AirPlay Error "Unable to connect to xxx" When not trying to connect

  • 18 February 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 60 views
C

Hello,

I have 3x Sonos speakers; 1x Sonos Move and 2x Sonos One purchased around 2021. I have the speakers configured both in the Sonos app, as well as integrated into Apple Home. Primary use case for adding the speakers into Home was to be able to leverage Siri to play music in room that speaker resides. Everything worked great until about 6 months ago when the following errors began appearing on any and all apple devices.
Apple TV


iPhone


It is worth mentioning that there was no attempt to airplay content to the Sonos speakers when the message appeared. It is also worth mentioning that I am able to airplay content if want to. It is almost as if the connection is severed while the speakers are in standby mode causing a persistent pop up. The larger issue is that this pop up pauses the content on the iOS device and continues to pop up every 60 seconds or so until the speakers are finally unplugged. This has made the speakers virtually unusable so I am wondering if this has been encountered and if there is a fix. 

Troubleshooting tasks to date.
Power cycle all devices - no change
Restore speakers to factory settings and reconfigure like new - no change
Turn off AirPlay on Apple TV - no change
Update firmware on all hardware - no change

I have no issue with a HomePod mini I have so so I suspect it is an integration issue. Regardless, I have also reached out for assistance on the Apple side.


Thanks,
 

3 replies

Sotiris C.
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Hello @cdsanche, welcome to Sonos Community!

This is a very strange behavior I must admit. I had a look in our database and I found out an older issue with Sonos speakers being added to the HomeKit app but that had as a result the inability to perform AirPlay.

One potential fix would be to remove the Sonos from the HomeKit, but that would result in not being able to use your Sonos with Siri.

Since you are having no issues with achieving normal AirPlay connection with the Sonos speakers, I’m thinking this is something that Apple can help you further.

Did Apple Support came back with any updates?

Thank you for this very detailed thread and I hope you will get it sorted soon.

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C

Thanks for the reply Sotiris.

I have not heard back, yet. I have also tried removing the speakers from Homekit and although I lose the ability to ask Siri to play music specific to a room, the error still pops up on our TVs and phones. Very strange indeed. Hopefully I hear back soon.

N

Hi,

I have a similar issue to cdsanche, so replying to add info here in case the root cause and fix are the same. 

I recently added a secondhand Ray to my two (old) Play:1’s to get better sound for my (old) Samsung TV. When first setting up the Ray, it had a hard time registering the signal from the optic cable, and then it suddenly work just fine. And for a few days I used he Ray+Play:1s setup without issues. 

When I finally got around to wall mounting the Ray, I had no issues the first time I used it after that. The next time. however, I could get no sound from the set-up, only the internal TV speakers worked fine. This is the behaviour: 

  1. I select the set-up and deselect the internal TV speakers on the Apple TV control center.
  2. After a few seconds, the system defaults back to the internal TV speakers.
  3. After a while I get the ‘Unable to connect to xxx’ message

I have no problems playing music with the full set up, via the sonos app on my andriod phone. I havent used Airplay on my Mac laptops. 

My theories so far:

  • The optical cabel is damaged or with a weak signal.
    • But if it worked before, it should still work.
    • When running the TV-setup flow, it says there are no issues with the signal
  • My old TV is not up to the task for some reason.
    • I also find this to be unlikely.

cdsanche Hope you’ll share what Apple suspects, once you hear from them.

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