Omnishambles

Hi ​@SFoggy 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

I am sorry to hear of the issues you have had with the new Sonos app.

I have found your existing support case, and it seems you were requested to call in so further investigation could be performed, but you have not done so.

I can only recommend that you give our technical support team a good chance to assist you. I do understand if the waiting time was excessive when you tried, however.

So, I recommend that you reboot you router by switching it off for at least 30 seconds, and try updating the speakers again afterwards. If it has not helped, please reset the Sonos app (User icon » App Preferences » Reset App » Reset), reopen it, and opt to connect to an existing system when asked, then try again.

I hope this helps - if it does not, I highly recommend that you call in.

Hi Corry,

I tried your recommendation but it still doesn’t work. In fact the App was totally blank for 15 minutes and is now slightly worse than it was previously. It’s so frustrating and disappointing.

Maybe I’ll try the Technical Team again but last time I was waiting for hours, if not days, so I just gave up ☹️. So much time and money invested into Sonos - it’s really terrible.

Hi ​@SFoggy 

I am sorry to hear that did not help.

Looking at your system right now, I can see that all your speakers are online and connected, so the issue does indeed seem to be with the app communicating with them reliably.

And, looking at an old diagnostic of yours, I have an inkling of an idea - who is your Internet Service Provider, please?

Hi Corry,

Thank you for following this up, I really appreciate it. My internet is Sky Broadband.

About 1 hour after re-setting everything last night, which was at about 9pm UK local time, almost everything worked perfectly on the App (including Spotify and App controls) spontaneously for the first time in a year and I was overjoyed! But then everything regressed again after a few short minutes and I’m back to square one.

Any help you can provide via the old diagnostic report would be brilliant. Nothing has changed since I submitted it several months ago.

Many thanks 🙏 

A Sonos system that is increasingly unreliable is almost certainly due to network problems, specifically IP conflicts. The fact it clears up with a reboot but then starts again means the reboot clears the IP conflicts, until the IP leases are up and the router starts handing out duplicates again.  First, check your router for any firmware updates. Then you need to refresh the IP addresses in all your network devices. Reboot the following in order:

Modem
Router
Switches/Hubs
Wired Sonos players
Wireless Sonos players
Computers/Printers
All other devices - Phones, Tablets, etc.

Let each one come up before moving to the next. Note you can eliminate IP conflict problems by reserving IP by MAC address in your router setup.  See your router manual for details.

Hi ​@SFoggy 

Thanks for that info!

If you have both Sky Broadband and Sky Q, the Sky Q boxes will rebroadcast the WiFi signal, but in a way that prevents some of the network data packets from disseminating across the entire network. As a result, if a speaker or controller (a device running the Sonos app) connect to a Sky Q box, problems can occur.

The quick, temporary fix that will identify whether this is causing the issues you see is to switch each and every Sky Q box off at the wall for a few moments (and have them all off at one time, if only for a moment). This will force any WiFi device connecting to the Sky Q boxes to connect to the router instead, and things should work reliably for you once more.

The problem is, if you reboot your router or speakers after this (the speakers will reboot after an update, for example), there is every chance that they will reconnect to Sky Q and the issues will come back.

We used to just recommend SonosNet (wiring one speaker that is not a Sub or Surround) to the router with an ethernet cable, as Sonos devices will prefer SonosNet over any WiFi, but your portable speakers (and newer models) will not connect to SonosNet, so while this would help most of your speakers, it may not help with the portables in particular.

Another fix we used to use was to disable the Sky Q box’s 2.4GHz signal, leaving it working on 5GHz. As Sonos speakers now support 5GHz, this is no longer an option.

One option that does still exist is to wire the Sky Q boxes to ethernet and disable both 2.4GHz and 5GHz, but wiring is not always an option.

Another option - and possibly now the most effective - would be to connect a second (non-Sky) router to the Sky router and having a separate WiFi network for all devices other than Sky Q, as Sky Q will only repeat the broadcast from a Sky router. You would need to place the second router in Access Point/Bridge mode, and keep it more than 1m away from your Sky router.

Finally, changing your internet connection to be from a company other than Sky would mean no more Sky router, and the Sky Q boxes will not repeat the broadcast from a non-Sky router.

I recommend the free option of trying SonosNet, and keeping in mind that if the Move, Roam or app connect to Sky Q, there may be an issue and just reboot the Sky Q box if you have any. Or, at relatively low cost (though I recommend you spend at least £40-£50) just adding a second router to opt for more reliability. The easiest way to do this would be to copy the WiFi credentials from your Sky router to the new one, then changing those on the Sky router - this will mean there’s no need to teach every device (Sonos and non-Sonos alike) the new credentials. Sky Q will repeat the changed WiFi, meaning that Sonos will no longer connect as it no longer has the right credentials - they will all connect to the new router.

I hope this helps.

Hi ​@SFoggy 

​@jgatie was typing at the same time as I was. His advice is sound, but I think the Sky Q boxes are probably a more pressing concern. It is free to follow, though, so you might want to try it before buying a router.

Thank you for this further information.

I will try turning everything off as you have suggested and then starting everything back up in sequence.

I have a phone line that connects into my Sky Broadband Hub (which I understand acts a router rather than a modem 🤷) - so this will be the first item I turn back on, then a TP link switch (which has other wired broadband connections) then wired Sonos speakers (only my Playbar), then all other Sonos speakers, then Sonos App control devises (iPad, phone etc).

🤞🤞

Hi Corry,

Thanks for your further information and advice which I appreciate.

I only have Sky HD (not Sky Q) so hopefully the sequential restart of equipment is effective 🤞. I’ll get back to you once I’ve tried 👍

Hi ​@SFoggy 

Please refresh this page - I made a couple of errors in my post which you may not see the corrections of until reloading.

If you have a Playbar wired to ethernet, that certainly explains why you mostly see issues with the portables - at least, until your phone connects to a Sky Q box, anyway.

Your Sky Hub is indeed a router, yes.

​@SFoggy, I think Sky HD and Sky Q behave the same way in this regard.

Hi Corrie and jgatie.

In the spirit of appreciation and fairness I wanted to confirm that I followed your advice this evening (ie a full plug out and switch off of everything) followed by a progressive switch back on, in accordance with your defined sequence.

For the first time in months, everything works again!! 👏👏👍👍.

Yes, it’s still a little bit laggy and there are the ongoing functionality issues that are well publicised, but fundamentally you have got my whole system to work again and be able to play Spotify with ease. For your patience and good advice I am very grateful.

Kind regards, Sean

If that worked, to keep it from happening again, you need to reserve an IP address for each Sonos device in your router’s setup.  After that, the router will never issue that IP to anything except the reserved device.  See your router manual for instruction on how to reserve IPs.

Hi ​@SFoggy 

Glad to hear it! Thanks for updating the thread!