Music service (Audible, Idagio...) skipping, jumping to next track in middle of a track

I’ve spoken on three separate occasions to Sonos Technical Support.  They’ve had me (1) change the wireless channel, twice; (2) change the SonosNet Channel; (3) reboot the wireless router; (4) reboot all four Sonos speakers.  [The case # is 02389036, I  sent at least diagnostics today, 12/10/20 at 4:30 p.m., I don’t written the numbers down].

Also, I’ve gone back to the Sonos pages regarding music services skipping and troubleshoot according to all the directions given.  No interference from other nearby devices.  This only began about 3 weeks ago.  I’ve had the speakers 6-7 years.

The final step (5) I’ve been asked to do is to change the DNS to a DNS Google (?).

The Audible app works using bluetooth or independently (as on my smartphone) without skipping in the middle of a track to the next track, so I know it has something to do with Sonos.

Since you didn’t specify, I’ll repeat my question. 

Were all your Sonos devices unplugged while you rebooted the router?

This has all the hallmarks of an IP address issue, which might be resolved by the process I suggested in that question. Unfortunately, rebooting the router and the speakers sequentially would not fix what my guess is as to what you’re experiencing. 

As a community member, and not an employee of Sonos, I don’t have access to your case information, or any diagnostics associated with your issue. 

Were all your Sonos devices unplugged while you rebooted the router?

No, they weren’t.  I wasn’t asked to do that.  Would that help, do you think?

It would help resolve one particular issue, yes. If that’s the issue causing your concerns, of course. Rebooting sequentially helps a lot of things, but not all. And there are so many things about networking, it’s always safest to do it that way. I’m not sure I understand why the scripts the support folks work from don’t consider that potential. Depending on the router, it can indeed be an issue. 

It’s a low cost, low time intensive thing, so it’s worth a shot. 

I tried it yesterday.   I rebooted all four speakers (what is sequentially?) and then rebooted the wireless router.  Or did you mean reboot one, then reboot the wireless, reboot another, reboot wireless?   I haven’t checked.  I got so discouraged from days of Sonos One skipping with the Audible service, I am using other music services.  But Audible is the principal one I use.

No, I meant all Sonos devices need to be unplugged first, then the router needs to be rebooted. When the router comes back up, you should plug back in the Sonos devices. If you leave a Sonos device plugged in during the router reboot process, then it will hold on to some of the settings, which you don’t want to happen. Doing it the way you did, you’re getting some benefit, just not all benefit, and perhaps not solving the issue your system is experiencing. 
 

I  did as you said.  I even changed the wireless router to 2.4G by setting it back to the factory authorized state.

And reset the PC controller.

Audible is still skipping before the end of a track, “the song cannot be played/is not coded correctly” or something to that effect.  It’s skipping haphazardly, sometimes towards the beginning, at other times, close to the middle, and still at other times closer to the end of the track.  It occurs on every track.

The controller is displaying the wrong chapters. usually the one before or after.

And the channel is set to 6.

So, then we’ve ruled out the potential for duplicate IP addresses as being the culprit, then. Channel 6  seems like an odd definitive statement, though, you should be using whatever channel (1, 6 or 11] that has the least use by other people I n your area. You could quite plausibly be picking up wifi interference from any source, whether inside your home or outside. And it’s even possible that the issue is with the Audible or Idagio’s servers. There is no guaranty, from a forum posting conversation, that i can know exactly what is happening, i can guess that there are several potential possibilities and ask that you apply fixes that address each of them. As another user, I just don’t have access to the hard data that the Sonos folks, who you’ve talked to have, so I’m just making guesses, based on my own experience and knowledge of WiFi networking.

Have you tried wiring one speaker to the router directly, and playing those two sources on only that one speaker? That might help figure out if we are talking about interference, or some potential issue at the Audible or Idagio server side. 

I did connect one speaker (of the four) directly via Ethernet cable to the router.  When I played an Audible book, it made no difference:  it skipped to the next chapter.  Now I listen to Audible via a Bluetooth speaker and my I-pad, but of course, I’d much prefer to hear Audible on Sonos in either my living room or bedroom.  Actually, I avoid listening to Audible totally, as I listen 90% of what I stream on Sonos, not my desktop, bluetooth speaker, mobile device, etc.  I am very very disappointed.   After 6-7 years, all of a sudden, this happens, for no apparent reason.  And after having spent hours and hours searching on the Sonos forum, elsewhere on the Web, and speaking to Sonos staff.