Sonos S1 hangs when attempting to add any music service


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Hi. I’ve had an S1 system for over a decade (3x S5 gen1, Amp and Connect) and it generally worked fine. Over the years I’ve subscribed to (legit) Napster, Spotify, Tidal, Qobuz, Apple Music and Deezer. Plus BBC Sounds and a few other services without issue. 

Last night, we purchased our first S2 product, a Move. I removed all existing devices, reset them and, after setting up the S2 with Move, created a new clean S1 system.

All of the devices are there, but the only thing I can connect to is Sonos Radio. If I click to add a music service I just get a spinning ball type icon (happy to share a screen grab if needed) and the app hangs. It responds fine if I select to add a voice system.

I’ve obviously rebooted everything multiple times. I’ve reset the S1 app. I’ve deleted and reinstalled it. On two iOS phones. Nothing works. There are no issues using the Move on the S2 app. All services are visible and available to add.

I spent over an hour on Sonos chat and was ultimately told to call the UK freephone number quoting a case reference. When calling the number a voice recording informs that lines are closed. At 10am when they’re supposedly open?

I’m at a dead end and we’ve gone from ‘let’s trade all of the S1 kit up to a new S2 setup and add a sound bar and sub for the lounge’ to ‘the S2 is going straight back to the shop and the S1s in a skip because we can’t listen to anything.’

Before I literally take the S1 stuff to the recycling centre, does anybody have any tips or ideas that might save the day? To say we’re fed up is an understatement.

Thanks.

 

 

Corry P 9 months ago

Hi @popguru et al

To confirm what @doctorbee just reported, we now consider this issue resolved. If you continue to experience this issue, please get in touch with our technical support team for assistance.

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59 replies

Userlevel 7
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MS Defender on those iPhones?

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Hi there. Sorry, I did check a bunch of similar threads but forgot to mention that no, Defender isn’t installed. 

I really am at a loss with this. The fact that the S1 app is just hanging whereas the S2 immediately displays the list of music services, plus the fact that it’s been working fine for literally years until I reset the S1 devices and created the new networks is telling me, what, exactly? I don’t know how the S1 and S2 apps differ when connecting to music services. I’m using the same Sonos account on both systems, by the way. Presumably that should be fine?

Submit a diagnostic from both the S1 and S2 systems and note the confirmation numbers. I don’t know what is the issue with UK support. You can post the confirmation numbers here and Staff will occasionally comment, but they are in the UK time zone.

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735073989
Sonos S1 in just the lounge connected via ethernet directly to the Virgin Media router (app hangs at Settings - Services & Voice - Music & Content - add a Service)

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Sonos S1 in all four rooms connected via wifi (app hangs at Settings - Services & Voice - Music & Content - add a Service)

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Sonos S2 Move in bedroom connected via wifi (working fine)
 

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And still ‘all lines are closed’, as they have been all day. Times in the grab below are UK summer times.
 

I’m edging closer to giving up and returning the Move to John Lewis, skipping the S1 kit and investing in something else.

 

 

Userlevel 7
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Move is S1 compatible, I run mine on our whole house S1 System.

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Ugh. This is not answered, I accidentally whacked it when picking my phone up and can’t see a way to un-answer it. 
 

Thanks Keith. I was tempted to attempt this earlier but the risk is that I end up with a whole house system that will only play Sonos Radio, and that’s just too much of a risk.

Given Sonos ‘couldn’t care less attitude’, we’ve concluded that we’re going to crack on and return the Move and take the others - plus the Connect that I’d forgotten about - to the local tip. 
 

Thanks for your suggestion, I appreciate it.

One relatively easy trial is to power down the MOVE (the only S2 component), shut down the S2 controller(s), restart the S1 controller, then attempt the music service setup.

You can install MOVE on S1. I think that this is your best plan, but I also think that you should be guided through this by SONOS support. 

As I type this, the sun is barely rising in the UK. It should open for business in a few hours.

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Well, Sonos’s phone lines are still not working (for me at least) here in the UK. 
 

I tried one final thing last night before bed. I reset everything (again). I installed the S2 app and connected and downgraded the Move. Then, I created a new Sonos account in my partner’s name and ‘built’ a new system using S1. Notably, I was immediately able to add new music services and everything worked, including the Move. Of course, I couldn’t use my Apple Music account - which is our primary source because we also have a couple of Sony Atmos setups and an Apple 4k floating around - on her Sonos/iPhone so I had to upgrade to a family Apple Music account to fully test. But that worked.
 

I deliberately excluded one of the S5g1 units. I then reset the app on my phone and turned everything off, then created a new system using just the (reset) S5g1 via *my* iPhone and my Sonos account. And once again, the system hangs as soon as I try to add a music service.

In conclusion, then… it looks to me like something corrupted my Sonos account when we added the Move and S2 app and then attempted to set up a new system of ‘old’ components via the S1. It has been impossible to get any help from Sonos so this is likely to be signing out/off, binning the system and buying something else.

Many thanks to those of you who offered your suggestions and assistance.

 

Userlevel 7
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Hi @popguru 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

First, I am very sorry to hear of the trouble you’ve had with your Sonos system, and the customer support experience you’ve gone through so far trying to find a resolution. Please be assured that your experience is very important to us and I’ll try my best to get you up and running once more.

Unfortunately, you have demonstrated exactly why we say you should not factory reset your Sonos products unless we specifically instruct you to do so - it can indeed make things much worse, and in your case, there was absolutely no good reason or need for you to do so. We are not without blame in this, however, as the page where you can buy Move absolutely should not say that you need our S2 software to operate the device - as @Keithmac says, Move is S1 compatible. I’ve asked for our page to be corrected.

In addition, I’d like to apologise for the fact that you were unable to get through on our technical support lines - I’m not sure why you couldn’t, but I’ve asked for someone to look into it.

I’ll start by concentrating on your S1 system. Please take the Move off it’s charging base and press and hold the power button on the back for at least 5 seconds to turn it off - you will hear a chime, and the light will go off.

It does look like you have 2 WiFi Boosters/Extenders. Please know that these are not supported because they can cause problems such as those you describe. At least until things are working again, I would request that you unplug these from power too. For extending the reach of your WiFi, we recommend the use of WiFi Mesh systems instead.

Please also turn off your Virgin Media router. Once the router has been off for at least 30 seconds, please turn it back on, but keep the extenders/boosters off. It will take the router some time to be fully up-and-running again (about 5 minutes). Once WiFi has returned, please open the Sonos app and try installing a service once more.

Looking at your diagnostics, it’s not clear what’s going wrong, but it’s important to know that everything the Sonos app does or tells you comes from a device on your system designated as the Associated Player. It is this device which actually fetches the list of services available to you. You can find out which device this is by going to Settings » System » About my system and finding the IP address of the Associated Player, then matching that IP address with a unit by scrolling down until you find a match. So, if you see the same issue again after rebooting the router, I recommend finding out which device is the Associated Player and turning it off for now. This will make another device be assigned that AP status, which may make things go differently. Please now try installing a music service once more. 

If it fails again, please go to Settings » App Preferences » Reset App » Reset. Once done, please fully reboot/restart your phone, and re-open the Sonos S1 app, swipe past the introduction, then opt to Connect to Existing System. You’ll need to log in too.

Hopefully, you will now be able to install music services to your S1 system once more. If you cannot, I can only recommend you try again to get in touch with our technical support team for some real-time troubleshooting. I do hope you will be able to get connected to an agent this time!

 

If one of - or a combination of - these steps did help and you now have your music services installed on S1 once more, we’ll now want to get your new Move onto the same system as the rest of your Sonos kit. To do this, we’ll need to reset the Move and the S2 app.

In the Sonos S2 app, select Settings » App Preferences » Reset App » Reset, then exit the app.

Please then take the following steps:

  1. With the Move still off:

  2. While holding the Join button, press and release the power button.

  3. If your Move’s battery is not charged and won’t power on, you can place it on the charging base while holding the Join button instead.

  4. Continue holding the Join button until the light on top flashes orange and white.

  5. The light will flash green when the process is complete and your Sonos Move is reset.

The Join button

Now, open the S2 app once more and follow these steps:

  1. When asked to Set up or Join a system, press More options at the bottom of the screen.

  2. Select Downgrade product to S1.

  3. The app will detect the product nearby. Follow the on-screen instructions to downgrade the product’s software to S1.

  4. You can now uninstall the Sonos S2 app from your phone.

Your Move should now be ready to be added to your S1 system in the standard way: Settings » System » Add Product, from within the Sonos S1 app.

I hope this helps.

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Hi Corry P,

Thank you for taking the time to write such a considered and detailed answer.

We actually have four Devolo Magic 2 power line adaptors, which do work as a Wi-Fi mesh too. We live in an old house with three floors and solid walls throughout. The Devolos work very well to be honest and we would struggle without them, especially since we received Virgin’s latest modem router, which really struggles for some reason. We have a whole load of Hue stuff, Sky multiroom and a smart boiler and heating system as well as well as the Sonos kit and, in all honesty, we’ve had barely any issues with anything until we installed the S2 app.

Honestly, I just don’t have the time and the patience today to try to set everything up yet again. I’ve lost the best part of two working days trying to figure it all out.

That said, I particularly note your comments regarding the AP server. That’s very interesting. If the AP device is turned off, what happens, does another Sonos device automatically get assigned? I’m curious because I obviously rebooted the router etc and the error persisted, plus when I created the new ‘clean’ network I added devices one at time to see if it could be isolated to a specific one.

Finally, does the AP need to the same (or even different) when a user has both S1 and S2 accounts?

Thanks again,

Martin

 

 

 

Userlevel 7
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Hi @popguru 

Please - take your time and address this when you feel up to it. There’s no point in getting tech fatigue!

I had a feeling you’d say something like that about your extenders - I did mean that they only needed to be turned off until you get things working again, just so we can be sure that it is not them getting in the way of the list of services being populated. I’m not sure why you’re having the issue you’re having, but simplifying things (the network) at least until things work again can be helpful. To be clear, however, Powerline adaptors are not supported by Sonos as they can introduce issues not otherwise seen, but many users use them often without issue. By turning them off, we’ll be ensuring that the app and Associated Player are both connecting via the same network access point.

That said, I particularly note your comments regarding the AP server. That’s very interesting. If the AP device is turned off, what happens, does another Sonos device automatically get assigned? I’m curious because I obviously rebooted the router etc and the error persisted, plus when I created the new ‘clean’ network I added devices one at time to see if it could be isolated to a specific one.

The Associated Player is simply the first Sonos device to respond when the the app opens and says “hello?” on the network. By turning off one, another becomes the first. It’s not unusual for a particular speaker to always be the AP, however, so my thinking is that forcing a change might help. If you previously reset your system and tried adding services with each additional device added, this unfortunately now seems to me less likely to help.

I don’t recall coming across this particular issue before, so the best I can do at the moment is to give educated guesses as to what will fix the problem. If none of your previous troubleshooting steps were proceeded by a reboot of your router and phone, it’s conceivable that they will help if repeated after doing the reboots. My assumption is that not just one thing has gone wrong here, and that perhaps before we can fix the main problem, there might be another, less obvious one we need to fix first. Reboots often help with this, and many people neglect the possibility that the router and phone are the ones in need of a reboot rather than the speakers.

Finally, does the AP need to the same (or even different) when a user has both S1 and S2 accounts?

You have S1 and S2 Households (what we call separate systems whether they are in separate locations or not) rather than accounts, but there will be a separate Associated Player for each system/household, yes. The Associated Player for your S2 system can only be the Move as it’s the only device on that system. This is largely irrelevant, however, as you ideally want your Move to be a part of your S1 system, rather than being on it’s own on S2.

On the subject of the Move, I’m a little confused - it wasn’t registered to your account anymore, so I just now did a little digging. The Move is now online, running S1 software, and registered to another user. There are two Play:5s on the same system. If it is still in your home and now just registered to your partner, for example, are you able to add streaming services to that system as per normal? If so, I recommend you now just reset the other devices (Connect:Amp, Connect and Play:5) and add them to the Move’s system, and that should be the problem done and dusted.

By the way, you now have no reason to have the S2 app installed on any of your devices - please uninstall it.

I hope this helps.

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Good morning,

Firstly, thanks again for the second follow up.

Just to confirm, we do have it working as a single system now on S1, albeit everything (other than one unit, I think a Connect) has been ‘transferred’ as such to the new Sonos account that we created in Jackie’s name.
 

When adding Apple Music as a service it automatically uses her iCloud account and I’m not going to add mine as a user on her phone just to see if it can be done. Instead, I’ve changed our Apple Music sub to a family one.

What I would say though is that we used ‘new’ system with the Move in our little garden on Friday night and it kept dropping off, even when we moved it closer to one of the S5s. We currently have three S5s and the Connect Amp on the ground floor, with them all being within maybe 10m if one another sand, although we do have solid brick walls throughout, there are open doors in all rooms. I’ll bring the Move out into the garden and see how it works out this afternoon. It will itself be about 8m from the closest S5 with just a window in between so fingers crossed.

Userlevel 7
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What I would say though is that we used ‘new’ system with the Move in our little garden on Friday night and it kept dropping off, even when we moved it closer to one of the S5s. We currently have three S5s and the Connect Amp on the ground floor, with them all being within maybe 10m if one another sand, although we do have solid brick walls throughout, there are open doors in all rooms. I’ll bring the Move out into the garden and see how it works out this afternoon. It will itself be about 8m from the closest S5 with just a window in between so fingers crossed.

The Move does not use SonosNet, so its proximity to other Sonos devices is irrelevant. The Move can only communicate with your WiFi network, so its proximity to your router or AP is what is important (and the quality of the router).

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Following this thread. I’m having the exact same issue. I’ve had my Sonos system for over 10 years as well, with no new additions since purchasing it. I have two Play:1s, one Play:5, one Play:3, a bridge, and am running the S1 app. I am also unable to add new music services and I have tested on 2 separate devices, my iPad and my iPhone. I have reset my router (single router in home, no extenders), reset the Sonos bridge, associated a new AP, reset the app and rebooted my iphone, and I’m still getting the same spinning circle when trying to add a new service. 

A couple of things to mention. First, I’d recommend retiring the BRIDGE from your setup. The potential for issues that are extremely difficult to track due to a failing power supply on the BRDGE suggests one of two options. Either connect a Sonos speaker not in use as a surround or Sub, or hang everything off your Wi-Fi itself, using the ‘network’ are in the controller. 

Second, don’t assume that your network lives in a vacuum. While it is indeed likely that you’ve made no changes, it’s extremely unlikely that changes haven’t occurred without your intervention. From updates applied to your router by the manufacturer, to Wi-Fi interference from outside your network, all of these can be a factor. It might be worth a read of the wifi interference FAQ, at the least. 

But ultimately, for hard data analysis, there isn’t much that can beat a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and a call to Sonos Support to discuss it.

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

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Thanks for the guidance Bruce. I wasn’t aware that the BRIDGE is retired and no longer recommended. I successfully removed the BRIDGE from my setup. Unfortunately, I still cannot see any music services from my iOS devices. I may need to contact support with the diagnostic as you suggested.

I’d also like to add that I tried to add music services from the Sonos client on my MacBook Pro. On that device I can see all available music services, and was able to add Soundcloud successfully. However, I am trying to add Apple music, and receive a message that it can only be added from an iOS or Android device. 

Userlevel 7
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This is the same issue:

I have a pre-existing S1 system and it is fine, but both of these users seem to have “new” S1 systems and neither can get them to work correctly (on mobile).

Userlevel 1

Same problem here using the S1 app with S1 speakers….

Userlevel 1

FYI… After a lengthy call with Sonos Support Level 3 confirmed it is a known issue which will be fixed in a future App Update. They are trying to get me an ETA and version # in which it is scheduled to be fixed. If I happen to get that I’ll respond here...

Hi @popguru,

Hope so you’re doing good, below defined are the solution of your problem:

  1. Ensure Sonos devices are up to date with the latest firmware and software versions.
  2. Verify network connectivity and check for any network configuration issues or firewall settings that may be blocking the Sonos app.
  3. Power-cycle all Sonos devices and network equipment by turning them off, unplugging them, restarting the router, and then powering everything back on.
  4. Reset the Sonos app's cache to resolve any software glitches or conflicts.
  5. If the issue persists, contact Sonos customer support for further assistance and consider using a different device for setup and control.

Hope so this points help you to solve your problem asap!

Regards,

Bryce June

I have same issue with S1 & play 5. Let’s waiting for a fix update. 

Came here looking for this, S1 and play 5 gen 1. Moved, reset and now it’s useless until this is fixed...thanks for those who pried the information out of Sonos, ridiculous they didn’t let the community know if they know.

Same issues here too. Spent the majority of a day trying all the same steps. Absolutely not worth the effort anymore if they are going to essentially sunset products. 
 

still waiting of justification for why a DAC with a * UI needs to cost $600 too

 

*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

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