All the skipping issues I have seen posted relate to tracks skipping at random. I am finding that about 10% of the songs on my hard drive skip, always at the same time point, which varies between songs. A message will come up at, say, 1:14 saying the connection was lost and then it will play for another 20 seconds or so before skipping ahead. The songs affected show no pattern - some old, some new, some from cds, some from Bandcamp downloads.
Answered
Specific songs skipping, always at the same time point
Best answer by Corry P
Hi
Please temporarily connect your laptop to the router with an ethernet cable, disable the laptop’s WiFi, and then test playback on Sonos.
Doing this, you will at least be able to discount the laptop’s WiFi connection as the issue if playback still suffers. If this fixes your playback issues, however, and if you want to keep your laptop mobile, I’d recommend looking for a ethernet-wired, always on, NAS (Network Attached Storage) solution instead. Sometimes this can be as cheap and easy as plugging a USB memory stick into your router and enabling the option in the router settings - it depends on the router.
If your laptop has no ethernet port, please situate it about 2-3 metres (6-9 feet) from your router to test instead.
Finally - though I don’t think this is the case - if your laptop, on the other floor, normally connects to a WiFi Booster or WiFi Extender that I can’t see in the diagnostics, this could conceivably also be the cause of the problem. A mesh-based WiFi system would be more reliable.
It’s theoretically possible - if your music tracks are encoded with Variable BitRate (VBR) - that at certain points in each track, the bitrate rises beyond that which the weakest link in the networking chain can reliably handle. This could be an explanation of why tracks fail at the same points, though I’m not sure how likely it is.
I hope this helps.
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+19Hi
Welcome to the Sonos Community!
That’s quite unusual. Could you please recreate the issue then submit a support diagnostic, replying here with the confirmation number given?
Thanks.
Is this a playlist of songs always played in the same order? (not shuffled)
+19Hi
Thanks for the diagnostics.
It seems the system (most errors are from the Bedroom speaker) is having a lot of trouble connecting to, and maintaining the connection to, the device that is hosting your music library. What is the nature of this device, please, and how does it connect to the network? If it uses an ethernet cable, I’d look to trying another cable. If it uses WiFi, make sure it is isolated from other WiFi devices (like the router) by at least 1 metre.
I see one instance in the Living Room of a 24bit, 96KHz file attempting to play - this format is not supported by Sonos (48KHz maximum). It was named “Lightning Bug - A Color of the Sky.flac”
I don’t have an explanation for why it always happens at the same points in each track - most of the errors I see seem to be from an attempt to play multiple files (a playlist or existing queue) and they fail collectively within a second or two. They all seem to be transport errors, which is the process of getting the data to the speaker from the source, through the network.
I hope this helps.
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
Is this a playlist of songs always played in the same order? (not shuffled)
No, always a different order
Hi
Thanks for the diagnostics.
It seems the system (most errors are from the Bedroom speaker) is having a lot of trouble connecting to, and maintaining the connection to, the device that is hosting your music library. What is the nature of this device, please, and how does it connect to the network? If it uses an ethernet cable, I’d look to trying another cable. If it uses WiFi, make sure it is isolated from other WiFi devices (like the router) by at least 1 metre.
I see one instance in the Living Room of a 24bit, 96KHz file attempting to play - this format is not supported by Sonos (48KHz maximum). It was named “Lightning Bug - A Color of the Sky.flac”
I don’t have an explanation for why it always happens at the same points in each track - most of the errors I see seem to be from an attempt to play multiple files (a playlist or existing queue) and they fail collectively within a second or two. They all seem to be transport errors, which is the process of getting the data to the speaker from the source, through the network.
I hope this helps.
It is a laptop, and it connects to the network via wifi. It is about 35 feet from the router (in a different room, on a different floor). I have deleted the .flac files from my library.
+19Hi
Please temporarily connect your laptop to the router with an ethernet cable, disable the laptop’s WiFi, and then test playback on Sonos.
Doing this, you will at least be able to discount the laptop’s WiFi connection as the issue if playback still suffers. If this fixes your playback issues, however, and if you want to keep your laptop mobile, I’d recommend looking for a ethernet-wired, always on, NAS (Network Attached Storage) solution instead. Sometimes this can be as cheap and easy as plugging a USB memory stick into your router and enabling the option in the router settings - it depends on the router.
If your laptop has no ethernet port, please situate it about 2-3 metres (6-9 feet) from your router to test instead.
Finally - though I don’t think this is the case - if your laptop, on the other floor, normally connects to a WiFi Booster or WiFi Extender that I can’t see in the diagnostics, this could conceivably also be the cause of the problem. A mesh-based WiFi system would be more reliable.
It’s theoretically possible - if your music tracks are encoded with Variable BitRate (VBR) - that at certain points in each track, the bitrate rises beyond that which the weakest link in the networking chain can reliably handle. This could be an explanation of why tracks fail at the same points, though I’m not sure how likely it is.
I hope this helps.
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
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