Apple Music Playback

Not likely an issue with Sonos, much more likely to be a network issue internal to your network. At the least, I’d try a network refresh, by unplugging all your Sonos from power, then rebooting your router. Give the router two minutes to recover, then plug back in your Sonos. After another two minutes for them to boot and reconnect, check for any updates, and apply them. Finally, do your testing.

If this doesn’t work, I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it. Don’t post the resulting diagnostic number here, their lawyers get sensitive about GDPR.

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 Support staff, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your network and Sonos system.

Thanks. All good suggestions. I did make sure it has latest firmware.

Don’t think it’s the network though. It’s a higher end network, and I work on it all day long in media production with multiple systems. Sonos is the only one of 10+ devices that’s experiencing connection issues. I can stream Apple music on my phone and desktop all day long without hiccup. Unless it does something unique. Or is connecting long-distance to a cloud server.

I’ll record system diagnostics and contact them to see what’s going on.

Jan

Sonos does tend to use the network in different ways than most (maybe all?) devices, each speaker is, to my knowledge, sending data to every other Sonos device, so that they can keep in sync for playback. Most devices that I’m familiar with rarely do crosstalk, and rely only on a connection to the outside world. 

Of course, the server that Sonos talks to at Apple is different than all your other devices, as it has SMAPI installed on it. Sonos wrote that system, but Apple places it on their servers, and then tells Sonos where to point the Sonos system. 

But as you suggest, providing hard data to Sonos to look at, and calling in will be the best.certainly we cretins in the public don’t have access to that (likely as it contains PID which would be ‘bad’ to share).

Good luck! Keep us posted as to what you find out. 

Keep in mind it isn't "your network" it is "how Sonos interacts with your network" and comparing the way Sonos uses your network to the way that something else uses your network isn't productive.

I fought that battle for a long time and finally decided to listen to the "fix the network issues" and now my Sonos is stable.

Interesting and good to know. I’m new to Sonos. Heard about it for a long time, but never had the need for it. Usually I listen on a 7.1.4 Atmos rig for work, but this is a new apartment and the family wanted to listen to music.

That beam is the only Sonos device though (other than the app on my phone). Does the logic of how ‘Sonos uses the network’ mostly apply if you have multiple speakers, or even if there’s a single Sonos beam via eArc to TV and that’s it?

Curious about their network architecture now. Have to read up on it.

And I can’t reboot the router. It belong to the building and is centrally managed by Virgin Media. So all I can control is the device itself. Still waiting for the fiber network connection so I can run my own network setup again.

I understand what you are saying about it’s more about how “Sonos interacts with your network.” But even after trying the suggestions for network issues, there are still issues (that didn’t exist before the great disaster that Sonos created). 

For example, I definitely cannot reliably play to multiple speakers in different rooms without it just stopping after a song or two.  It will occasionally just stop even when playing to just one speaker.

It seems to quite consistently lose its connections to a streaming service (Amazon or Sonos Radio, for example) and I have to start over.  If I save a station as a “Favorite” and try to use it more than once or twice, it doesn’t work (says that station doesn’t exist, but I search for it, find it (again) and can start playing from it).

I think there are still some severe gremlins, but everyone seems to think that its all water under the bridge now. I think they have very poorly engineered software that needs a yet another, but competent, overhaul.

I’m not a fan of ‘I don’t own the network, so I can’t reboot the router’ in general, as that limits the ‘abilities’ you have to address some issues. Honestly, I tend to recommend an extra step, by installing your own travel router, which connects to the existing network, and allows you to create, and control your own. This gives you more ‘control’, although it can’t resolve everything, it does go a long way. 

Some Sonos systems (maybe depending on the age of the devices, not sure) are helped by having reserved IP addresses define in the router. Certainly easier to do if you have access. As is the network refresh I mentioned earlier. 

I don’t know much about how Sonos handles their ‘professional’ networks, I’ve always been focused on the home aspect, which is the original use of Sonos. It’s possible that Sonos has different suggestions for their corporate customers, since it may be more often they don’t have access to the IT side of things. 

Sonos isn't usually happy with community networking. First the controller and speaker must directly communicate and that is usually blocked by the community's client isolation. If it isn't blocked everyone in the community can see and control your Sonos.

The best solution on a community connection is to add a travel router and connect Sonos and controller to it.

Mnoreen, if none of the suggestions here have helped, you need to wait for an issue and sugmit a diagnostic. If multiple issues submit a diagnostic within 10 minutes of each, note the number and the problem. When you have time call Sonos support and have your diagnostic(s) looked at.

mnoreen wrote:

I understand what you are saying about it’s more about how “Sonos interacts with your network.” But even after trying the suggestions for network issues, there are still issues (that didn’t exist before the great disaster that Sonos created). 

That is definitely my unease here. While it may appear as ‘Sonos is just different’, at the end of the day, properly written software should work in a diverse set of environments without white glove treatment. Or if that cannot be achieved, they should keep it a closed system.

I was hoping they had overcome all their issues, but there seems some spaghetti left on the plate by all accounts.

Airgetlam wrote:

I’m not a fan of ‘I don’t own the network, so I can’t reboot the router’ in general, as that limits the ‘abilities’ you have to address some issues. Honestly, I tend to recommend an extra step, by installing your own travel router, which connects to the existing network, and allows you to create, and control your own. This gives you more ‘control’, although it can’t resolve everything, it does go a long way. 

stanley_4 wrote:

Sonos isn't usually happy with community networking. First the controller and speaker must directly communicate and that is usually blocked by the community's client isolation. If it isn't blocked everyone in the community can see and control your Sonos

Yes, generally I think having control over the route is ideal, and once I get my fiber connection and can turn on my own Zyxel network infrastructure again (including my own WiFi access points), I may be able to debug this further. Though as I said above, in a good design, those shenanigans shouldn’t be necessary.

It’s not totally community networking. The building has centrally managed Ubiquity routers and WiFi access points, which make a separate VLan available for each unit. So we can have multiple devices on the WiFi and our own private WiFi LAN where devices can see each others, but nobody else in the building. 

In a moment of frustration this evening, where the Sonos app refused to see a playlist I just added to my Apple Music account, I instead opted to play on Apple Music via AirPlay, and out of three songs I was playing 2 stopped midway through. Mind you, I can airplay on the same network to my Samsung TV and have zero issues. One is video, which is way higher bandwidth than a music stream.

Not confidence inspiring.

I think at this point I’ll wait until I have my other network infrastructure setup and see if that helps. If that doesn’t help, I’ll do the whole support hoopla.

Or I’ll give up on Apple music on the soundbar and just use it for TV. At least HDMI eArc doesn’t seem to be ‘Sonos Special’ so far.

That seems the right advice.

Found out that my Samsung TV has a native Apple Music app, which the family can use to play via eARC HDMI on the Beam. Rock solid on the exact same WiFi.

No ‘we’re special’ networking requirements. Where there is a will, there is a way.