New behavior slip/skip samples on Play:1

Have you tried unplugging the speaker from power for a couple of minutes and rebooting your router?

No, because I’m not a superstitious weirdo. Slipped and skipped samples are a problem between the host processor and the audio codec, where the buffer under- or over-runs. Rebooting unrelated network equipment can’t help.

You might wait for the issue to happen again and submit a diagnostic for the Sonos staff to look at. Either post the number it gives you and an issue description here or call it in to support.

The usual reason for “it just started happening” is radio interference, might be from your stuff or a nearby neighbor. There are entries in the Sonos FAQ for dealing with it on your own if you want to try that before requesting Sonos help.

Thanks, I did submit diagnostics # 1636554842 earlier.

A lot of folks think Sonos support looks at submitted diagnostics but in general they don’t.

What support does do is respond to support requests, and if there is a diagnostic mentioned they pull it off the server and look at it then.

I always send one in before calling Support, quick and easy to do and then they have all my system data, even that hidden from me, available to answer my issue/question.

Just as a note, YouTube uses the exact same codecs as every other service, if you were having issues with Sonos interpreting those codecs, you’d be having exactly the same issue on all services. 

I’d be putting money on some sort of wifi interference, as suggested by GuitarSuperstar, potentially from outside your own network devices. His suggestion clears one or more potential causes, and is a worthwhile test, at the very least, since the investment in doing so is merely a few moments of your time. No superstition involved, just simple network and software/electronics knowledge, and knowing what helps a large majority of people who post issues such as yours. There’s no guaranty, either, but it helps refine what the potential issue is, so that further assistance can be given as needed. 

However, if you prefer not to receive assistance from the community members in the forum in which  you posted, I’d urge you to call Sonos Support directly to discuss it, after submitting the diagnostic that Stanley mentioned .

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and network.

From my seat this appears to be a classic data starvation issue. Yes, there is a generous buffer for audio streaming from a local hard drive or remote service. If there is a communication issue and the buffer is empty, the unit will mute. If fresh data seems to be arriving, the player will wait and continue the track. If the stream seems to be interrupted, the unit will move on to the next track if possible. This is not possible for some services. I have seen units trapped in a “race” situation where the buffer has been starved, communication issues continue to be severe, the unit mutes while a new block of data is arriving, but the block is corrupt, the unit might unmute briefly while attempting to deal with the corrupt block(s) or optimistically wait for a block that seems to be in progress. The units might mute for many, many seconds struggling with a difficult communication issue before spitting out a small burst of music then muting once more.

This sort of issue leaves clear tracks in the diagnostic.

That doesn’t really reflect my issue at all. My Sonos is making a loud SKRRRTTTT!!!! sound for a split second, every few seconds. As a person experienced in digital audio software and hardware development, I don’t see anything that can cause this other than a bug in the Sonos stack that is writing garbage into the output buffer, or that is letting the buffer position overrun into an area of memory containing non-audio data. That is why I am blaming the 13.2 software release, that I just got updated to.

It does seem odd that this issue appears to be unique to your setup, and is not impacting other owners of PLAY:3s such as myself.