A few things to discuss.

1. the attached streaming accounts are stored on the speakers, and not part of some ‘cloud’ based log in.
2. Sonos tends not to play well with WiFi extenders. Connect one of your speakers to the base router with an Ethernet cable. Do not factory reset any device. Wait three to five minutes, then open your controller, and your Sonos system should all be there….or which ever speakers you took, basically all the speakers within WiFi reach of the one wired to the base router. 
3. Since she will be setting up a new account, I would in her case actually recommend a factory reset of all the Sonos devices she has, and then setting them up as new, which willl let her set up a new account to attach them to, and remove them from yours. 

Thanks. I tried connecting the Five to my router via ethernet running from the WiFi extender and it worked fine. My system came back online and I could play music. But it’s inconvenient for me to leave it wired like this. I’ve tried running the ‘Let’s fix it’ widget on the Sonos app numerous times, but whenever it tries to connect to the local network from the Five I get an error message saying ‘Unable to connect to network’. Any suggestions?

If it’s inconvenient to keep a speaker wired to the base unit of your mesh network, I would recommend a BOOST, which would function in the same way when connected to that router, creating the SonosNet network for all your speakers to connect to. That would resolve the issues you’re running in to. 

Dude, I just want  to use the system I paid for.

Hi @admorgan 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

As you are using only one Sonos device, you probably won’t be affected by most of the issues that an extender can cause, but please keep it in mind that it may become a problem if you add to your Sonos system at a later date.

At what point did you get the ‘Unable to connect to network’ message? When your phone was connecting to the temporary Sonos hotspot created by the speaker prior to entering your WiFi password, or when the speaker was trying to connect to your WiFi, after entering the password?

If it’s the former, please try a reboot of your phone or try from another device like an iPad or a second phone.

If it’s the latter, there are likely some settings on your router that could be adjusted to make things work better. An important point is that although during normal operation it doesn’t matter if your phone and speaker are connecting to different WiFi bands (2.4 & 5 GHz), it does matter during initial setup. So, if your bands are separated, please make sure to connect Sonos to the same band as your phone is connected to. I recommend 2.4 GHz for (usually) better reception.

If your WiFi bands are not separated, I recommend you do so. If you’re stuck on how to do this, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team who can assist.

I would only recommend you purchase a Boost if all other options have been exhausted, as you should be able to get your Sonos speaker working without additional expenditure.

I hope this helps.

I get the ‘Unable to connect to network’ message when my phone is connecting to the temporary Sonos hotspot. I’ve tried restarting my phone several times, but this doesn’t help. I’ve factory reset the device, but this doesn’t help. Every time I unplug the ethernet cable and try to connect via wifi, I keep encountering the same problem – my phone doesn’t recognize the temporary hotspot. After I receive the ‘Unable to connect to network’ message the first time, the app then asks me again to press the button on the Sonos. But the second time it does so, it specifically says to press and hold the button until it chimes and the light turns amber (the first time round, the app just says to press the button). However, I’ve held the button for several minutes, and it never chimes / turns amber.

I now appear to have a several hundred dollar ‘wireless’ speaker that only works when it’s wired. Help?

Hi @admorgan 

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 about the situation.

To anyone reading this thread with the same problem as me: I didn’t select Airgetlam’s answer as the ‘best’. I appreciate everyone’s help, but none of the suggestions given here have worked.

I’ve seen very difficult to describe connection issues reported by iPhones that were fixed by uninstalling, then reinstalling the iPhone App. You’ll need to give the account email address and password during the App installation.