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

J

Jon Crossley

Avid Contributor II

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.

I’ve had this issue (as other threads) & found the boxes perform ok for a day to three after reboot. Unplug for half an hour… and all ok until… very odd. (Been through all options / can’t downgrade as other newer kit etc. One my s2 connect amps was bought to replace an S1 model!)

J

Jon Crossley

Avid Contributor II

Haven’t looked before (and I hadn’t been logging in here of late) but I see the Speakers forum is littered with people with older kit who have exactly the same issue. (Systems fine for years until recently…. No interference /other changes…. Gone through various hoops to attempt to resolve….)

S

SteveWelham

Trending Lyricist I

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.

I’ve had this issue (as other threads) & found the boxes perform ok for a day to three after reboot. Unplug for half an hour… and all ok until… very odd. (Been through all options / can’t downgrade as other newer kit etc. One my s2 connect amps was bought to replace an S1 model!)

I think what @britcowboy is trying to gauge, like many of us, is what is the realistic likelihood of a fix from Sonos for this memory problem ?

In the absence of a fix, the alternative is to upgrade to the newer Amp and obviously, Sonos would prefer that route, but for many, especially those with multi-room, multi amp setups, this may not be viable or at least there will be some reluctance whilst a fix may be in the pipeline. It would be very frustrating to spend out on a new Amp only for Sonos to release a fix for the Connect: Amp shortly afterwards.

My feeling is that the longer this drags on, the less likely Sonos will want to continue investing more time and money in supporting the older kit.

A

ANOpax

Enthusiast II

Haven’t looked before (and I hadn’t been logging in here of late) but I see the Speakers forum is littered with people with older kit who have exactly the same issue. (Systems fine for years until recently…. No interference /other changes…. Gone through various hoops to attempt to resolve….)

Thanks for pointing this out. It seems that Play 3 is particularly badly affected too.

So much for all the naysayers who said that there was no problem and that if there was, there’d be lots of reports. Well, there are when you take the time and trouble to examine and amalgamate the individual cases rather than dismissing each one as an isolated environment or network issue.

K

Kumar

In defence of those dismissing the issue: it is based on their extensive experience that over 99% of issues are down to the network, so they tend to miss the less than 1% when that comes along.

In general: I don't expect to see a fix to this other than what has been seen to reliably work, a rollback to S1. And I don't think Sonos themselves expected to see pre S2 hardware survive for so long, by underestimating the build quality of their own hardware! If they had they would have not allowed old kit to move to S2 in 2020.

Speaking for myself, I have never seen Sonos as anything more than quality amps/speakers and have never expected S2 or such to better their sound quality beyond what made me decide to buy them. The decision to stay on S1 was a no brainer, therefore. I did not buy Sonos thinking it is a networked computer that also happens to play music. I just wanted good sounding kit that did what my legacy HiFi kit could not do - play music from the internet. And that I got from Sonos via S1 and continue to do so.

A

ANOpax

Enthusiast II

In defence of those dismissing the issue: it is based on their extensive experience that over 99% of issues are down to the network, so they tend to miss the less than 1% when that comes along.

I can understand that but it doesn’t give them the right to be so rude along with their dismissiveness. Some manners would be nice and if they don’t have anything nice to say, they shouldn’t say it at all.

K

Kumar

I can understand that but it doesn’t give them the right to be so rude along with their dismissiveness. Some manners would be nice and if they don’t have anything nice to say, they shouldn’t say it at all.

Oh I agree fully. But this is a sorry aspect of the internet that is not limited to this forum. Ignoring all such is what I found to work best, after some notable encounters here. And you will never find Sonos Staff to be obnoxious.

Bumper

Has it been 5 years since Sonos last sold connect amp? If so, that’s all the software update support they promise unfortunately if they can’t fix it.

K

Kumar

Has it been 5 years since Sonos last sold connect amp? If so, that’s all the software update support they promise unfortunately if they can’t fix it.

On this thread, it has been said that Sonos is working very hard for a fix - said by Sonos Staff.

Bumper

Has it been 5 years since Sonos last sold connect amp? If so, that’s all the software update support they promise unfortunately if they can’t fix it.

On this thread, it has been said that Sonos is working very hard for a fix - said by Sonos Staff.

Do you know when it was last sold?

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