Music Will Randomly Stop Playing and then Come Back On

Are there any other SONOS units in your system?

We cannot rule out hardware failure. Refrain from Factory reset prior to working with support because this will trash Diagnostic data that might have been useful.

Buzz - thanks for your follow-up. No, there are no other Sonos units in my system. I have hardwired speakers throughout the home which are powered by the Sonos connect and an amplifier (TRUAUDIO) which is located in my head end room. Everything has always worked perfectly for many years and I’ve just noticed this issue recently. 

Hardware fault is moving up in my list of suspects.

Be sure to check silly things, such as a flakey network cable or connector.

I have AT&T U-Verse in my home and since everything is hardwired I’m thinking about doing a “soft” reset on my router to see if perhaps it’s a cache issue. Does this sound like a good approach to you? 

Yes, I have a FIOS router that spawns a lot of grumpy chat on the Internet. From time to time it benefits from a reboot. At one point I caught it handing out duplicate IP addresses. This was definitely the router’s fault because the duplicate showed in the router’s own tables.

You’ve been very helpful. I’ve performed the soft reset on my router and I’m monitoring my music now. I’ll circle back with you tomorrow after I get a few hours of listening under my belt. Thanks for your assistance this evening. 

Have you reserved IP addresses?

Good question. At one time I had a static IP address but once the AT&T U-Verse was installed my IT guy told me that it might not be a good idea to have a static IP address as sometimes the IP addresses are given out in a range. My Sonos IP address right now is: 192.168.4.40. The soft reset failed as I still had the same problem with the music stopping randomly. I just performed a HARD reset and the IP address that I provided to you above is what is being used now. So far no music stopping issues but I need to get a few hours of listening under my belt so I’ll circle back with you tomorrow afternoon. Thanks Buzz!

SONOS always fetches its IP addresses from a DHCP server. It is not possible to configure a “fixed” IP address in a SONOS unit. “Reservations” instruct the DCHP server to always give the reserved address only to a given client. Reservations reduce the risk of duplicate IP address assignments during a SONOS firmware update. Corporate and old style network administrators are wary of DHCP servers and prefer to go inside each unit and configure it for a specific IP address. While this has advantages in large, diverse corporate networks, it is not possible with much of the current consumer electronics commonly found in homes. Reservation is the practical defense against duplicates.