"The connection to Stingray music was lost"

Note that the extent of Sonos’ participation that they point the Sonos software to a server location maintained by Stingray (or any other streamer, for that matter). They don’t actually do anything with the data until it is received by the speaker, at which time they just play it. So, unless there are posts about every stream on Sonos, the chances are extremely high that the issue is on Stingray’s side. It’s good that you’ve notified Sonos here, but you should also notify Stingray. 

Hi @RobSS, thanks for reaching out. 

I appreciate the diagnostic and efforts. I understand what you’re feeling but I’m here to help. Have you tried checking a different music service? Just to confirm if it's only happening to Stingray. I also found out that you’re using an Asus router. Maybe you need to try this link with Asus RT Series compatibility.

Let us know if this helps. 

No, I haven’t tried a different music service. I pay for Stingray via my Telus package. But I have had similar connection problems when trying to access my music library via the Sonos from time to time, so it’s a problem that extends beyond Stingray. I’ll try the ASUS fix and will report back if the problems continue. 

Thanks for weighing in with the suggestion.

Stingray Music is an amazing music service (which I get through Telus as well). I’ve yet to see radio stations as good as their human curated ones on other platforms (so much so that I wish they would evolve to a full music streaming platform with the ability to play specific songs, albums, and your own custom playlists on demand).

But alas, I’ve had the same problems occur way more often since using the S2 App and thus have stopped using Stingray all together as well.

I also agree that it’s probably on Stingray’s side. I’ll try to send them a report as well. 

A quick update on this issue based upon my experience with it. I tried rebooting my router and nothing changed. Later on another day, I tried uninstalling the service and reinstalling it and again no change. Still had the same problem. 
 

Finally a day ago, I decide to reboot my router and uninstall/reinstall the service immediately afterwards. It now works! I did have the error occur once more but for the most part, it actually works quite well now. The only weird quirk is that when starting a station it can take up to five seconds to start playing the music but after that, the songs play fine and jump to next song fine without any delay. 

I can attest that it’s only Stingray which is behaving this way.  Spotify works great, so does TuneIn.  My case is more or less the same: I set an Alarm to get my Sonos speakers (3) to wake us up with Stingray Classical Baroque.  Some mornings it’ll play fine for 2 hours, others for 3.  Alarm is set to play endlessly, we keep this music for working home too. 

When trouble begins, it’ll play one song, then stop.  Sometimes, I’ll load the title and say that it cannot play it because the connection to the service was lost.

Rebooting the router, removing / reinstalling the service, changing the 2.4 Ghz frequency channel on the router, all these amounts to no nothing.  I also tried to pick a different Stingray channel when this happens, to no success.  Stingray is a hit or miss.  Sadly, Stingray is amongst the best, if not the best itself, music service there is.  I often chat with their DJ and they’re truly passionate about music.  And this reflects in their music programmings.

Seriously Sonos and Stingray, please, oh please, fix this.

It worked for me for a bit but eventually I stopped using it because of the poor performance. I agree that other services work fine, so the issue appears to be on Stingray’s end. 

I’ve just contacted Stingray to let them know.  Maybe there is something they can do at their end.

I reported this to Stingray back on October 23rd and got this response today - Nov 4th.

Here’s what was recommended by Stingray support;

“I recommend trying the following troubleshooting tips:

1. Restart the Stingray Music mobile app
2. Close any other apps that you are not using
3. Uninstall and reinstall the app
4. Make sure you have the most updated version of the app
5. Check that your device meets the minimum requirements
6. Ensure that you do not have the battery-saving mode enabled on your device
7. Ensure that you do not have a VPN connection on your device

If you are still having trouble using the app with Sonos, please let me know.

Thanks,
<name removed>
Stingray Customer Experience 

As I have done all of the above and more - I responded and suggested Stingray and SONOS have a discussion. Like others, I can play Amazon and Spotify 24/7 without the constant Stingray drops.

The problem is that these steps seem to refer to the Stingray app itself.  When I am listening to Stingray on my Sonos speakers, playback is initiated from the Sonos app on my iMac or iPhone. I occasionally use Spotify in this manner, though.  Always working perfectly.

I deal very little with the Stingray app itself, just when I am driving to be honnest.

And just this afternoon, I got a SiriusXM mobile subscription (for the Holidays, I like their lineup of xmas music channels).  It’s been working great all afternoon long.  Whereas Stingray was having the hickups minutes before I switched to SiriusXM.

Patience and perseverance !  All of us, we will find a way to get this fixed :)