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I’ve been struggling with this issue for several days. Speakers in our system have been appearing and disappearing from the iOS app on my iPhone 14. 

At first, it was one specific Play:1 that kept disappearing from the iOS app. I noticed that if I manually started it (by pressing the play button on top of the unit), it would appear shortly afterwards in the iOS app and I could control it in there. 

As of the last 24 hours, the issue has worsened; now my iOS app will often say it can’t find the Sonos network at all. Sometimes it will find it, letting me browse my speakers… and then abruptly lose connectivity to all speakers! I notice that the Sonos app on my Windows PC doesn’t have this problem. Interestingly, if I start music on one speaker from Windows, that speaker will then show-up in my iOS app, almost like the speaker has woken-up.

My wifi network has not changed any time recently. My iPhone and Sonos are on the same wifi network; the signal is clear and consistent. No other devices in our home are losing connectivity.

Troubleshooting: This morning, I tried restarting our router (both parts - it’s a 2 piece Netgear Orbi) and then unplugged our Playbar from the router (it’s physically connected) and then plugged it back in. None of these things appears to have helped. De-powering individual afflicted speakers doesn’t seem to help (especially now when ALL devices will periodically disappear). I’ve also deleted and reinstalled the app on my iPhone, and restarted the iPhone, too. 

Any ideas?

Key words to consider: “2 piece Netgear Orbi”. Could be that the iOS device has started connecting to the secondary network provided, for some reason, and if the Orbi is splitting the subnet, then the controller device wouldn’t connect, but the PC is still connected to the original subnet. 

Try unplugging the second Orbi device, and see if you can still reproduce the issue. If you can, submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes, and call Sonos Support to discuss it.

There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

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.

Key words to consider: “2 piece Netgear Orbi”. Could be that the iOS device has started connecting to the secondary network provided, for some reason, and if the Orbi is splitting the subnet, then the controller device wouldn’t connect, but the PC is still connected to the original subnet. 

 

I think you nailed it. I continued experimenting and found other IoT devices in the house that could get wireless access, but not Internet access, leading to all sorts of odd network behavior. Finally, I did a hard reset on the Orbi satellite, and - after some negotiation - it seem to resolve all of the issues I was seeing, including the Sonos. (I’ve had the Orbi about a long as I’ve has Sonos - 3.5 years - and I’ve never had a single issue with it before - which is probably why it took me longer to figure this one out). Thanks for the help!

I was ‘gifted’ an Orbi system, but my home is too small to need it, so I’ve never set it up. I seem to recall hearing something in the past that suggests it works by setting up separate subnets, which turn out to be an anathema to Sonos’ needs to inter communicate. Works fine for 99% of IOT devices, since theu don’t need to have the cross chatter. But Sonos does. 

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