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.

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246 replies

Corry P
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

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.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
M
Userlevel 2
Badge

We are a Sonos dealer and have been having this same issues for several months now on multiple systems with Playbars and/or Connect Amps.

We have made every recommended network adjustment; wired the devices, set 2.4 to 20MHz, reserved IPs, separated the network and SonosNet channels, tried turning 5G off, etc. nothing has worked permanently.  What we have found is that after rebooting all Sonos devices, they work fine for about a week to 10 days, then the problem starts up again - this has been fairly consistent. Sonos support has looked at a few of the systems and saw no issues in the logs. 

This is NOT a network issue.  I have seen Corry P (Sonos staff member) acknowledge on a few different Sonos Community pages that this is a Sonos issue and I have also spoken with our Sonos rep who has acknowledged this was an issue created by a firmware update that they are treating as a high priority.  There is no ETA yet on the resolution.

S
Userlevel 1

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

Yikes!  What’s going on in this community…. Can confirm, I am a real person, with a real problem that is going to cost me real money and time to fix.  I had no reason to go through the effort to sign up for an account because, crucially - I had no reason to.  This system has worked flawlessly since 2018.  So here I am, adding my voice to what appears to be a handful of others, frustrated that we have a new problem occurring with strikingly similar timelines, symptoms, and frustrations.  

A
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

I just want to add my name to this issue.  I know I had initially posted elsewhere so apologies for posting here also.  I’m not usually active in these forums and I’m usually very good at resolving my own IT issues.  What I hadn’t noticed was the bloody obvious, that it is the 3 Connect:Amps with the issues and the 2 modern Amps are solid.  All running S2
 

Everyone excepts the C:Amps are not cutting edge kit but their age shouldn’t enter into the equation when the issues appear to be resulting from a firmware push.  IMHO anyway.

Andrew 

S
Userlevel 1

Same issue for me with Connect:Amp Gen2. Worked flawlessly for a number of years then last year started intermittent 5-10 second audio dropouts across any service (radio, Amazon Music, NAS library etc).

Audio continues without interruption in other grouped speakers and linked Sonos subwoofer.

Same dropout problem whether Connect:Amp is hard-wired ethernet to router or wireless via Boost.

Running S2 with some S2 only speakers.

A
Userlevel 2
Badge

Great thread 👍

I’ve been encountering the exact same issue on my Connect:Amp. I did post a reply to a different thread which seemed similar but found that people, in trying to be helpful, just blamed my ‘environment’. Thing is the CA has worked perfectly for over 5 years but now it can be so bad that it cuts out more than it is playing. My ‘environment’ has not changed recently. 

Therefore the idea that a combination of hardware ageing and more resource hungry software updates makes a lot more sense. 

The CA was an expensive purchase given it is used to play audio through a couple of ceiling speakers in the kitchen. I expected it to still be working after 5 years. I would certainly not replace it with a more modern equivalent Sonos product. If I have to replace then it will not be Sonos. Perhaps more alarmingly for Sonos is that it is the first erosion of the Sonos ecosystem that I had, like many, bought into over the past 5 years.  In fact the CA was my first Sonos product. 

I will continue to watch for developments. I will also log another support call. I had done this but got fobbed off with the usual ‘turn it off and turn it back on again’ suggestions involving a reboot/reset of the Sonos and/or network devices (router, AP, switch) 

Andy 


 

 

Ken_Griffiths

I recall when the S1/S2 split occurred that Sonos mentioned they would do their best to keep S1 secure with updates, but they (perhaps more importantly for some users) stated that they would also reflect the changes to the existing music services within the S1 App and try to keep those running for as long as possible, but that there would be no new features/services etc.

My thoughts are that not upgrading may not only risk network security matters, but also some music services may stop working if an update is not applied. I assume aswell that Sonos support would not be available for those running older software/firmware and after several updates are missed, there’s ‘sometimes’ no option to update a system without the help of Support Staff if a system has fallen too far out of date. 

So stopping receiving any updates may ‘for some users’ also quickly cause problems. My own preference is to continue receiving updates for my S1 system and to receive the Support that Sonos provides.

L

very glad i found this thread.  

Symptoms started summer of 23.  I have one simple Connect : Amp streaming to four zones of speakers.  Main zone has stopped being ‘detectable’ and all other zones have audio drop out.  Have been pulling my hair out all week trying to get this fixed. 

For those that don’t think this is a widespread issue just because there aren’t thousands of post….the silent majority of users of this product are either 1) not noticing the issue 2) living with it 3) too busy to deal with it 4) calling the expensive AV vendor out to fix it or 5) just buying the newest product.

I prefer not to light money on fire and will await the Sonos fix since they are apparently now working on it with high priority.

Big thanks to the relentless efforts of OP.

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

Quick update on the S1 rollback after a week of running it. 
 

The system has been run from four different devices. Controlling the amps has been quick and easy from each device and completely glitch free. It’s been possible to control the CAs from pretty much at least three devices simultaneously (laptop and two iPhones). There hasn’t been a single occurrence of the dreaded ‘can’t find your device’ messages which previously necessitating rebooting the CAs.

Each of the amps has been run independently (one or other or both playing different music streams) as well as party mode. Music services used have been my personal library, Qobuz and Spotify. There have been no streaming hangs, gaps or jumps to the next track - all of which were depressingly common under S2. 

There has been only one system hesitation/pause on trying to go from two independent music streams to party mode where the system appeared to be confused for a moment but then sorted itself out. That’s about the only mis-step I have noticed and it falls into the category of ‘blink and you’ll miss it’. 
So for those of you who can revert to S1, I highly recommend it while Sonos tries to fix S2.

For those of you stuck with S2, I have my fingers crossed for a speedy fix as I had forgotten how much I enjoy using Sonos.

For the Establishment, please try to exercise a little more humility, compassion and patience next time. Your aggressive behaviour reduces the utility of what should be a community help resource. Sonos hosts it for everyone’s benefit, not solely for you to enjoy the sport of shooting messengers. 😉

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

My Sonos gear has outlasted two “other brand” AVR systems.

My old non-computerized audio stuff from the 80s is still in service, now with the grandson.

B
Badge +3

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.🙁🙁🙁🙁

J

Good Morning All,

I registered this morning to throw my hat into the “connect AMP dropout” pile. My symptoms are similar though I’ve yet to run the traps with Sonos support to find out why. I’ve got one Connect Amp on my system powering two hardwired landscape speakers.

The summer 2023 timeline sounds about right.

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.

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
Badge +5

Hi @britcowboy 

I appreciate that you are frustrated by this issue, so when/if I have something that I can share, I will share it here. It is unlikely, however, that I will have anything further to share until a fix is made available.

I'm not asking for a commit diff, just a basic update like, have the developers managed to recreate internally, do they need any input from us on this? And if they have, what's the prognosis for a fix. I'm not asking for source code here, presumably you have some system for tracking issues internally, like jira, just an update would be good. I'm a senior software developer, and while I have no idea on the Sonos firmware, I am quite good at debugging and making assumptions on what's likely going on.. Which leads me on to..

My latest theory is that it's a memory leak issue. Because I was having increasingly bad drop outs, to an extent where it just wasn't listenable at all, but a hard reboot later, and the drop outs stop (at least for a bit), they'll definately come back, as I've done this before, but I'm thinking a workaround for now is to put a smart plug on it and reboot it every day, not ideal, but as a temporary workaround, fine. But that should help your devs go in the right direction, as that is a very clear sign there's a memory leak that's been introduced, and probably all your devices are affected, but because of their larger memory spec aren't showing the issue as much.

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?

S
Userlevel 1

Joined the community to add another customer to the “was working perfectly until summer 23 and having to face reality of unnecessary and expensive upgrade.”

Hosted a large holiday party and guests kept asking me why the music kept coming on and off.  :( 

buzz

WiFi interference will be location dependent. Channel 6 might be the magic bullet in one location and not so good in another. And conditions can change. For example, a neighbor cold reconfigure their system and start interfering with your WiFi.

Start keeping a log. You may notice that certain times of day or week are better than others. This might allow you to start a discussion with a neighbor. 

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

Passed the 200 hour mark of the S1 rollback and the software and connect amps are still super responsive and stable. 

Good for you; as I recall your entire system can run on S1 and this solution does not need you to run a split system. For such users that are not in this boat, this may not be a good solution.

Yes. I’m aware that this doesn’t work for those with S2 only devices but I’m providing the updates to 

 

  1. keep this front of mind and
  2. show users who can revert to S1 that there is an immediate solution to hand and
  3. attempt to prove it is a software/firmware issue

 

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

A
Userlevel 1

Presumably this is tongue in cheek, because this particular poster’s delay in joining the community does  not excuse Sonos from not knowing the issue, and further, from proactively communicating it to all Connect Amp users on S2. This is a BIG Sonos fail, right up there with their bricking fiasco four years ago.

@Alex.Dickson I suggest you send a diagnostic reference via email to Sonos Support for the issue with the new Amp because it is unlikely to be caused by the memory failures issue.

A professional installer that states they first noticed the C:A issue starting last summer, has a good many clients, they maintain their clients networks too and able to eliminate the local network as being the cause - but then lands here on the 7th February 2024, just seems a little late to the party IMV.

It’s these type of professionals, that I would personally expect to first bring a ‘real world’ matter to the attention of Sonos - I say that because individual customers that land here in the community, often don’t know if it’s a local network issue, or not and so the wood can get lost for the trees in trying to establish if that’s the case, whereas a professional installer, as I see it, can possibly be an entirely different ‘ball game’ - maybe more-so if they do speak direct to Sonos and can show details of their client-reported C:A cases since last summer.

Late to the party or not. I didn't expect to receive such hostility from any community member here. I just want to help see the issue resolved. As I'm sure we all do.

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

But don’t burn your fingers…

 

jgatie


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. 
 

 

 

I wish it were as complicated as that, when it was really two simple things 1) The powers that be are cheap, and 2) Nobody high up wants to make a decision, so the void is filled by idiot sycophants.

As to your last point, like Sonos, a significant portion of my work is embedded, so we are always concerned about efficiency.  As far as the cost of processing and storage, like any other industry, as resources expand, so does the usage of those resources.  Cheaper/faster processing and storage aren’t the direct cause of so called “bloat”, and it’s really more the tools used rather than laziness of the developers.  Modern languages use more resources, that’s a fact.  The debugging tools available today are 100x what I was doing with inserted printf() statements back in college, and the industry is better for it.  But those things take up space and/or processor cycles. 

As to Sonos’ sound quality?  I watched Mission Impossible: Dead Reconning on an Arc/surrounds/Sub system last night, and not only was it far better sound than my Playbar/surrounds/Sub from a decade ago, it was better than my receiver/satellites/sub from 5 years ago.  Part of that was the mix and addition of Atmos, but regardless, it was outstanding.  I also prefer a pair of Ones and a Sub to my pair of Play:5’s and Sub from a decade ago.  YMMV.

buzz

 

 

Cheaper/faster processing and storage aren’t the direct cause of so called “bloat”, and it’s really more the tools used rather than laziness of the developers.  Modern languages use more resources, that’s a fact.  The debugging tools available today are 100x what I was doing with inserted prinf() statements back in college, and the industry is better for it.  But those things take up space and/or processor cycles. 

 

I don’t know the current “rule of thumb”, but at one point programmer productivity was calculated at about six lines of code per hour. Sure, you might be able to jot down a few hundred lines of code in that hour, but there was prior planning, flow charting, and such, then testing and documenting. You haven’t actually been “productive” until the package is operational and deployed. Now, these six lines can pull together many, many man years of coding.

In the consumer area there is a demand for “free support forever”. This is very attractive for consumers, but it’s not a great long term business model for a company. Eventually, more resources will be expended for “free support” than developing new products that generate sales to fund the “free support”.

Audio equipment is in a unique niche. We have become accustomed to buy once and use forever. Lots of equipment from the ‘60s ‘70s and before is still functional for playing records, CD’s, listening to the radio and even playing audio from a cable box. We shouldn’t try throw a system like SONOS in to this bin because standards are rapidly changing and few potential customers will want to buy 70’s technology because it lacks current features in demand, features now required to sell equipment. Witness the number of posters in this Community who are incredulous that ten year old SONOS designs are not equipped with Bluetooth.

Ken_Griffiths

I would not ever suspect Sonos of doing anything like this deliberately, that’s bordering on paranoia. The following is certainly far more likely the issue here…

Particularly if the device referred to here is an early/older Connect:Amp (gen1 or 2), then I would suspect that over the years the Connect:Amp memory modules are simply incurring more and more bad cells, which the OS is likely marking as ‘unusable’ and the device is perhaps slowly running out of steam… these things do not last forever.

If the Connect:Amp is acting as the root-bridge for a SonosNet network then, if practicable, swap it out for a newer more-modern product and maybe try not to use it as a group co-ordinator. Remove any unnecessary services, playlists, favourites etc. and see if that might improves things. It maybe worth replacing any network cables too (just in case).

B
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

If there were a generic problem with the CA in S2 I think it would have generated  a lot more posts than there are on that other thread, mostly from a handful of users.

Comments on such issues from front line support staff count for nothing 

 

There are a lot of threads on this though. Search for connect amp drop outs. Most OPs just get told its an issue with the environment and the topic gets closed. I don't think a lot of people have connected the dots, I think this is a bigger issue than people realise. Not to mention it's a drop out of a few seconds that people may not always notice, or think to raise. I had it for months before I spoke to support, and even longer still before I posted on here about it.

Let me just first say, I do sympathise with any issue another Sonos user is encountering, it’s why I voluntarily hang around this community to try to help others, but I don’t, even for one second, believe this would be a deliberate act by Sonos, by any means.

I can’t rule out a bug in their software though (who can🤔?). However, if that was indeed the case, I really would expect lots more (different) people here highlighting this matter, on a fairly regular/daily basis and I’m talking dozens, if not hundreds, of people and that’s not the case at the moment and people rarely (if ever) post here either, just to say ‘all is well’. 

In the meantime, I would perhaps continue to gather your diagnostic reports and any references and perhaps go back to Sonos Support …and if necessary, try to escalate your case to see if anything else might be at the centre of the issue. 

I’m not sure, as another Sonos user, what else I can say to you. I just don’t think you’re on the correct path if you think it is Sonos that might be doing this deliberately in order to make you upgrade. I still think it’s far more likely going to be something local to you.

I didn't say they did it on purpose to make me upgrade, but they are indifferent about fixing it. Also I spoke to support, did diagnostics and they said the issue is the hardware. It's not a network issue, I'm a software engineer, I have a decent network with good, expensive, equipment running it, I've set up pings to check if the Sonos drops off the network over time, it never has. That's not the issue. I checked all that, as I initially suspected it to be a local issue, but I'm satisfied, both with my testing, and what Sonos has said that it's an issue with the hardware itself. Remember I've had this issue for months at this stage, I've done lots if testing.

 

Also I don't buy what you said about lots of people would be raising it. It took me months to raise it with support, because I didn't get round to it, and initially suspected it was an issue my end. Then anyone who raises it on the forum immediately gets told its their network, and to change Sonosnet channels and reboot it, which may fix the issue temporarily (as the RAM gets reset on reboot), and they then get their thread closed. Not to mention, it's something that may take a while to get noticed in the first place.

 

Look, I'm just looking for some ownership from Sonos. Issue a article about it owning it, if it's a software issue, try and fix it, if it's to do with the device being too old, then if possible release an update whth features removed so the core functionality works on this device, or issue a good replacement scheme.

 

Sonos do have bugs, there was that issue with the Arc which they took a long time to acknowledge and fix. This could be a similar issue, and we need to make a noise for it to get seen and for it to be fixed. Just being fobbed off with “buy a new device” without even a special discount, is imo not acceptable.

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