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Sonos Controller App and Switching between Sonos Systems

  • 10 January 2017
  • 8 replies
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My boyfriend spends 3-4 days a week at my house and has a Sonos Controller App installed in his phone to control my Sonos Play 1 and Play 5 systems. He got a Play 1 and Play 3 for Christmas and is having issues connecting to his own systems when he returns home from my house. Is there something he needs to do when he leaves my house or arrives home st his house to have the Sonos Controller App automatically switch to his system? It's really frustrating that it doesn't just automatically work. He tried uninstalling and reinstalling the Sonos Controller App this evening but it didn't seem to work. Any advice for two Sonos novices?
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Best answer by ratty 10 January 2017, 10:25

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8 replies

A Sonos controller can be associated with multiple Sonos 'households' (systems). He just needs to 'add to an existing system' in both locations. Then whichever network he's on, the Sonos controller will find the relevant players.
Thank you for your reply, Ratty. We did add. Ugh if our existing systems to his controller, but for some reason it isn't working on his home system. We even uninstalled the app and reinstalled it last night and that didn't work. He was also trying to listen via Spotify and that is no longer working on his home system. It's so bizarre.
I assume your boyfriend was able to set his Sonos up initially, and that it's been working fine in the past.

If his players are attached to his WiFi ('Standard Setup') make sure his phone uses his router's 2.4GHz band, not 5GHz. Some routers prevent a Sonos controller on 5GHz from discovering players on the 2.4GHz WiFi.
Hi Ratty - Yes, we actually set it up together. It worked fine for awhile. We celebrated NYE and he went back to his house and it worked fine. The issue came when he returned to his house this past Monday after spending the weekend at my house. Now, it won't connect at all. He was connected to my system all weekend and his app worked at my house. The issue began when he went home and tried to connect to his Sonos. It connects, but nothing is populating in his controller, not even the music on his phone. And, he cannot get Spotify to play even when choosing the device from the Spotify app.
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Hi Ratty - Yes, we actually set it up together. It worked fine for awhile. We celebrated NYE and he went back to his house and it worked fine. The issue came when he returned to his house this past Monday after spending the weekend at my house. Now, it won't connect at all. He was connected to my system all weekend and his app worked at my house. The issue began when he went home and tried to connect to his Sonos. It connects, but nothing is populating in his controller, not even the music on his phone. And, he cannot get Spotify to play even when choosing the device from the Spotify app.

What do you see when you open up the Sonos app? If you get a message saying your system wasn't found, try the steps in this guide to get reconnected.

If you see something different, let me know.
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Hi guys, I am seeing a similar issue to 215Rachel in that I can use my iphone in the morning to open Sonos up to bring a radio channel on with no issues. I disappear to the office for the day, and generally leave the Sonos playing throughout the house for both cat and wife's enjoyment. There's normally a spare iPad left on and showing the Sonos controller so that there's access to the volume etc. The issue arises when I come home of an evening and want to pick up controlling the Sonos on my iphone. When I open the app it stalls and gives me the "sonos cannot be found" message (And yes, the phone has picked up the wifi etc etc) Two things then happen. The music stream playing stops and does not re-appear until I kill the app. Then the tunes will come back, until I try the app again, same thing happens again. Every time this happens I end up re-booting the iphone to cure the problem. It then always finds Sonos after a hard reset .... Thoughts? The players are running on a Sonos mesh network and the wifi runs at 5GHz. Thoughts appreciated 🙂
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Hi guys, I am seeing a similar issue to 215Rachel in that I can use my iphone in the morning to open Sonos up to bring a radio channel on with no issues. I disappear to the office for the day, and generally leave the Sonos playing throughout the house for both cat and wife's enjoyment. There's normally a spare iPad left on and showing the Sonos controller so that there's access to the volume etc. The issue arises when I come home of an evening and want to pick up controlling the Sonos on my iphone. When I open the app it stalls and gives me the "sonos cannot be found" message (And yes, the phone has picked up the wifi etc etc) Two things then happen. The music stream playing stops and does not re-appear until I kill the app. Then the tunes will come back, until I try the app again, same thing happens again. Every time this happens I end up re-booting the iphone to cure the problem. It then always finds Sonos after a hard reset .... Thoughts? The players are running on a Sonos mesh network and the wifi runs at 5GHz. Thoughts appreciated :-)

Hey R3SKT the phone may be connecting to the network, but the communication taking place behind that connection is not passing all of the local network traffic fully. When getting home are you launching the Sonos app fresh or has it been running in the background all day? I would quit the Sonos app and then relaunch if it's been running in the background for the day. Another step, rather than rebooting the phone, would be to toggle the phone's WiFi off for ten seconds and then back on.
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Thanks Andy B, I'll try and remember to kill the app first as generally I would just leave the house not even thinking about it and then swap to the app once I had settled in for the evening. I have tried toggling off wifi on the phone and letting it settle before restarting it again, but by this time I've already killed the stream that was playing and it becomes a bit of huff and a puff to reconnect quickly before the moaning starts that "someone was enjoying that track, why did you stop it!" 😃 I've already killed the app on my iphone so we'll see what happens this evening for starters.