Was that a question?

How often do you change your wifi? 
 

Have you considered setting the wifi credentials for your new setup to match that of your current and working credentials, rather than reconfiguring your devices?

As a small update to illustrate the pain - the app is now stuck (for an hour+) with the message “Finalising connection”. Yet another bug - stuck in an infinite loop. 

Also, the whole concept of the SONOS speaker “owning” the streaming is daft and has zero advantages  but contributes to the many problems. Starting with the fact that you can only listen to streaming services supported by SONOS. - WTF?!. Why can’t I just stream ANY music to my speakers - like every other sensible system. Maybe the AirPlay experience is better, but the damage to my soul is too bad for me to ever consider SONOS again.

Do SONOS understand how damaging this software is to their brand. 

» Have you considered setting the wifi credentials for your new setup to match that of your current and working credentials, rather than reconfiguring your devices?

Two answers:

• Yes, however my new router wants a password that is longer has numbers, upper, lower case, symbols and the lords prayer backwards. So I couldn’t use my old password.
• Secondly - is the software so poor that this approach has to be recommended?

 Actually Sonos is the system that offers the most streaming service options.

Does it cause the same issue while being connected to the same wifi for a long period?

Every router offers an admin portal (the URL and password are written on your router) where you can set the password to whatever you want, control various settings, and then make sure Sonos is using the same network SSID and password. There’s nothing poor about software and networks needing to be in sync. This is how networks and network attached devices function. Your issue seems to be more about your lack of home network knowledge and changing your network entirely, and less about Sonos software.

Ok thanks for your feedback. A few things in response -

• My router software has a restriction on the password meaning I couldn't change to the old one - this was the first thing I tried.
• I now have my two Play 3 speakers working, but it took me around 5 hours. Issues encountered:
  • Various instructions online didn’t match the UI on the app
  • I did factory resets of both speakers - past experience tells me this is generally necessary. In fact I ended up doing resets many many times
  • I tried to set up over WiFi. It worked as far as the bit where I entered my new network details - (i.e. the password) then failed to log into the network. I checked the password many many many times and proved it my logging into the network with other devices
  • I got the WiFi joining to work by pushing the WPS button on the router and connected. However:
  • It then got as far as saying it needed a software upgrade which I went ahead with and waited fro 20mins or whatever it needs. It failed every time with various error codes, then went back to being a brick.
  • So I then did a reset and set up with an ethernet cable to my router. After many failed attempts (again including the software upgrade not work), it then eventually worked.
  • However, having set up from a wired link, I could not see any way to make it work wirelessly.
  • However at least I’d got the software upgrade done, so thought this would now give me a chance for WiFi
  • So I did another factory reset (in fact many in a cycle) and tried again over WiFi
  • Then I did the same trick with the WPS and eventually got one speaker working.
  • I then repeated the same steps (with many failed loops and error codes) for the other speaker.
  • However, the first speak disappeared from the app - even though I was playing Spotify through it. So I couldn’t get the two speakers to pair
  • Many more loops later with various combinations of ethernet and no ethernet, I eventually managed to set up as a paired set of speakers.

The whole experience was however very time consuming and buggy. 

Final questions really - I imagine the experience is better with AirPlay. Also while SONOS support many streaming services - so does my phone and other devices. So I don’t need SONOS to own the streaming service as there are absolutely some it doesn’t support - e.g. audio for playing a YouTube video,, BBC iplayer or BBC sounds etc. 

Anyway, with AirPlay, I assume the SONOS does not “own” the streaming, so this issue is also resolved.

To end on a positive note, the speakers themselves are great (for audio quality) and I now have working. I just think you need to take a good look at the software design, leadership and release and test process. Looking at this forum it seems many people have had far worse issues.

How odd, what brand router do you have that has the SSID / Passphrase reuse restrictions?

Were any of the out of date instructions on a Sonos site? Can you link them here so the administrators can flag them for updates?

There’s broadly three ways streaming service and queue ownership is managed across different products, some examples being:

• Controller owned: upnp/dlna, airplay, Bluetooth streaming 

• Player Device owned: Sonos, Linn Openhome, Yamaha MusicCast

• Server owned: Roon, Lyrion Media Server (formerly Logitech Media Server and SlimServer)

Player devices will often have support for Bluetooth, AirPlay so if they don’t include a service you can still use a controller to play back to them.

I included Yamaha because I use them. I haven’t used Heos, Bluesound, Wiim so don’t know for sure which model they use. Most likely, like other Players they have a mix of player owned and additional such as Bluetooth, AirPlay etc.

Which is best is subjective. I personally prefer Player owned services and queues for things I use a lot and view that as an advantage and prefer products which implement it because it means

• I can just pickup whatever control device is closest and most convenient to control playback.
• If I leave the house music doesn’t stop playing for other people in the house.
• I don’t need to keep my tablet/phone/computer which started the music playback switched on, charged or in the house to listen to music
• Different people in the house can start, stop, change the music in different rooms without needing to play find the controller in charge because the player is in charge.

​@RogerFromAccounts

 Two things…. I don’t want my phone on when playing music and I really enjoy Dolby Atmos music.  So I need the services on the Sonos app.  AirPlay, Bluetooth & ChromeCast are not my cup of tea.

Fair comments. I guess I can see an advantage to sometimes being independent of the phone. However, you still need the app, so the phone (or another device) is involved regardless.

It’s also frustrating that (for some things) you can’t just stream ANY audio from a device to SONOS. But again, I imagine this is possible with newer products.

Roger

 Back to your original nightmare.  What is your latest WiFi configuration?  Xfinity (Comcast) is my ISP and I have no issues here at all with Sonos except for some of the quirky app UI stuff that’s well documented here.