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 :

------------------

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.

-------------------

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

NEW S2 UPDATE! Any joy with it? I might be imagining it but our system of various older & recently bought kit seems more responsive.

Need to leave it on a few days….

Ken_Griffiths

Alex we are very disappointed that you didn’t join the forum earlier to help Sonos figure this out cause they were incapable of doing this on their own (or maybe that was the point :). Shame shame shame on you LOL /s

So had many customers reporting problems with Connect Amp from last summer and doesn’t think to mention a thing or join the community here until 7th February - no wonder Sonos were unaware of the issue. Certainly could not put the blame down to the network either, as that was being maintained by them too.

K

Kumar

So had many customers reporting problems with Connect Amp from last summer and doesn’t think to mention a thing or join the community here until 7th February - no wonder Sonos were unaware of the issue. Certainly could not put the blame down to the network either, as that was being maintained by them too.

Presumably this is tongue in cheek, because this particular poster’s delay in joining the community does not excuse Sonos from not knowing the issue, and further, from proactively communicating it to all Connect Amp users on S2. This is a BIG Sonos fail, right up there with their bricking fiasco four years ago.

@Alex.Dickson I suggest you send a diagnostic reference via email to Sonos Support for the issue with the new Amp because it is unlikely to be caused by the memory failures issue.

Ken_Griffiths

Presumably this is tongue in cheek, because this particular poster’s delay in joining the community does not excuse Sonos from not knowing the issue, and further, from proactively communicating it to all Connect Amp users on S2. This is a BIG Sonos fail, right up there with their bricking fiasco four years ago.

@Alex.Dickson I suggest you send a diagnostic reference via email to Sonos Support for the issue with the new Amp because it is unlikely to be caused by the memory failures issue.

A professional installer that states they first noticed the C:A issue starting last summer, has a good many clients, they maintain their clients networks too and able to eliminate the local network as being the cause - but then lands here on the 7th February 2024, just seems a little late to the party IMV.

It’s these type of professionals, that I would personally expect to first bring a ‘real world’ matter to the attention of Sonos - I say that because individual customers that land here in the community, often don’t know if it’s a local network issue, or not and so the wood can get lost for the trees in trying to establish if that’s the case, whereas a professional installer, as I see it, can possibly be an entirely different ‘ball game’ - maybe more-so if they do speak direct to Sonos and can show details of their client-reported C:A cases since last summer.

K

Kumar

The best person to respond to this “could have done/should have done” thing is the installer in question if he chooses to do so.

Complaints that land up in this community cannot be the entire universe of complaints that arise with the use of Sonos; indeed I suspect that they would be a small percentage of such, and I am sure that of the many installers of Sonos kit, some would have brought this issue to the attention of Sonos directly in the way that according to you, this installer should have done. It is also likely that this is the reason that Sonos has finally accepted this to be a Sonos created issue and not another user network one.

As you can see from the opening post of this thread, a preceding discussion on this issue in this community was locked by Sonos before the discussion was finished.

A

Alex.Dickson

Lyricist III

Presumably this is tongue in cheek, because this particular poster’s delay in joining the community does not excuse Sonos from not knowing the issue, and further, from proactively communicating it to all Connect Amp users on S2. This is a BIG Sonos fail, right up there with their bricking fiasco four years ago.

@Alex.Dickson I suggest you send a diagnostic reference via email to Sonos Support for the issue with the new Amp because it is unlikely to be caused by the memory failures issue.

A professional installer that states they first noticed the C:A issue starting last summer, has a good many clients, they maintain their clients networks too and able to eliminate the local network as being the cause - but then lands here on the 7th February 2024, just seems a little late to the party IMV.

It’s these type of professionals, that I would personally expect to first bring a ‘real world’ matter to the attention of Sonos - I say that because individual customers that land here in the community, often don’t know if it’s a local network issue, or not and so the wood can get lost for the trees in trying to establish if that’s the case, whereas a professional installer, as I see it, can possibly be an entirely different ‘ball game’ - maybe more-so if they do speak direct to Sonos and can show details of their client-reported C:A cases since last summer.

Late to the party or not. I didn't expect to receive such hostility from any community member here. I just want to help see the issue resolved. As I'm sure we all do.

A

ANOpax

Enthusiast II

Presumably this is tongue in cheek, because this particular poster’s delay in joining the community does not excuse Sonos from not knowing the issue, and further, from proactively communicating it to all Connect Amp users on S2. This is a BIG Sonos fail, right up there with their bricking fiasco four years ago.

@Alex.Dickson I suggest you send a diagnostic reference via email to Sonos Support for the issue with the new Amp because it is unlikely to be caused by the memory failures issue.

A professional installer that states they first noticed the C:A issue starting last summer, has a good many clients, they maintain their clients networks too and able to eliminate the local network as being the cause - but then lands here on the 7th February 2024, just seems a little late to the party IMV.

It’s these type of professionals, that I would personally expect to first bring a ‘real world’ matter to the attention of Sonos - I say that because individual customers that land here in the community, often don’t know if it’s a local network issue, or not and so the wood can get lost for the trees in trying to establish if that’s the case, whereas a professional installer, as I see it, can possibly be an entirely different ‘ball game’ - maybe more-so if they do speak direct to Sonos and can show details of their client-reported C:A cases since last summer.

Late to the party or not. I didn't expect to receive such hostility from any community member here. I just want to help see the issue resolved. As I'm sure we all do.

I’ve discovered that it’s par for the course, I’m afraid.

If you bring an issue early, you’re accused of overplaying it because you’re alone in suffering the problem.

If you bring an issue late, you’re accused of being late to the party because you should’ve shown up sooner.

And if everyone with the same problem shows up en-masse at the same time, we’re all accused of acting in concert or worse, being a banned troll with fake accounts.

I’ve been on the internet a while and this place requires the thickest skin and biggest sense of humour that I’ve ever come across. So don’t let the buggers get you down!

K

Kumar

I’ve been on the internet a while and this place requires the thickest skin and biggest sense of humour that I’ve ever come across. So don’t let the buggers get you down!

There are some obnoxious types here and others that do mean well inspite of being guilty of being naive fanboys. Don’t let any get you down is the right approach, but I have seen a lot worse on the internet!

A

abr2021

Lyricist III

I have already posted somewhere that I have the same problem with my C:A. But there was an update to S2 about a week ago and, I may regret being optimistic, but it seems to have cured the problem. Nothing else changed but in that last week I can’t recall one single drop out.
I have to own up to not having read every comment even on this thread but I am of course curious to find out if anyone else with the problem has seen a recent improvement. Not sure where to look but is there anything in release notes for 16.0 that may justify my view?

Andy

K

Kumar

Not sure where to look but is there anything in release notes for 16.0 that may justify my view?

Andy

Absence of drop outs should be justification enough; on one of the threads on this subject, Sonos Staff endorsed this comment from me: Don’t look gift horses in the mouth.

As long as the gift keeps working!

Another user has reported a similar experience as yours, but two data points are just that.

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