Why does the app not ever work?

​@kal12345 

Thanks for the info about your network. Make sure your Surfboard is running DOCSIS 4.0. Years ago I ran my own modem and router. Today I use my ISP’s modem as it keeps them responsible for the incoming signal interpolation to my personal router. Using my own modem relieved my ISP of any responsibility outside of providing the signal to my home. So unless you are getting a substantial discount using your own modem I recommend letting your ISP supply their modem even if the router/modem are a single box. The router portion can be turned off or placed in Bridge mode to avoid two WiFi signals. Not saying that using your own modem is the cause of issues with Sonos. However, not doing so eliminates a possibility. Also know that other Wi-Fi or wired components are  not placing the same strain on your network as does Sonos. Sonos is very “chatty” as it’s constantly talking. Make sure that Airtime Fairness is turned off and there’s no band steering implemented by your router. My apologies for the length of this post as it may or may not resolve your issue.

thanks for the help, I’ll dig into the recommend solutions. 

Are you using iOS? If so , gave you considered using the SonoPhone or Clic app… no issues at all since I started using them months ago. 

Kal12345 my experience is the same.  My frustration is high. I have restarted my speakers multiple times and the problems remain. It takes minutes for the app to not only to play the music or content, I want to hear.It can also take two minutes for the system to acknowledge that."Hey I have speakers." I agree that sonos had one job. There are many products in the world that simply work when you turn them on. This is not one of them.

Submit a diagnostic and call Sonos support and they can likely help you with the problem. 

Apologies for not having included this in my original post. I have contacted and spoken to representatives of sonos, customer care more than twice. Each time I express my concern, they acknowledge that there are errors in my system, and they clear them up. And then the errors recur. 

I like having nice things and I am willing to pay top dollar for them. For the price point of a multiple speaker sonos system, I expect it to work. That I had to call more than twice to fix errors in the software does not align with the performance of a strong product. 

The emperor has no clothes.

What are they telling you is going wrong?

Give us something to go on and maybe we can suggest something the support folks missed.