I've done EVERYTHING possible. NO MATTER WHAT Sonos Connect keeps interrupting playback

UPDATE:

Hopes crushed against the rocks of despair.

I ended up taking the drive (4 TB WD in a USB) and making it an internal drive in the main workstation that I use. However, before I did this I cleared the Sonos library and pointed it to a COPY of the library on a WD Mybook just as a “well maybe it’s the USB drive” exercise. As expected that did not fix the interruption.

So, I took to heart another suggestion, namely to remove the 4TB volume for its USB enclosure and make it internal to the T7500 - put it right on the host buss. Result?

It still glitches.

This means - taken with pointing to the copy of the library via USB and now the 4 TB internal volume as an experiment - that it can’t be related to the disk drives; they are physically distinct volumes and now have completely different I/O yet Sonos creates the same issue. This also means it had nothing to do with selective suspend (USB) etc when the 4TB volume was a USB device. Oh, another thing, just to be on the safe side before moving the 4TB volume into the host machine I tried two different vendors’ USB enclosures (thinking maybe it was a marginal chipset etc). That made no difference.

Again, all of the scheduled stuff (malware etc) are set up for hours that I know I will be asleep, so it can’t be those.

The event log is not very populated (maybe 50 events over a 48-hour period) and shows no warnings or errors...just normal Windows type events.

Both the 4TB (now) internal drive and the WD Mybook (backup of library) have been checked for errors with none found, so it’s not either volume.

Going to a NAS seems to be the only option if I want to stick with Sonos. However, it would be the ultimate burn for me to a) verify full compatibility (NAS enclosure), b) verify drive compatibility (and REPLACE any incompatible drives at additional expense), c) spend the time setting up the NAS and moving / mirroring the library. If it would work (i.e. 100% GUARANTEED) to fix the issue I might consider it, however as a gamble it feels so much like throwing good money after bad.

I can’t even recall all of the things that I have done / tried / swapped / reset/ reinstalled/ rebuilt etc...and all because Sonos started doing this with the passage of time. It used to work brilliantly but now I have zero confidence that the problem can ever be solved, and this includes using a different machine as the host.

I can’t dedicate the Connect units direct to the gateway without having to completely rewire the network (the same network by the way that supports many other wired devices, all of which operate without any glitches) and cascade switches etc, and possibly have to buy yet another (because of the port count that one loses by cascading switches. But honestly … considering that the device was MARKETED as being able to access music from networked machines (with said drives shared) as well as local drives seems wholly disingenuous.

The hours...I must have at least 100 hours of my time trying to fix this. Every time that I THINK that it may have just worked “this time” I find out that once again the system glitches.

I guess I will circle back to a Sonos person and speak with yet another assistant, possibly senior level (again) who might be able to help (although at this point what are they REALLY likely to come up with?). After that...it’s time to put both of the CONNECT units under the rear wheels of my car, get inside, turn the key and put the transmission into reverse and crush that which has been giving me nothing but frustration for several months now.

Were Sonos Management willing to buy me a NAS and drives I’d make the swap for the library. In that way even if the NAS wasn’t the solution I would get a drive that could be used with a networked player available from another vendor. Sure, they would be more expensive, but if the functioned *AS ADVERTISED* then wouldn’t that be a worthwhile investment?

I recall seeing once or so a “write the C.E.O.” button somewhere...not that eh or she would actually read my email but maybe it’s worth a shot. Probably not, though.

So disappointing.

I just don't understand why this is so complicated.  There are loads of us out here with a basic  NAS wired by Ethernet to our routers, and a bunch of Sonos devices, one of which is also wired to router. That is how Sonos was originally designed to be used. You seem  to have tried everything except that. 

As I have stated...when I bought the Sonos they stated that a NAS was not a necessity (indeed it was not designed to work exclusively with a NAS as you seem to be suggesting) and that one could play music from ANY connected drive, it’s even in the system setup (NAS, another drive on this computer, mymusic folder), thus I chose not to buy a NAS. Simple as that. Sure, a NAS would likely be a more stable solution but if so just tell the consumer what may lie ahead without an NAS, but I have no guarantee of this, and why should I now have to buy a NAS to fix a system that was once stable?

Had Sonos said “music interruptions may occur if non-NAS storage is utilized” that would have swayed my decision, but to advertise the system as being able to play music from any valid share. The only Sonos devices I won are the Connect units and believe me I’ve no plans to buy any more Sonos products. We’re talking about streaming AUDIO content on a local network that’s been validated; VIDEO gets streamed to TVs on the same network which requires much greater bandwidth than do audio signals. Everything else on the network - printers, TVs, other computers, none of them suffer any loss of connectivity, but somehow that should be OK with a CONNECT unit? Streaming songs? Are you kidding me?

IF in fact the performance (avoiding interruptions) was marginal WITHOUT an NAS then they should have said as much, but you see, it worked fine for years, and lest we forget they advertised the product as capable of accessing remote music; it’s even in the setup still (NAS, another drive on this computer, mymusic are ALL listed as valid choices (and with no disclaimers next to any of them))

Thus, were I to switch to a NAS it would be at my expense and there is no guarantee that it will work. It MIGHT work, it PROBABLY would work, but again, Sonos never said anything about shares (or even local drives as being problematic.Were Sonos to say “We’d like to make this right for you and end the struggle, so here’s a NAS and drives for you - no charge” but that’s about as likely as me jetting off to Ibiza with Salma Hayek (at her request).

It sounds as though you’re suggesting that this is somehow my fault for “not getting on board with a NAS”, but frankly I would be willing to do that IF I didn’t have to spend any money on it with zero guarantee from Sonos or anyone that the problem would be solved - just conjecture.

So in summary IF Sonos had said “hey...your music may get interrupted a lot if you choose not to use a NAS that would have either swayed my decision NOT to buy any CONNECT units, but as I said even the setup says each is equally valid (no disclaimers) and once worked flawlessly no longer does.

Maybe I should start a gofundme page citing Sonos Connect issues in a non-NAS environment.

A more correct claim would be that millions of units are working very well, but the system will not work for you.

You have not convinced me that there are no hardware issues with one or both of your CONNECT’s. I suggest that you power up only one CONNECT and test the system, then do the same with the other CONNECT. If only one of the units misbehaves, that is a strong indication of hardware issues with that unit. If both units misbehave when only one is powered up, we can’t be certain that they are problem free.

Mmmm...You have to remember that this issue wasn’t always there which is what makes this so frustrating.

To paraphrase your words a better still claim would be that I once counted myself among the millions for whom the system worked flawlessly. For years. That’s what makes it so frustrating because ostensibly nothing in my hardware or network has changed. If anything it would seem to point to software - whether the S1 / S2 controllers or something within the O.S.. However, keep in mind that I have a) swapped drives on the regular host, b) moved the drive to another host, c) moved the copy drive to another host and none of these conditions make the system immune.

In terms of a Connect failing (or both) that would be most disappointing. I had six Turtle Beach Audiotrons at one point (many years ago) and not one of them ever encountered a hardware fault that cause any playback issues. Ever. In those I could fully configure the network parameters for each unit (including setting static IPs) which made things very configurable albeit beyond the reach of many consumers who didn’t want to deal with such things.

See...I come from the perspective of having had a different but outdated system before in which everything just worked right up until the day that I decided to replace them (because my music library had outgrown the 32768 song limit AND .flac was not supported). Yes, it was clunky in terms of the webpage control and song limit, which is why I bought the first Connect all of those years ago, but the Audiotron worked. Always. No matter if one, two or six units were streaming files - and they were streaming .wav files (the audiotrons were pre-.flac), so as far as music goes save for high res formats the host and network were streaming the largest-format files possible. In the audiotrons the only way to update the firmware was manually (as is normal) just like the web app that ran the whole show.

I’ll cop to not knowing enough about how the firmware updates are handled in the Connect but were it the case that the update was globally problematic then there would have been an outcry from the community, so it seems highly unlikely that a firmware update has caused the issue in one or both units. The problem is that the diagnostic file is not accessible to the end user (the file that you submit to Support) and there are things in there that would be helpful (certainly to me) as I learned during a chat session with one of the “Senior” diagnosticians, however, I can’t try this / that, then force a write to diagnostics and then look at the diagnostic file to see if what I tried had any effect etc. I understand that Sonos wanted to make this as plug and play as possible, which I appreciate, but it seems access to the diagnostics file would be at least a happy medium as a means by which those willing to try and fix an issue (that’s clearly me) could use said information as a means to try and put things right..

The fact that the issue persists irrespective of which host is used to share the .flac files makes me wonder if there is something that happened in a Windows update that’s effectively transparent to me, because this would be a common factor across those three machines. This would also explain why both of them were right as rain for years and then suddenly this problem occurred. I don’t make it a habit to sit up nights reading change logs etc so maybe I have not dug deeply enough; this could very well indeed be THE reason for all of this - some background process that was once on-demand or dormant that was changed as part of an O.S. update that would likely be innocuous to nearly all users, but perhaps the controller / Connect are sensitive to. The problem would be identifying them. I’ve looked at the event viewers and things seem normal to me - no warnings etc.

If one or both of the Connect units have failed / are failing well I guess I can just chalk that up to a short lifespan. It’s sad - I have lots of audio gear from the 1970s and 80s that I use every day - gear that has lasted close to 50 years with little to no need for repair / replacement. If they are indeed failing from a hardware perspective then it’s time to move on.

In the meantime I will try what you suggest, because I honestly don’t know what’s left to try at this point, so thanks for the suggestion.

Maybe I should amend this to include “shouldn’t be [...]”.

Mother nature is never fair, units do not usually pick a convenient time or mode when they fail. As units age the probability of failure rises. In the case of CONNECT, we don’t know the statistics. You mentioned 50 year old traditional audio units that are still working. I’m sure that this is the case for isolated units, but this is a very low probability case.

At each stage in a unit’s life there will be typical failure modes for the units that do fail and these modes will change with age. After a while the service shops catch on to what happens to model XYZ at a certain age. I’m not saying that all XYZ’s will fail, but those that do have a likely signature. In some cases the problem is too intermittent and bizarre for the owner to fully describe, but the shop has been through this and knows exactly how to proceed -- likely before attempting to power up the unit.

I can’t give you a probability, but it is possible that both of your CONNECT’s have failed in the same way. Or, that something on your network that “couldn’t”, “shouldn’t”, or “never happened before” is frustrating the CONNECT’s.

In my case I had an ancient NAS device that was intermittently bugging my SONOS system and I assumed that the NAS was finally ready for the recycle farm. However, there were some aspects of the issue that suggested a duplicate IP address. But ... I’m too smart for that ... right? Finally, I swallowed my pride and checked addresses in detail … darn! … . A couple months prior I had replaced my router and shuffled reserved addresses slightly. I had forgotten about a seldom used. palm sized device hidden away in a cupboard. It now had the same IP address as that NAS.