Skip to main content
Answered

Sonos + Spotify: Random Muting/Unmuting and Latency When Selecting Speakers

  • February 16, 2025
  • 9 replies
  • 130 views
K

When I select a Spotify song in the Sonos app and checkmark all or a subset of the Sonos speakers on my wireless LAN, the speakers will randomly mute and unmute before gradually settling into the specified song and configuration. This process can require almost a minute, presumably while the network services finish negotiating?

Across my townhome I have seven (7) Sonos Five speakers, plus a small theater with an arc ultra, sub mini, and two Era 300s.

I have a relatively high-end wireless router (a Nighthawk with 40-50 device capacity).

I’d like to be able to select a song, check a subset of the speakers, and have the music reliably begin on the target devices without latency.

 

 

 

Best answer by Airgetlam

My guess would be, as you suggest, a network issue, with IP addresses. I’d recommend, at least as a test, that you power off all your Sonos speakers, and then reboot your Nighthawk. Once the router has come back up, give it a couple of minutes to settle down, then plug back in your Sonos devices. Give them a couple of minutes to reboot and reconnect before testing. 

If this resolves the issue, I’d suggest checking the Nighthawk’s manual for how to set up reserved IP addresses in the DHCP table, and doing so for at least the Sonos, so you don’t run into this again.

However, if this doesn’t change anything, I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it. But don’t post the resulting diagnostic number here, they 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.

 

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

9 replies

K
  • KindMerlin72
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • February 16, 2025

Incidentally, I’ve never experienced network delays with my television or any other devices.

Airgetlam
  • Airgetlam
  • Answer
  • February 16, 2025

My guess would be, as you suggest, a network issue, with IP addresses. I’d recommend, at least as a test, that you power off all your Sonos speakers, and then reboot your Nighthawk. Once the router has come back up, give it a couple of minutes to settle down, then plug back in your Sonos devices. Give them a couple of minutes to reboot and reconnect before testing. 

If this resolves the issue, I’d suggest checking the Nighthawk’s manual for how to set up reserved IP addresses in the DHCP table, and doing so for at least the Sonos, so you don’t run into this again.

However, if this doesn’t change anything, I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it. But don’t post the resulting diagnostic number here, they 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.

 

Bruce
K
  • KindMerlin72
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • February 16, 2025

Thanks, Airgetlam. I will try these things.

It’s good to know that this is not a known and unfixable flaw of these devices. 

Airgetlam
K
  • KindMerlin72
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • February 16, 2025

Turning off the devices, rebooting the router, and bringing them all back online appears to have worked.

Sound, glorious sound…

Thanks.

R
  • randyvenn
  • Lyricist I
  • March 22, 2025

since I have over 20 Sonos speakers going room to room to reboot these is pretty ridiculous - 1 is even in my outdoor kitchen , 1 is in my shower room that needs a ladder upstairs - Sonos needs to find a software fix for this - why does my Pandora music service work flawlessly? 

K
  • KindMerlin72
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • March 22, 2025

Randy, I only had to do it once, and the speakers have performed flawlessly since then. I suspect that my gradual  acquisition and installation of speakers by “drips and drabs” was difficult for the networking software to accommodate.

I went around unplugging all my speakers and then the router and let it sit for 4-5 minutes. Then I went back and plugged in all my speakers. Upon testing: sweet music to my ears.

Took maybe 20 minutes?

 

 

K
  • KindMerlin72
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • March 22, 2025

Randy, I do understand your frustration though, especially with having to do the hard-to-reach speakers. I think you’ll only have to do it once.

 

It might be easy for Sonos to add a “Network Reboot” button to the UI. When clicked, a message would be sent to each speaker, instructing each to shutdown and pause a specified interval before coming back online one-at-a-time. This would cause each to acquire a new IP address from the router.

R
  • randyvenn
  • Lyricist I
  • March 22, 2025

thankfully my search and circumstances led me to play.sonos.com web interface and have that on my iPad control center now and phone and MacBooks and all works flawlessly once the speakers are discovered the first time- can change songs and zero lag time and bouncing from speaker to speaker! 

 

I am still dissatisfied that I have to do this - again- when Pandora works flawlessly - I know I know Spotify is higher quality requiring higher bandwidth … still … come on now.. it’s freakin 2025 - seriously my wife wants to go back to CD’s (no not back to the vinyl- although I know its all the rage).. she said : “she can count on them to work “.. hard to argue with the amount of time we have spent on troubleshooting the issues by our own research and trials and on the phone with Sonos Customer support -who have their hands tied due to bad engineering … we have hard wired , we have rebooted, factory re-setted - to death! 

K
  • KindMerlin72
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • March 22, 2025

Randy,

Thank you for mentioning the play.sonos.com web interface! I had not heard of it and it does seem (after my 3 minutes of exploring it) to work well.

I’m sorry that you and your wife have had a time with this. Perhaps by sheer luck I tried the forum first and was quickly given the solution I mentioned by Airgetlam (thanks again). 

CDs might be fun to collect but I just have so many physical possessions to keep up with already. Vinyl is appealing in a way, but records scratch so easily, and I’m not convinced that the “warmth” of vinyl isn’t related to a muddiness. And of course like all physical things, vinyl will eventually wear out. But in a consumer society many of us feel the need to compulsively collect.

I think one of the things cool to me about the web site is that like all web sites it is theoretically programmable using a web automation tool like Selenium. I’m a software engineer, and I’ve longed to be able to discretely program my speakers, and the APIs from Sonos and Spotify that I’ve tried were difficult. 

Terms & ConditionsCookie settingsAccessibility statement