Why does my Sonos system turn itself on, playing a random song!?


kind of spooky...

147 replies

Userlevel 1

This is not in response to any specific post, just a heads up on what I just found at my friend’s house with this experience..


The solution in this case was to move the frogs, then disable the touch controls (via the Sonos App) in case they come back...

Userlevel 7
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Maybe...

Userlevel 7
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The diagnostic within 10 minutes and then directly (not here) contacting Sonos support (see the contact page for options) would be my suggestion.

Userlevel 7
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Well, the only other possibility that I can think of off hand is if someone has at some point connected their Spotify account to your Sonos speakers, and then failed to remove the connection. The next time they tried to play on their phone, it would start up on your system, unless you cleared it out, I think.

See this post from four years ago. If nobody else has access to your wifi, it must have been your trying to start Spotify while being out.

Userlevel 6
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 Hi @ashleywntr, thanks for providing those diagnostics.

I’ve tested this on my own system and I have been able to replicate this behaviour - just to confirm, does this only occur if when the Beam is grouped, it is acting as the group coordinator? i.e. the Beam is the first room listed in the group?

It looks like when the Beam leaves the group, the stream is passed on to the next player and the stream gets unpaused - in any case I’ll pass this on to the tech leads to see if this is something they are aware of :)

 

[Edit - I have just heard back from the tech leads and we are aware of this issue - we’re currently working with Spotify to get it fixed, however I don’t have an ETA that I can share right now]

That is just awesome! I’d never given any thought to a frog being a potential reason….

Userlevel 7
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Hi @lost2021 

Sorry to hear of your loss.

The event you refer to was triggered by Sonos Voice Control - I assume due to a false detection of the wake word and command. As SVC will typically just make a noise when it’s following your command, rather than responding with speech, this will not have been obvious at the time.

Userlevel 7
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@Double-U-Dee, on both of those diagnostics the player was sent a play command from the IP address of a Synology device on your network to load and play a song. It's most likely you have an app installed on that device (likely a NAS drive) which triggered the playback to start. From the command that's trying to load a song I'd start with looking at /../webman/3rdparty/AudioStation/webUI/
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Called it. Just sayin'.
Internally, we called the setting to turn off the speaker touch controls "cat mode" because of the number of times a pet sitting on a warm player would trigger volume or playback changes.
@Ryan S

After nine years, my cat finally crawled into the back of the media rack (it has a locked front door) and was sleeping against the Sonos Connect units. Caught him today.
Hah! After a dozen or so random music starts in the past year I decide to google whats up. Had two tonight. Wondering if one of my friends that has been on my wifi controlling spotify was trolling me.

It is definitely CatMode(tm). He was licking the top of my Sonos One rears. Great thread thanks all!
Userlevel 7
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Any idea what might be causing it?

Spotify Connect is the usual cause.

You don’t have any alarms in Sonos…. what about in Alexa?

Has anyone else used their own Spotify app to play music on your system recently?

Has the device used to set up Alexa on your system also been used to set up Alexa elsewhere?

The diagnostic should help identify the origin of the ‘play’ command.

This has been happening to me since installing my arc and one SLs 

diagnostic : 1415100533

While we wait for a Sonos rep to read that diagnostic, what is the Beam wired to? How is it connected, HDMI ARC, or optical? What is the source when the Beam starts playing, is it a music channel source, or a TV station source?

Sure, should've added all that in my initial post, reminder for next time: don't write a message from bed while falling asleep.

 

The Beam is wired to a Philips 58PUS8505 Android TV through an HDMI ARC port. When it starts playing it almost always is a TV station as source, however it does not fit the TV station that was watched before turning the TV and the Beam off. The TV screen stays black and the Beam turns itself off after about 10 to 15 seconds.

Yesterday evening the TV was used for watching Netflix and YouTube, both through the installed Apps on the TV, no TV station at all.

 

Regarding the TV station as source I say almost always since I can't 100% guarantee that it never was a music channel source in the past. However, if it was a music channel source at least it was not a song anyone in my wifi played before.

 

When I first investigated this issue I found a few threads that suggested turning off the auto update functionality of the TV might help since it can turn itself on (while leaving the screen black) to check for updates. This didn't help at all.

I can also rule out any animals sitting on the Beam as I don't own animals right now and the only child in the house is sound asleep in his bed when the Beam turns on. The touch controls are turned off in the app and the child has no wireless device in his room that could connect to the Beam.

The Beam is in a group with two Ikea Symfonisk speakers acting as rear channels. Those stay quiet when the Beam gets turned on (or are so quiet I don't notice them). In the app I configured my living room setup to have "TV Autoplay" active as well ws "No group when Autoplay".

Thanks v much. 

Badge +17

This just happened to me. Random song autoplayed at 6.10 am.

 

Diagnostic:

2145498528

Hi Berdle,

 

Similar to other posts here, playback originated from Spotify Connect, a session left open from earlier in the day from an iPhone (the same iPhone used to stop the music shortly after it started). Make sure to end the Spotify Connect session when you’re done listening via the Sonos app by tapping the queue button at the top right of the Now Playing screen to prevent this from happening in future.

What is the source of the music it's playing? It could be someone who connected via Spotify at one point who is playing to your Sonos system. Or, it could be that someone set an alarm on your system, and it's going off.

Why don't you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of having it happen, and contact Sonos to discuss it. There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.
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Sorry. No coherent thought when getting awakened in the middle of the night. No Diagnostics were acquired.

And we have never intentionally used Sonos alarms for anything. Ever.

Any other ideas at this late date?
This has happened to us twice, just happened! I have submitted a diagnostic 1820645923 whats causing it?!
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

Isn’t the answer always Spotify? I look forward to the pro analysis of the log.

Hi, yeah it sucks. It happened to me again and this time I did a diagnos. The answer I got is that the sonos can only be controlled through the WIFI. So I changed password on the WIFI & router. BUT through Spotify you don’t have to be on the same WIFI. Therefor I can start a song at a friends house from my apartment... But the songs playing was not played by a friend of mine, there must be some kind of malware that does this (my own opinion). The solution was to log out of all devices through Sporifys website and then change password in Spotify. It hasn’t happened again since, hope it stays like that. Next time (IF) I’ll sell the speaker. Good luck!
Userlevel 7
Badge +26
Hi spottihamdi, I'm seeing several play commands coming from a Spotify app. If you've had any friends connected to your system playing Spotify from their app, make sure you play from another service after they leave to disconnect them. This is a good thing to do even if it was just your phone to prevent any accidental plays. Also, it could be something pressing the play button, as I see a few triggers coming from there. If possible, can you send a diagnostic within a few minutes of this happening? That way we know which time stamp to look for.
Userlevel 7
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Hi @tangfj 

The playback was initiated by the Apple Music service, though I cannot tell you by which device - you’d need to check each device logged into the same Apple account.

I hope this helps.

Userlevel 7

@Corry P thank you for the added context. This makes sense

  • Wife is on the phone all day and office is near the sonos system where it can pick up on her voice.
  • The music that played came from “Amazon Music” per the sonos app. We have our sonos system integrated with Amazon music

Now to figure out what the wake word is as I do not recall setting one up.

The wake word for Sonos Voice Control (SVC) is “Hey Sonos”.

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