Enthusiast II

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

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
December 31, 2023
294 replies
16587 views

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 :

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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.

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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.

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

Pinned Reply By Corry P

Hi @britcowboy

Thanks for bringing this back to my attention.

We now consider this issue to be largely resolved, and any remaining cases are being dealt with on an individual basis. If you still encounter the issue described here, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports.

I hope this helps.

Show previous replies

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SteveWelham

Trending Lyricist I

Not gossip or hearsay in my case but based on a phone conversation with Alexandru at Sonos Tech Support. I’d like to think Sonos engineers are currently investigating this with the highest priority (as it says in the pinned reply), but unfortunately the message I took away in as many words, was that it’s an old device, they don’t have a fix and you’ll have to upgrade to an Amp .. or just periodically reboot your Connect:Amp to clear down memory.

The following are not their words, but I don’t believe they’re investing any effort in trying to fix this issue in something they’ve effectively declared end of life. The changes they’ve introduced over time with new functionality etc and that require more and more memory can’t be undone.

jgatie

Not gossip or hearsay in my case but based on a phone conversation with Alexandru at Sonos Tech Support. I’d like to think Sonos engineers are currently investigating this with the highest priority (as it says in the pinned reply), but unfortunately the message I took away in as many words, was that it’s an old device, they don’t have a fix and you’ll have to upgrade to an Amp .. or just periodically reboot your Connect:Amp to clear down memory.

The following are not their words, but I don’t believe they’re investing any effort in trying to fix this issue in something they’ve effectively declared end of life. The changes they’ve introduced over time with new functionality etc and that require more and more memory can’t be undone.

If you think Customer Support is in any way aware of what Engineering is doing at any time, you’ve never been in an Engineering department. I’m a software engineer, and in the last 20 years I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve even spoken to Customer Support, and it’s never been to tell them what I’m working on. CS puts a ticket in, and that’s the entirety of our interaction.

S

SteveWelham

Trending Lyricist I

Not gossip or hearsay in my case but based on a phone conversation with Alexandru at Sonos Tech Support. I’d like to think Sonos engineers are currently investigating this with the highest priority (as it says in the pinned reply), but unfortunately the message I took away in as many words, was that it’s an old device, they don’t have a fix and you’ll have to upgrade to an Amp .. or just periodically reboot your Connect:Amp to clear down memory.

The following are not their words, but I don’t believe they’re investing any effort in trying to fix this issue in something they’ve effectively declared end of life. The changes they’ve introduced over time with new functionality etc and that require more and more memory can’t be undone.

If you think Customer Support is in any way aware of what Engineering is doing at any time, you’ve never been in an Engineering department. I’m a software engineer, and in the last 20 years I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve even spoken to Customer Support, and it’s never been to tell them what I’m working on. CS puts a ticket in, and that’s the entirety of our interaction.

😂 Very old school. You’d hope in this age there would be better systems, collaboration , but going by experience with support you’re probably right. Gives the pinned reply even less credibility.

jgatie

If you think Customer Support is in any way aware of what Engineering is doing at any time, you’ve never been in an Engineering department. I’m a software engineer, and in the last 20 years I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve even spoken to Customer Support, and it’s never been to tell them what I’m working on. CS puts a ticket in, and that’s the entirety of our interaction.

😂 Very old school. You’d hope in this age there would be better systems, collaboration , but going by experience with support you’re probably right. Gives the pinned reply even less credibility.

No, the pinned reply is official, so it was vetted before posting. In my experience, half of what people claim to hear from CS is imagined or twisted to fit an agenda, and the other half is CS just trying to get an irate customer to shut up (or hang up) by saying what they want to hear.

One thing is for sure, the technical know-how of your average CS rep is equal to the technical know-how of your average person on the street. Nobody hires a low-level CS agent for their intricate technical knowledge. They read scripts, that’s it.

S

SteveWelham

Trending Lyricist I

If you think Customer Support is in any way aware of what Engineering is doing at any time, you’ve never been in an Engineering department. I’m a software engineer, and in the last 20 years I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve even spoken to Customer Support, and it’s never been to tell them what I’m working on. CS puts a ticket in, and that’s the entirety of our interaction.

😂 Very old school. You’d hope in this age there would be better systems, collaboration , but going by experience with support you’re probably right. Gives the pinned reply even less credibility.

No, the pinned reply is official, so it was vetted before posting. In my experience, half of what people claim to hear from CS is imagined or twisted to fit an agenda, and the other half is CS just trying to get an irate customer to shut up (or hang up) by saying what they want to hear.

One thing is for sure, the technical know-how of your average CS rep is equal to the technical know-how of your average person on the street. Nobody hires a low-level CS agent for their intricate technical knowledge. They read scripts, that’s it.

Hope you’re right but I won’t hold my breath.

A

ANOpax

Enthusiast II

S1 rollback update -

The amps have been continuously powered up now for over 550 hours and the system, connections and associated control apps have all remained rock solid stable and responsive.

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SteveWelham

Trending Lyricist I

S1 rollback update -

The amps have been continuously powered up now for over 550 hours and the system, connections and associated control apps have all remained rock solid stable and responsive.

Good to know as an option for those where S1 rollback is an option, ie compatibility across the system.

K

Kumar

Another option for those that do not or can not go to a S1/S2 split system is to power off the Connect Amp after every use - based on what is written here, it should work ok on S2 when powered on again for music play.

I do this with all my Sonos units anyway, and this may work for those affected till Sonos delivers a better solution or the amp is replaced. From what I have read about the issue, I agree with Steve about not holding ones breath for a solution using the same hardware.

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ANOpax

Enthusiast II

When I was running S2 on the amps, powering them down worked for a very short period of time before the dropouts returned and it didn’t prevent software or app glitches occurring, sometimes within minutes.

The dreaded ‘unable to connect’ was the prime culprit and using multiple devices to control the amps was asking for trouble as it seemed that the amps were only capable of been seen by one control device at a time.

K

Kumar

Having seen what is on another concurrent thread on the same subject, which suggests that other older units may be the next to be afflicted by S2 memory usage, I am reminded to be glad that I elected to stay on S1 four years ago when Sonos enticed us to move to S2. At that time I had all my rooms covered and had come out of the want more Sonos trap, so I had no pressing need to keep marching with Sonos on S2. I also discount any chances of sound quality improvement to my units via S2 where music play is concerned and a side benefit of staying on S1 is to receive very few updates - indeed those can even be ignored with little consequence to the listening experience. And no risk of memory getting filled up on my 2011-2014 Sonos acquisitions.

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