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Joshua198
Contributor I
October 6, 2022
Answered

Sonos system dropping to iphone since iOS 16 update

Hello all,

Ever since updating to the latest stable iOS 16, I have been having a problem where my Sonos/Airplay system keeps dropping to my iPhone when all speakers are connected. I use an iOS Shortcut to automatically connect all my speakers from my iPhone. I have tried: resetting my router, resetting all speakers, removing/adding each speaker to see if one particular speaker was the culprit. I have also changed phones, and the problem persists. The speakers do not drop when some are connected and not others. This problem persists when I do not use the shortcut and manually add the speakers - system still drops.

My system consists of: Sonos Arc connected to 2 Sonos Ones and a Sub, 2 IKEA Symfonisk bookshelves, 1 IKEA Symfonisk Picture Frame Speaker, 1 Sonos Roam, and 5 HomePod Minis (2 in stereo pair, another 2 in stereo pair connected via Apple TV). All connect via Airplay. The system was previously working fine.

Any idea on a fix? Has anyone been experiencing anything similar? May this be related to an iOS 16 bug?

Thanks,

Josh

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Ken_Griffiths
Ken_GriffithsAnswer
October 6, 2022

Its difficult to answer your post Josh, as the issue could be iOS 16 related, or perhaps Network related  as networks can change too and be affected by many external factors.

With Airplay-v1 there used to be a ‘recommendation’ by many users, and software Apps, to not group more than 6 Airplay devices for playback, but I’ve never seen anything relating to Airplay-v2. However personally I tend to stick to that unwritten rule and often only ever Airplay to one Sonos device and then do all ‘grouping’ in the Sonos App, as that always seemed far more reliable in my own use-case. Very rare do I exceed 6 Sonos rooms when grouping.

I don’t have HomePods to test these things myself, but it might be worth seeing if separating your speakers into smaller groups by ‘manufacturer/brand’ only might make a difference. If you still get dropouts with various smaller/different groups, that might go some of the way to suggest it’s possibly an iOS 16 issue and if the smaller groups play fine, then I would perhaps look at it possibly being network latency and an interference issue, for which there are many posts here in the community that provide suggestions to resolving those type of issues.. here are couple of common suggestions to look at if it does start to look like it might be local network latency:

Wireless Interference Document:

WiFi Interference

Wireless Interference Video:

Wireless Interference and Sonos

View in thread

23 replies

Ken_Griffiths
Ken_GriffithsAnswer
October 6, 2022

Its difficult to answer your post Josh, as the issue could be iOS 16 related, or perhaps Network related  as networks can change too and be affected by many external factors.

With Airplay-v1 there used to be a ‘recommendation’ by many users, and software Apps, to not group more than 6 Airplay devices for playback, but I’ve never seen anything relating to Airplay-v2. However personally I tend to stick to that unwritten rule and often only ever Airplay to one Sonos device and then do all ‘grouping’ in the Sonos App, as that always seemed far more reliable in my own use-case. Very rare do I exceed 6 Sonos rooms when grouping.

I don’t have HomePods to test these things myself, but it might be worth seeing if separating your speakers into smaller groups by ‘manufacturer/brand’ only might make a difference. If you still get dropouts with various smaller/different groups, that might go some of the way to suggest it’s possibly an iOS 16 issue and if the smaller groups play fine, then I would perhaps look at it possibly being network latency and an interference issue, for which there are many posts here in the community that provide suggestions to resolving those type of issues.. here are couple of common suggestions to look at if it does start to look like it might be local network latency:

Wireless Interference Document:

WiFi Interference

Wireless Interference Video:

Wireless Interference and Sonos

mwize
Lyricist I
October 8, 2022

I’m having the same issue.  This is not network related.  4 of my Sonos devices stopped working via Airplay 2 immediately after the iOS16 update.

 

  1. Sonos One Not working on Airplay 2
  2. Sonos One Not working on Airplay 2
  3. Sonos Amp Not working on Airplay 2
  4. Sonos Amp Not working on Airplay 2
Blashy
Lyricist I
October 8, 2022

Same problem for me with streaming. 
 

it just cuts off out of nowhere. 
 

Youtube, SoundCloud, di.fm 

 

they all eventually cut off since I updated to iOS 16.  :(

Ken_Griffiths
Ken_Griffiths
October 8, 2022

I’m using iOS 16.0.2 on an iPhone XR and Airplay audio is working fine to all Sonos speakers here - no dropouts seen and no issues with (air)playing the audio. Have successfully tried playing music from the iOS Apple Music App to a Beam, Sonos One & Sonos Move, no issues were seen.

 

    Airgetlam
    Airgetlam
    October 8, 2022

    IPhone 13, same iOS, AirPlay 2 to PLAY:5 Gen 2 and Sonos Ones, no issues whatsoever. I often group either PLAY:1s or PLAY:3s to the speakers receiving the AirPlay 2 signal, using the Sonos controller, still no issues.

    Bruce
      geonerdist
      Lyricist I
      October 14, 2022

      @Joshua198 I’m experiencing the same thing. However I only have 3 Sonos Ones and 1 Sonos Roam. However I experiencing dropping even if I’m AirPlaying to one speaker. I’m using YouTube Music and Pocket Casts. I believe it is iOS related since it seems to drop when I pick up the phone after it’s been set down for a while. It has been a super frustrating experience. 

      I just checked for iOS updates and 16.0.3 has been released. I’m downloading that now. Fingers crossed. 

      geonerdist
      Lyricist I
      October 15, 2022

      iOS 16.0.3 does not seem to have fixed this.

      Ken_Griffiths
      Ken_Griffiths
      October 15, 2022

      iOS 16.0.3 does not seem to have fixed this.

      I’m not experiencing the issue, but I did find these two links online, which perhaps might assist you. See here:

      Blashy
      Lyricist I
      November 2, 2022

      Updating to iOS 16.1 now… We’ll see.

      This is totally ruining the idea of having a Sonos home :-( .

      GrooveSAN
      Lyricist I
      November 16, 2022

      Same here, streaming from iDevice via AirPlay stopped being reliable since iOS 16.

      Not device related as all the ones working under the new OS version are impacted while the ones not migrated are working fine. 
      Not primarily network related as occurred right after the iOS update.

      Interesting: symptoms vary depending on the streaming application. The more reproducible issues happen with Amazon Music app (v2.15.0 just tested), that crashes immediately when AirPlay is triggered via the built-in iOS widget (speaker icon right next to the sound slider).

      I’m updating my iPhone to beta iOS versions just to get a potential fix faster. Can tell you beta iOS 16.2 public beta 1 is still bugging severely. 
       

      I’ve got a Sonos Move, 2 Sonos One gen2, 2 Sonos Amp, some of them connected via Ethernet, others via wifi and all are failing. 
      What we have here is a general iOS/Sonos incompatibility that started with iOS16 and is definitely software related, as different apps are failing differently. Some are working for some time, some are totally crashing immediately. 
       

      Issue happens when the built-in AirPlay feature is triggered, as sharing directly in the Amazon Music app on a first speaker, then heading to the Sonos app to share with more is not causing the crash. 
      So I would say, issue is software related, somewhere between the app developper and the iOS developper. 

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