Old devices preventing S2 upgrade

I found info on ignoring these non-existent legacy devices and get S2 via the system compatibility check:

Open the Sonos S1 app and go to Settings | System | System Tools and run a System compatibility check. That should walk you through the process.

However, the 5 legacy devices are still shown in my online system tab, and I’d still like to get them removed, so does that require a support call?

Hello @Johnny Rico 

Thanks for reaching out to the Community.

I see that you have upgraded everything on your current system to S2. You would just need to delete the S1 app and use the S2 app.

Hi David, the S1/S2 app issue is sorted and no longer a problem. The S1 compatibility check correctly did not find non-existent legacy devices and accordingly I was able to upgrade to S2.

The problem is that Sonos still thinks I have legacy devices in my system per https://www.sonos.com/myaccount/system/households/devices/, and I want to get this corrected and have these non-existent devices removed from my account. See images below...

The reason that those units are still showing on your account is that they haven't been registered to another’s account so for now, you can look at it as a virtual receipt. If you don't want to see the legacy devices on your account anymore, you can perform a system transfer so that way your modern devices can follow your new email account while the legacy devices will still be associated with the old account as they await for to be registered under the person that you sold the units to.

Thanks for that explanation, David. But...I find it hard to believe there is no other option. Are you saying that every device that every Sonos user has ever purchased will forever remain on their accounts unless they sell or give said devices to another Sonos user who then must add it to their own system? That’s rather unbelievable. It’s a game of hot potato really; by now, there must be a very large number of Sonos users stuck in my position with old devices on their accounts that could finally never find another home. 

In my case, I got rid of these devices so long ago that I don’t even remember how. For some of them, I probably recycled them at my local town electronics recycling center because I kept them so long that there was no market to sell them. But in any event, if these devices haven’t been registered to another’s account by now, they never will be.

The suggested workaround of transferring account ownership isn’t particularly palatable. I have everything I own (home automation, etc) under my email address, and I don't particularly want a one-off case on some other email address; I don’t have another email address anyway. And I don’t really want to use my wife’s email; that’s inconvenient. She’s one of these people with an inbox of 500 unread emails; if anything important was sent from Sonos, I might never find out! I briefly thought perhaps I could transfer ownership to her email, and then turn around and transfer ownership back to mine, but based on what you said, it sounds like the legacy devices would just be left on my email after the transfer, so this idea would only cause those devices to still be there after the second transfer.

Surely, you guys have the ability to edit my account and remove these deadwood devices. Surely, this is a need not just for me, but for many other Sonos users as well.

@Johnny Rico Why do you have a problem with old devices stil being on your account? It is just an administration - it has no effect on anything.

106rallye, it’s not just administration that has no side effects. First off, it prevented me from getting the S2 upgrade automatically. I had to notice that my app icon changed to “S1”, and after several days, decide it wasn’t a fluke, and then look into what that meant, and then investigate why I couldn’t get S2 when I had no legacy devices any longer, and then finally find a forum post that told me how to use the compatibility checker in the S1 app to solve the issue. A waste of my time and energy for something I shouldn’t have had to do.

Secondarily, these non-existent legacy devices apparently are used to flag my account as having “trade-up” opportunities and result in Sonos sending me unnecessary emails telling me that I should trade up.

Finally, and admittedly, I have a little OCD. I like my checkbook balanced and I use a level when I hang a picture. I don’t like going into my Sonos online account and seeing legacy devices dating from 2007 & 2008 that I no longer have. In addition, my account therefore also shows verbiage that tells me a) I should (again) trade up and b) I can’t have S2 because I have unsupported devices.

It’s annoying. I have Sonos (and have had Sonos since the mid-90s) because it was annoying to hunt around a rack of CDs to find something and then play it in just one room. I’m annoyed that I have to ask for this to be done, that I can’t remove a device from my system as easily as I add one. Every single Sonos device ever sold (except for those disposed of via the recycling program) is still sitting in somebody’s account?! Didn’t tons of people then have trouble moving to S2 like I did? Or, are there tons of Sonos users blithely looking at an app icon that says “S1” and kind of wondering what it means but not interested enough to look into it? If so, support will be hearing about that in time 

I get laughed at because I read manuals before buying stuff, so I understand some of what you are saying. I’m not sure the fact these old devices still being on your account prevents updates to S2 though.

I’m with you, and having PDF manuals available on manufacturer’s sites is one of the nifties things about the internet  I always download the PDF manual for important purchases and save it, along with a scan of the receipt and warranty, etc, on disk. Actually on Google Drive, so that I can also access it on my phone in a pinch. But that’s me