I’m surprised you didn’t come to these forums sooner, in light of your frustrations you’re expressing. And I’m surprised that you kept buying more kit over the years if you were so unhappy. Have you turned off Auto-update, out of curiosity? I’m wondering why you were “forced again to update the Sonos controller app”?

I was an early adopter of Sonos, probably purchased within the first couple of years is came out.  I loved it.  It was the perfect solution and I rarely had issues.  Occasionally I would have problems but nothing I couldn’t resolve on my own.  I promoted it and continued to add on to my system.  I would say the last couple of years I absolutely dread when I see a message telling me I need to update the software on my controller.  It almost certainly means I will spend the next few hours trying to get it to work again.  I still have some of the older products and I am reluctant to upgrade them because 1) they suit my needs 2) i am unsure about investing more into this product.

I eventually got most of the products working but it required me to reset each of them individually and then add back into the network (not fun).  I literally just saw the “auto-update” selection today and turned it off.

Maybe it would be interesting to talk to Sonos about the problem with your system, because with most systems updates run OK (though I read more complaints on this forum). Maybe run one more update and, if it goes wrong again make a diagnostic and call Sonos?

By the way: if you really want to stop all updates be sure to also stop automatically on your phone. When the app updates, the system will also need an update.