Sonos app 9.0 switches rooms and loses contact with Players


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Long time Sonos user. It used to be rock solid. Not any more. We have 4 Zone Players in the house (no PLAY speakers), and since the 9.0 app, it's practically unusable.

Our zones are Office, Shop, Living Room, and Pool. 95% of the time I am using it in Shop with an Amazon Fire tablet (new model). What happens is the controller app in the shop will randomly switch the room to Pool. Sometimes I can switch back to Shop, and other times Shop is completely missing, with the only room available to choose it Pool. Quitting the app doesn't work. I have to go into settings / advanced and do a reset controller. All the rooms come back and Shop is now selectable and works.

Other times, it switches to Pooll all by itself, and when I choose Shop, it says "Sonos Player not found" (or something similar). Again controller reset in the app fixes it. But most of the time, I can just go to Rooms, select Shop and start playing again.

The other issue/annoyance that has existed since V8 is that my Now Playing screen will drop down, and the tablet is left with whatever screen was up before I started playing. I can touch the arrow to raise up the Now Playing screen and it will just randomly drop down by itself. It never used to do that. It would always leave Now Playing up (even when music has been stopped) making it an easy one-touch to start playing again.

I have put in a brand new Fire HD8 tablet, loaded the latest Sonos app, but these issues remain. I have also tried connecting to different WIFI (a temp WIFI AP a few feet from the tablet in the Shop) and had even tried enabling the option to use SonosNet instead of WIFI, but no difference.

All my Zone Players are wired to ethernet. In the shop, the ZP:Connect is about 6 ft from the tablet.

I would like to submit diagnostics from this tablet. Please advise.

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47 replies

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I’m getting this happen as well. I’ve put my comments in the thread about the latest iOS app freezing if you need to see my comments. I tried the Android app on my phone and this is starting up with the wrong zone occasionally as well - I closed the app whilst it was on the Lounge zone and when I restarted it again it was on the ZP90 Office zone.

The iOS app has also unknown to me started the ZP90 Office zone playing when it was supposed to be stopping playback on the Lounge zone. My ZP90 was therefore playing continuously without me knowing for a couple of days.

I’ve had a long phone chat with Sonos support and sent a few diagnostics off but haven’t heard back for a day and a half.
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I have had that, also where I press STOP to stop playing, and the controller screen shows stopped, but the music is still playing. Quit the app and the music is still playing.

There is some sort of huge disconnect between the controller app and the device itself.
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I have had that, also where I press STOP to stop playing, and the controller screen shows stopped, but the music is still playing. Quit the app and the music is still playing.

There is some sort of huge disconnect between the controller app and the device itself.


Agreed. I’ve had exactly that happen a couple of times as well. It’s like it’s forgotten which zone it’s controlling and what state the player is in (play/stop)

In addition to that I’ve then left it for a minute or so after that has happened and then it displays the splash screen as if it has restarted the app.
I have had that, also where I press STOP to stop playing, and the controller screen shows stopped, but the music is still playing. Quit the app and the music is still playing.

There is some sort of huge disconnect between the controller app and the device itself.


Agreed. I’ve had exactly that happen a couple of times as well. It’s like it’s forgotten which zone it’s controlling and what state the player is in (play/stop)

In addition to that I’ve then left it for a minute or so after that has happened and then it displays the splash screen as if it has restarted the app.

Yes, I've been seeing the same sorts of problems, but not on 9.x - I'm currently on 8.6 - mine mainly goes wrong on my android phone, though.
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Someone on another forum I visit is reporting this same problem on the ios app. It’s gone quiet from Sonos support. I’ve replied to their support email 3 times with new information and updates and never received a reply
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Someone on another forum I visit is reporting this same problem on the ios app. It’s gone quiet from Sonos support. I’ve replied to their support email 3 times with new information and updates and never received a reply

Pretty quiet here, too, on this issue considering not a single response from a Sonos person. I appreciate the feedback about iOS having similar issue. At least I know it's not me, it's them. Thanks.
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At least they gave us the option of having the pop-up warning box so I won't be blasting the sleeping wife awake when the controller decides that it is tired of being hooked to the garage and magically changes to the bedroom!
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At least they gave us the option of having the pop-up warning box so I won't be blasting the sleeping wife awake when the controller decides that it is tired of being hooked to the garage and magically changes to the bedroom!

Sadly that setting doesn't come into play when it screws up and controls the wrong zone 😞
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Oh!! I forgot to mention another V9 "feature" -- where the now-playing screen gets stuck on a particular song at random! Yes, my Sonos is playing normally, but I look at the tablet and the Sonos Controller shows an album and song from 10 minutes ago. While the music has been progressing, the information in the Sonos app isn't. The time counter below the album art is happily incrementing on, yet shows 0:00 remaining. I watch this for a few more songs, and finally I saw a message that read something like "connecting Sonos to your WiFi...". What does that mean? I don't have Sonos configured to use my WiFi. All my Zone Players are wired!

I also moved the affected tablet to a location that is a few feet from the WIFI access point. No change. Still changes rooms by itself and gets stuck showing album info whilst the music plays on.

In case anyone from Sonos sees this post (not holding breath), and would like a diagnostics dump from my Sonos software, it's likely a treasure trove of useful bug information.
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I wondered if it was my WiFi causing the problems with the ios app as the ios devices have to connect to your WiFi to then control the Sonos system. So I loaded the Android app onto my phone and set that up to use the Sonos Mesh instead of my home WiFi. It is still changing rooms like the ios app does so I have ruled out my WiFi as my zones are mostly connected by cat5.
JohnG666,

In your case, it certainly sounds like it might be a duplicate IP address issue. Try unplugging all of your Sonos devices from power, then reboot your router. Once the router comes back up, plug in one Sonos device back into power, and give it a minute or two to boot up, before moving on to the next and plugging it in.

This issue is a problem with the router losing track of what IP address it has handed out, and is often exposed when Sonos causes the soft reboot of the speaker during a software update. Another way to keep this from happening again is to go in to your router’s DHCP reservation table, and set up reserved IP addresses for all of your WiFi connected devices.

Frankly, this may also be the OPs issue as well, but given that s/he has already submitted a diagnostic, I’m loathe to step on the Sonos rep’s toes when they arrive to work tomorrow.
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Yep it's absolute crap now. Sonos causes me so mucb stress. Players disconnect at random even when you just added music a few seconds before. Used to be fine, stable and actually a purchase to be proud of and recomend. Now it's just crap, I wouldn't recomend it to anyone for fear of embarassnent! I've tried everything. Fixed IPs latest. Even went on holiday for 2 weeks, everything switched off and come back put it all back on and after 2 days crap!!! SONOS spend less time on the guff Alexa keech and more time making the system how it was!! I hate it now! Prefer streaming Spotify through my Onkyo Amp!!
Well, then, if you’re not able to get past this anger and work with Sonos in order to fix the issues you’re experiencing, I’d heartily recommend that you sell your equipment, and find something that suits you better.
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Yep! That's pretty much where I'm at! Something that works like Sonos used to would be nice......2 x Play 5s , 1 x Connect Amp, 1 x Connect been a Sonos fan since 2013 but patience is running out. Not worth the frustration. Music is meant to be enjoyable! Thanks for your condesending reply really helped btw 😉
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JohnG666,

In your case, it certainly sounds like it might be a duplicate IP address issue. Try unplugging all of your Sonos devices from power, then reboot your router. Once the router comes back up, plug in one Sonos device back into power, and give it a minute or two to boot up, before moving on to the next and plugging it in.

This issue is a problem with the router losing track of what IP address it has handed out, and is often exposed when Sonos causes the soft reboot of the speaker during a software update. Another way to keep this from happening again is to go in to your router’s DHCP reservation table, and set up reserved IP addresses for all of your WiFi connected devices.

Frankly, this may also be the OPs issue as well, but given that s/he has already submitted a diagnostic, I’m loathe to step on the Sonos rep’s toes when they arrive to work tomorrow.


None of my zone players have duplicate ip addresses, I’d already checked that before I phoned support. You can see the ip addresses assigned to them in Windows 10 and I can see they all look fine. Besides which, the CR200 controller doesn’t have the same problem as the ios and Android apps.
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My CR200 isn't fully functional anymore, I'm so disappointed 😞. I've tried allowing my Apps to connect to Sonosnet, but didn't help at all. It's all so random. When it happens, what player disconnects / disappears, if the music keeps playing ir not.....sometimes even the buttons on my players won't respond
Sounds like you need to submit a diagnostic within 10 minutes of it happening, and calling in to Sonos with the number of the diagnostic. They’ll likely be able to help you resolve the problem you are experiencing.
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I was on the phone to support for nearly and hour and we recreated the problem I've been getting a couple of times. I sent a couple of diagnostics whilst on the phone to them but the only thing they could suggest was to use the alternative radio provider rather than TuneIn and to also try the Andoid app with the Android device using the Sonos Mesh. I've tried both suggestions and it still happens.

Despite me sending a few more emails with more information, the last email I received from support was four and a half days ago.
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I've tried to submit diagnostics several times, but it fails to run and comes up with unable to submit diagnostics try again. This is on the Android App. I need to try from a pc. I also removed my bridge from the equation, hard wiring my Connect instead. Hasn't helped one bit. Sometimes when I change something it's stable for a wee while, making me think I've cracked it, then goes flakey again
Being unable to submit a diagnostic is a sure sign that your speakers are having an issue staying connected to the internet at large. I don't think it has anything to do with what the controller is running on at all. I'd suggest trying a reboot of your router, which might potentially clear some "bad" DNS information out, and allow the speaker to send the data to the Sonos servers.

Or, you may just want to contact Sonos directly to discuss it.
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Cheers I'll try another router reboot. Tried it a few times before, fixes things only for a short time. I've also went fixed IPs too. I was away for 2 weeks put everything off except the main router too but problem was back after a few days. Unless my router is dodgy. It's a Plusnet hub, under a year old, but probably not the best.
I have a similar issue and posted a question too: https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/connect-amp-disconnecting-from-the-controller-6810940
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I should reiterate there that for me (the OP), that merely selecting "Reset Controller" in the Sonos app advanced settings brings back the dropped / missing Zone Players. Now, if it were some sort of network/DNS/IP/Router issue, then merely resetting the app shouldn't bring back the Zone Players. So far, I haven't been convinced it's not some screw-up in the app.

As far as the app just switching rooms randomly, nothing changes in my network that often that would cause a ZP to disappear. Since everything is on my local network, it isn't a router issue.
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Thinking about it. Sometimes when my players have disappeared randomly from Sonos they are still listed on my router IP list. Could be the list hasn't refreshed or the players are still indeed on my LAN
Yea, I'd suggest that even if the "reset controller" is indeed working, it could be just catching the next time that the duplicate IP address bounces from and to your Sonos, and it catches the new connection while it's up. The biggest issue with duplicate IP addresses is that they're incredibly hard to see on all of the servers I've ever had. The server only takes a snapshot of what is connected at a particular moment, and none of mine have ever shown "and this has been connected for X amount of time", which would be the key thing to identifying duplicate IP address issues. Of course, I've got about 70 random things connected to my wifi, so it's hard for me to remember them all at any particular moment, which is one of the reasons I went with the DHCP reservations, after a minute or two of reading to figure out how to do it.

So it's still possible in my mind that it is indeed a duplicate IP address, and you're losing contact momentarily, and then it's catching back up. And it being local means it probably is indeed your router, rather than anything outside of your local LAN. Duplicate IPs can occur with both wired and wireless signals, too.

I'd definitely try the refresh of unplugging all Sonos devices, then rebooting the router, and plugging back in each Sonos device one at a time, allowing each to boot up before moving on to the next. At the very least, it won't hurt anything.

But if none of that works, I'd definitely recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of replicating this issue, and contact Sonos to discuss it. There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution. In skimming the thread, I didn't see one indicated from you, so it might be helpful. Especially if you think there's a screw up in the app, the diagnostic should reveal what's causing the speakers to fail.

I doubt it is the app, but I've been wrong before, and will be wrong again. Give them that diagnostic, then call in, and see what they say. Or try the Twitter or Facebook contact points, if that's more convenient to you.