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
16586 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.

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britcowboyAuthor

Enthusiast II

And here come the “me too” register and post once “accounts”. Yeah, that’s never been seen before either. 🙄

I’m beginning to think this entire thread is a bit of over the top theatrics trying to get Sonos to replace a couple units for free just to get a few posters to shut up. It’s certainly been tried before.

Your cynicism knows no bounds. You probably think the moon landings were faked too.🤣

Just because we’re at 20 posters and counting when you earlier claimed only two reported instances of this problem 😎

You’ll be checking IP addresses next 😉

I 100% know we landed on the moon. Several times, in fact. I've even seen the laser reflector we left up there reflecting back a signal. I also 100% know forums are rife with manipulation, sock puppets, and jury rigged polls. It's how Windows phone threads dominated this forum while never cracking 2% of the market, or how we are constantly getting brand new posters who know the entire history of this forum, and have the exact same posting style as an oft banned poster going back decades.

And I don't need to check IP addresses. The mods do that

I don't understand why you feel the need to be Sonos’ defender.. They've notably been absent in this thread so far, let them speak for themselves. It just comes across as brown nosing. We're all Sonos customers here, I don't want Sonos to fail, as I've spent a lot of money with them, I want them to succeed. I don't understand your cynicism. This is the sort of toxic behaviour that puts people off forums. I was only lurking in that other thread, I only became involved when I saw it had been closed, despite no resolution. Maybe you should try being more welcoming, or maybe take a break from the Internet, it's not healthy for you being so invested in an issue you're not even having, and defending a multi million pound corporation.

Also the mods are welcome to check IP addresses, these other accounts aren't me, if that's what you're implying.

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britcowboyAuthor

Enthusiast II

For the doubters that doubt this is a real problem, I found this thread with this response by Sonos.

https://en.community.sonos.com/components-and-architectural-228999/connect-amp-zp120-spotify-connect-pauses-and-restarts-6886060?postid=16682180#post16682180

Thanks for the diagnostics. It appears your Connect:AMP is having problems with playing Spotify - this can happen with some of our older products as they run out of internal resources. There are some mitigation steps that can be taken, but as they generally consist of getting other products to perform certain tasks, these are not available to you on your one unit system. You also already have Crossfade disabled, which is another mitigation step (if your Spotify app has Crossfade enabled, please disable it) and have tried ethernet without success. Therefore, I can only suggest that you avoid using Spotify, iHeart Radio or NRK Radio from now on, with that particular unit, or replace the unit with a more modern alternative (an Amp); Spotify seems to be one of the more difficult services for these affected units to play. As you have only just obtained your Connect:AMP, I have to assume this is the reason it’s previous owner sold it in the first place. However, if playback is more reliable when using the Sonos app rather than the Spotify app, I recommend you do so, though I rather suspect you will find it behaves roughly the same once you use it more often. If you have an old phone/tablet that has a 3.5mm headphone jack, you could connect it to the Line-in of your Connect:AMP and use it as a Spotify source in the meantime, though this will mean you’d have to go to that device to change/control the music in any way. You’d need a stereo RCA to stereo 3.5mm stereo jack cable to do so. I hope this helps, though I realise it’s not the answer you were looking for.

Personally I don't think this response is good enough. If these devices are no longer able to playback common services, then this is a major regression. These devices used to be able to do this, and downgrading to S1 seems to fix the issue, so it seems to be a software issue which Sonos are refusing to fix. Telling customers to just buy a new device is not good enough.

Sonos defenders, how can you defend this? This is indefensible. This product isn't being sold, but it's not marked as EOL unlike earlier Connect AMPs which didn't survive the S2 upgrade. Sonos needs to undo the changes it made to memory in the summer update so we can use our existing hardware. If you defend this, the time will come when Sonos does something that bites you, and we won't be here to support you..

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Kumar

If you have an old phone/tablet that has a 3.5mm headphone jack, you could connect it to the Line-in of your Connect:AMP and use it as a Spotify source in the meantime, though this will mean you’d have to go to that device to change/control the music in any way. You’d need a stereo RCA to stereo 3.5mm stereo jack cable to do so.

Interesting to see Sonos suggesting this - it echoes what I have said here in the past, except that I recommend using the cheapest Echo you can find that has a audio out jack that will do this better than what an old phone will. The Echo front end is stable for music play, and your sound quality will remain unchanged because that remains in the domain of the Connect Amp and downstream speakers wired to it. Even if you use a cheap and now obsolete Echo Dot.

I am doing this for three years now...to get voice control where it does not make business sense for Sonos to invest in infrastructure to offer Alexa integration in my country. And, with Show units, to get very useful album art for what is playing.

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britcowboyAuthor

Enthusiast II

If you have an old phone/tablet that has a 3.5mm headphone jack, you could connect it to the Line-in of your Connect:AMP and use it as a Spotify source in the meantime, though this will mean you’d have to go to that device to change/control the music in any way. You’d need a stereo RCA to stereo 3.5mm stereo jack cable to do so.

Interesting to see Sonos suggesting this - it echoes what I have said here in the past, except that I recommend using the cheapest Echo you can find that has a audio out jack that will do this better than what an old phone will. The Echo front end is stable for music play, and your sound quality will remain unchanged because that remains in the domain of the Connect Amp and downstream speakers wired to it. Even if you use a cheap and now obsolete Echo Dot.

I am doing this for three years now...

While this could be a good option for some, for me it's not an option, I want to use my Sonos device as part of my Sonos ecosystem, not have the complexity of running another system in front of it due to a software issue Sonos won't fix.

K

Kumar

While this could be a good option for some, for me it's not an option, I want to use my Sonos device as part of my Sonos ecosystem, not have the complexity of running another system in front of it due to a software issue Sonos won't fix.

Either you or another here said that they have just the one unit that will be reverted to S1, the rest remaining on S2. Running via an Echo front end is not much different than running two Sonos systems, under S1 and S2.

In my case, all my Sonos zones run on wired to line in Echo units, so it is all one system; even grouped play is done via Alexa groups.

K

Kumar

Thanks for the diagnostics. It appears your Connect:AMP is having problems with playing Spotify - this can happen with some of our older products as they run out of internal resources

If Sonos has indeed said the quoted, realistically speaking, you will get nothing more to address your issue and need to invent your own workarounds if you wish to keep using the Connect Amp.

Assuming that your issue is not due to network glitches.

buzz

Buy once, free support forever is a difficult business model. This is made more complicated by new phone/pad/computer systems removing support required by older hardware. In some cases if the manufacturer does not update its software, apps will be dropped from App stores, resulting in the company quickly becoming irrelevant — taking free support forever down with it.

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ANOpax

Enthusiast II

Buy once, free support forever is a difficult business model. This is made more complicated by new phone/pad/computer systems removing support required by older hardware. In some cases if the manufacturer does not update its software, apps will be dropped from App stores, resulting in the company quickly becoming irrelevant — taking free support forever down with it.

Nobody is asking for free support forever. Simply free support which lasts longer than four years after the product is discontinued. The lack of support for connect amp doesn’t really jive with Sonos’ claimed Product Sustainability objectives;

”designing for longevity with internet-connected devices means focusing on hardware and software…

…we keep product software updated with bug fixes and security patches for many years.”

I guess four years counts as ‘many’ but that’s in strict observance of the definition rather than the spirit of a product which has not yet been declared EoL but has been rendered unusable by Sonos’ own software updates.

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Kumar

The lack of support for connect amp doesn’t really jive with Sonos’ claimed Product Sustainability objectives;

”designing for longevity with internet-connected devices means focusing on hardware and software…

…we keep product software updated with bug fixes and security patches for many years.”

To be fair to Sonos, if they made a mistake, it is that of declaring Connect Amp that is a design more than a decade old, to be S2 compatible.

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britcowboyAuthor

Enthusiast II

Buy once, free support forever is a difficult business model. This is made more complicated by new phone/pad/computer systems removing support required by older hardware. In some cases if the manufacturer does not update its software, apps will be dropped from App stores, resulting in the company quickly becoming irrelevant — taking free support forever down with it.

Okay? But that is the business model Sonos have chosen - so they have to honour it.

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