because I've been having the same issues, and when I spoke to support they said the connect amp can't cope with modern software and that I should upgrade to the amp, which is clearly unacceptable.

 

This has been confirmed by people in that original thread who have been told the same thing.

 

BillJanzen

“FWIW, these issues seem to have occured after the June 2023 software update to S2 version 15.5. Interestingly, there is an alert posted in the release notes of the 15.6 update released July 25, 2023 about adjusting how older Sonos products use their internal memory. See below (copied from https://support.sonos.com/en-ca/article/release-notes-for-sonos-s2):  Alerts:      With this update, we’ve adjusted how some of our older Sonos products are using their internal memory. Because of this change, updates for Play:1, Play:3, Boost, Connect, Connect:Amp, and Sub (Gen 1 and 2) will take longer to complete than before. The reset process for these products will also take more time to complete after this update.”

 

BillJanzen

“We continue to have intermittent drop-outs on all 4 of our Connect:Amp devices, so here’s my update after 1.5 hours on the phone with Sonos today. They said the diagnostics for one of the Connect:Amp devices the chose to investigate showed multiple major alerts, including:      Cannot allocate memory to full status     Write failed     Player crashed: out of memory     OOM Killer  These items all sound like they are related to memory issues with the older Connect:Amp product, as Big Bull mentioned in his previous post.”

 

Big Bull:

“Ok latest is I powered down 3 of my 4 units and just had the one I use most running hard wired to the router through my switch and it still gave dropouts so I sent 2 diagnostics to Sonos and they said : 

------------------ 

Thanks, so on this one in specific I can see the audio interruptions are caused because the product basically is old, and it is reaching its capabilities, there are some things that can be done to try to reduce the impact of this, but if it continues this product will need to be replaced with the upgrade program. 

------------------- 

I am being advised to replace any affected units with the Sonos Amp which can be costly.”

 

Birchan

“  Same problem, 4 AMP of which two lose sound...  SONOS did a wrong analysis and accidentally said that there were memory failures in some of the units. But since they only give a 2-year warranty, mine was 2.5 years too old. How can SONOS sell products that obviously have manufacturing problems and then say that they can replace them with a 30% discount on new ones? Wonder if Tesla would sell cars that stop working after 2 years and say, sorry you have to buy a new car every two years because the warranty has expired. So bad from SONOS so I will be discontinuing my SONOS system and switching to BOSE...  “

 

For context, in my situation I have a connect amp, connected via ethernet with WiFi off, and I started to get regular drop outs around June. It's incredibly annoying, the audio will drop out for a few seconds before continuing, if other speakers are grouped they will carry on fine.

 

It's absolutely 100% not a network issue. When I was debugging it, I briefly made the connect amp the only wired device and turned on WiFi, and other speakers in my house worked perfectly at all times. I've also reserved IP addresses, and I ran a ping monitor on it to check for any network dropouts. There were none. I've put the system back now, so the connect amp has its WiFi off.

 

So it seems to me that Sonos have released a firmware update that the connect amp cannot handle, and rather than take responsibility for it, they're just fobbing people off telling them to buy expensive new hardware to solve the problem, not even with any substantial discount. It's unacceptable. This connect amp worked perfectly before June.

 

Sonos needs to release a new update that solves the issue, or give people affected substantial discounts on replacement amps, and formally announce that the connect amp is end of life. Currently people with issues on this forum are being unintentionally gaslighted by well meaning people who don't know that this issue exists. Sonos cannot say the connect amp is supported when they've released a broken update.

 

People need to know about this issue, I've seen loads of topics about this issue and people get fobbed off with network issues, which is absolutely not the case, at all. Big Bull proved this by doing a replacement to amps which solved his issue.

Corry P 4 months ago

Hi @britcowboy et al,

Thank you all for your information both in this topic and the other one mentioned (which we have reopened as it was automatically closed by mistake).

Our engineers are currently investigating this with the highest priority.

We thank you for your patience while we work through this, we'll keep you updated with any news that we can share.

Thank you.

View original

261 replies

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

In defence of those dismissing the issue: it is based on their extensive experience that over 99% of issues are down to the network, so they tend to miss the less than 1% when that comes along.


I can understand that but it doesn’t give them the right to be so rude along with their dismissiveness. Some manners would be nice and if they don’t have anything nice to say, they shouldn’t say it at all. 

K


I can understand that but it doesn’t give them the right to be so rude along with their dismissiveness. Some manners would be nice and if they don’t have anything nice to say, they shouldn’t say it at all. 

Oh I agree fully. But this is a sorry aspect of the internet that is not limited to this forum. Ignoring all such is what I found to work best, after some notable encounters here. And you will never find Sonos Staff to be obnoxious.

Bumper
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Has it been 5 years since Sonos last sold connect amp? If so, that’s all the software update support they promise unfortunately if they can’t fix it. 
 

K

Has it been 5 years since Sonos last sold connect amp? If so, that’s all the software update support they promise unfortunately if they can’t fix it. 
 

On this thread, it has been said that Sonos is working very hard for a fix - said by Sonos Staff.

Bumper
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Has it been 5 years since Sonos last sold connect amp? If so, that’s all the software update support they promise unfortunately if they can’t fix it. 
 

On this thread, it has been said that Sonos is working very hard for a fix - said by Sonos Staff.

Do you know when it was last sold? 

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

Has it been 5 years since Sonos last sold connect amp? If so, that’s all the software update support they promise unfortunately if they can’t fix it. 
 

Almost 4 years.

And while I don’t care about a lack of active support, I don’t expect the company to accidentally make my product obsolete too which is what has happened. 
 

At least I’m not so heavily invested in Sonos that the S1 rollback isn’t possible for me. People who have invested more than me over the years and have a mix of S1/S2 capable and S2 only devices have been left high and dry at the moment. 

K

On this thread, it has been said that Sonos is working very hard for a fix - said by Sonos Staff.

Do you know when it was last sold? 

I do not but if that was the criterion, the Staff member should have said so and not conveyed what he did on this thread. And it seems that Connect Amp is just a precursor to even play 1 units and Subs suffering this issue soon.

Bumper
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

On this thread, it has been said that Sonos is working very hard for a fix - said by Sonos Staff.

Do you know when it was last sold? 

I do not but if that was the criterion, the Staff member should have said so and not conveyed what he did on this thread.


 

During the s1/s2 split this is what Sonos communicated, but there’s no legal obligation obvs. I only raise this for awareness to the affected owners as they consider their options. 
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

If the Connect:Amp works and then after a while it doesn’t on S2 and the current fix suggested is to simply restart the device and it then works again for a while, that sounds more like a memory-leak with the software, rather than a hardware issue and it’s affecting the old (limited memory) devices like the Connect:Amp, early PlayBar etc. 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, but it sure sounds like that type of issue to me.

K

 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! 

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.

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

So many possibilities for the source of the problem. A memory leak is one but it could also be something as silly as the logs filling up a space that is less than adequate.

I have no hard evidence to back this up but it appears that Sonos does have accommodations built into the firmware to accommodate the needs/abilities of the different Sonos devices. If that is correct we could see a simple update adding this as one more tweak,

K


 

At least I’m not so heavily invested in Sonos that the S1 rollback isn’t possible for me. People who have invested more than me over the years and have a mix of S1/S2 capable and S2 only devices have been left high and dry at the moment. 

For such people too, is not a rollback to S1 better than their present situation? How many times do they play the same music on all their speakers at the same time such that a split system will come in the way of doing this? And even for such cases, some may be resolved by some rearranging of the kit to allow such play. 

The only downer then would be having to use two apps, S1 and S2.

I am merely suggesting that there may be workarounds that do not need all such people to reach for their wallets if Sonos does not address this issue soon enough for their needs.

On the Sonos side, the whole logic for hiving off S1 was for their software folk to not be bounded in future by memory constraints of old kit. Like people and cars, software also bloats with time, so it seems that more older speakers are now/will now be in the orbit of this logic.

PS: there is also then the philosophical question of what this bloat has delivered to users. I have five zones served by excellent sounding Connects/Connect Amps/Play 1s/Sub, running on S1. I don’t think there is anything that S2 has in it that would elevate this listening experience further. Even if I was to replace working kit with the latest/greatest Sonos hardware, I doubt that this will be the case because in home audio, the law of diminishing returns applies as much to Sonos as it does to legacy HiFi kit whose makers have been living on this delivered illusion for decades.

M
Badge

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 its worth a class action lawsuit?

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. 

K


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

Perhaps all that Sonos has to do is allow all S2 units to roll back to S1 such that the split system problem disappears for people that choose to do this.

While I know nothing of S2, I suspect that all that people that choose to backtrack will lose is some app eye candy from S2.

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 

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

4 week report on the rollback to S1. The amps have been powered up constantly for the entire four weeks. 
 

Everything is hunky dory and working exactly as it should. 
 

I had become so used to the delays and unresponsiveness of S2 that the lightning speed and playback stability of S1 is awesome. And it really shouldn’t be! It shows how broken S2 has become and yet I don’t feel that I’m missing out in any way by using S1. Which begs the question; why did Sonos forcibly encourage users onto S2? The only additional functionality that I could find from S2 was room grouping (big deal - and I’m sure S1 could’ve handled that) and Dolby Atmos support. 
 

 

K

Which begs the question; why did Sonos forcibly encourage users onto S2? The only additional functionality that I could find from S2 was room grouping (big deal - and I’m sure S1 could’ve handled that) and Dolby Atmos support. 
 

 

Room grouping is there in S1 and it works well enough - Sonos just solved some first world problems with grouping with what it may have done in S2. And don’t forget the Hi Res music red herring that Sonos succumbed to in S2 after years of principled resistance to it that, as Sonos themselves said, was based on science. 

Perhaps Sonos software engineers revolted against the discipline imposed by having to deal with memory constraints in the hardware? 

People here keep saying something that I don’t agree with - Sonos sells networked computers that happen to make music. I however see Sonos as making home audio kit using computers and many other things and I have no desire to have to deal with one more piece of equipment with computers inside that has to be babied through upgrades that do not add meaningful value to me in the domain of listening to music. For instance , I don’t have to do this with my fridge, or my car. Both contain computers. It is enough to have to do this with my phone!

Sonos of course did not forcibly encourage anyone to S2 unless you call their marketing drive and threatening of obsolescence to the gullible as “forcing”. Many did not buy into that spiel, I am not unique.

 

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

The only people who claim that Sonos is networked computers that happen to make music are people involved in the IT industry and mostly, it seems, programmers. 
 

Their whole way of life is based on fixing things which aren’t broken so it’s no surprise that they find it perfectly reasonable to junk an entire system which is less than five years old in the name of ‘progress’. 

K

 

Their whole way of life is based on fixing things which aren’t broken 

But that is the economic growth paradigm across almost every country now - what will happen do you think to the global economy if all of us used all we have to the end of service life? That will make the planet a better place to live for all, but who really looks at that lifesyle as one to adopt? Except the likes of Warren Buffett perhaps?!

Sonos can’t buck this universal behaviour but nothing stops us as individuals from refusing their Kool-Aid. Especially when it ends up leaving us with a degraded experience from what we were used to from their kit that we bought in the past. Just because 2 follows 1 does not mean S2 is better than S1.

melvimbe

People here keep saying something that I don’t agree with - Sonos sells networked computers that happen to make music. I however see Sonos as making home audio kit using computers and many other things and I have no desire to have to deal with one more piece of equipment with computers inside that has to be babied through upgrades that do not add meaningful value to me in the domain of listening to music. For instance , I don’t have to do this with my fridge, or my car. Both contain computers. It is enough to have to do this with my phone!

 

Your fridge and car may have computers in them, but they are not networked.  That’s an important part of the equation that you left out.  Even if these other devices do technically connect to your network, they are not currently required to be in communication with other fridges/cars with the capability of the system only being as strong as your weakest link.

But that is the economic growth paradigm across almost every country now - what will happen do you think to the global economy if all of us used all we have to the end of service life? That will make the planet a better place to live for all, but who really looks at that lifesyle as one to adopt? Except the likes of Warren Buffett perhaps?!

 

That’s an over simplistic view of the economy and how economy helps people live better lives.  Yes, there would be less waste, but devices would have to cost significantly more since sales volumes would obviously drop.   In addition to fewer sales, you would have less competition, and thus less drive for innovating new and better products.  Of course, that also means fewer jobs are available, particularly in the middle class, so we would have much more income inequality to contend with, bringing in a lot more problems.

People like to complain about  the ‘engineered to fail’  manufacturing that happens these days, but fail to recognize that as a whole, people have had a lot more goods and services available after this transition than before, and generally live better lives.

 

Sonos can’t buck this universal behaviour but nothing stops us as individuals from refusing their Kool-Aid. Especially when it ends up leaving us with a degraded experience from what we were used to from their kit that we bought in the past. Just because 2 follows 1 does not mean S2 is better than S1.

 

If all you have is old kit, then yes, S1 is a better fit for operating that equipment.  Obviously, S2 is the only option for new kit.  As far as individuals keeping their own equipment alive as long as possible, if your happy with it, that’s the best option for you.  Just like it’s better to save your money rather than spend it...microeconomics.  However, you do (or should) want everyone else to keep buying Sonos gear.  Not only does it mean that new features will be available should you ever want them, but those new sales are paying for the support of your old equipment.  Just like you want other people to spend money to keep the economy flowing...macroeconomics.

Danny
jgatie

The only people who claim that Sonos is networked computers that happen to make music are people involved in the IT industry and mostly, it seems, programmers. 
 

Their whole way of life is based on fixing things which aren’t broken so it’s no surprise that they find it perfectly reasonable to junk an entire system which is less than five years old in the name of ‘progress’. 

 

Pretty harsh generalization there, chief.  I’ll have you know that I have 30 years of software engineering, mostly doing heavy load OLTP (~3 million transactions a day).  I just replaced a central transaction engine system back in 2019.  The system it replaced was 20 years old, and we had resorted to picking the bones of old development systems and buying hardware from digital scrap yards to keep it running.  The system that one communicated with was so old, our interface files were done on 1960’s era 9-track tape drives.  So no, not all IT people and programmers “find it perfectly reasonable to junk an entire system which is less than five years old in the name of ‘progress’.”

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

The only people who claim that Sonos is networked computers that happen to make music are people involved in the IT industry and mostly, it seems, programmers. 
 

Their whole way of life is based on fixing things which aren’t broken so it’s no surprise that they find it perfectly reasonable to junk an entire system which is less than five years old in the name of ‘progress’. 

 

Pretty harsh generalization there, chief.  I’ll have you know that I have 30 years of software engineering, mostly doing heavy load OLTP (~3 million transactions a day).  I just replaced a central transaction engine system back in 2019.  The system it replaced was 20 years old, and we had resorted to picking the bones of old development systems and buying hardware from digital scrap yards to keep it running.  The system that one communicated with was so old, our interface files were done on 1960’s era 9-track tape drives.  So no, not all IT people and programmers “find it perfectly reasonable to junk an entire system which is less than five years old in the name of ‘progress’.”


Fair enough - but if you were working on a banking and financial transaction system then the reason it was kept alive for 20 years and interfaced with 1960s style systems is that the core of what you were replacing was so mission critical that the risk of tampering with it was far greater than leaving it alone. 
 

And by the time it was left alone for long enough, the original programmers had to be brought out of retirement. 

Given your vintage, I suspect that you of all people can appreciate that coders today don’t have to exercise the skill that you did back in the day as processing power and storage has become so cheap. Unfortunately, hardware advances are the source of unnecessary obsolescence. After all, is today’s Sonos offering a better SQ than the units from a decade ago? I doubt it. Just as my hifi system is an equal quality match for any modern day equipment and the newest component in my hifi dates from 2002. 
 

 

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings