Considering leaving Sonos entirely?!

F
  • Ftk
  • Contributor I
  • 2 replies

After two and a half years of owning the five I’m considering leaving Sonos entirely. I’ve found the app and the five speaker both to be problematic. The five speaker regularly disconnects, every 3-5 weeks it will disconnect (no internet change, no physical change in the environment where the speaker is) and it will not work for about a week and then it will suddenly work again. Resetting, factory reset, sometimes not always, works. Then go to the app - which is the first step in diagnosing why the speaker isn’t working. The app itself I have a tonne of qualms with. Every time I open it a new section is greyed out or simply unusable. Every time I have this issue I have to look online and I see numerous other people having issues with Sonos functionality as well but its all over the place - archived answers from years ago etc. We’re looking to outfit our house with a complete audio solution in 2 years, I bought the five to “test drive” sonos as a company and tbh I have been defending sonos to my partner on this topic but this week has been the final straw. Please anyone, can you answer why I should stay with this company? 
 

p.s. the in app trouble shooting for this is awful. All it does it ask if your devices are online / on the same network - then the support ends. I respect this is like 90% of tech issues to begin with. But after I answer yes to all those the support can’t simply end at “more information” which leads to 1. Repeat question already answered in trouble shooting steps prior, and 2. Are you logged in? Which I’d love to know but since the app shows me as greyed out with no support on that topic well, who’s to say if its reading me as logged in or not - says I am but the grey must imply something. Finally, the support ends at the more info screen - so if those 3 questions didn’t lead you to a resolve the user is just SOL. 

 

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108 replies

AjTrek1
Userlevel 7

My question is not to fix connectivity. My question is why to stay with a company with this UI / UX . The fact that the trouble shooting leads to a dead end is a primary qualm. 

Addressing your last comment first….you have not taken a deep dive into the aspects of trouble shooting just by following the app. Rudimentary shooting steps are available in any app and the vast majority will state that if the issues are not resolved to consult the appropriate Tech Support by chat and/or phone.  

You’ve done the “chat” portion (in a sense) by stating your frustration in this community. Community members (including myself) have asked for more information regarding your network. I’ve even suggested you contact Tech Support; if working with community members is not your desire or you’re unwilling to provide information about your network.

This community exists to help you and beyond that there’s Sonos Tech Support. The community is not here to advice you as to why you should or shouldn’t stick with Sonos (however, there are exceptions).

That said if you are unwilling to take the advice given thus far; then maybe you are the “exception” and should probably move on from Sonos. 

Together Everyone Achieves More = T.E.A.M.
AjTrek1
Userlevel 7

Hi

Sorry to hear that you are having issues with your Sonos. I know you’ve heard this before but...Looking at your graphic there is something going on with your network.

Unlike most devices that connect to your network Sonos is a very “chatty” system that relies heavily on your networks back and forth communication.

  • Internally, If there are access points, POE’s and/or improperly configured Mesh networks; or your Sonos and your network are on the same channel there can be issues. Learn how to check and/or change the Sonos channel by clicking  here.
  • Externally, other networks and/or power lines in the area can cause interference to name a few.

Here are two more options

  • Tell us more about your network OR
  • Run a diagnostic (click here), post the reference ID in this thread and call Sonos Tech Support

Let us know….we’re here to help!

Together Everyone Achieves More = T.E.A.M.
ratty

This appears to be a basic player discovery issue. I’d rather not get into wild speculation until we have more details, but it could be that the speaker (or phone) is periodically flipping between two WiFis, on either side of a router. Or perhaps there are simply two WiFi bands which don’t intercommunicate.

ratty

Except for the rare bug, updates don’t cause problems per se. They merely expose shortcomings in the host network. 

ratty

ZP100?! Has the possibility been considered that it/they may be approaching the end of their useful life? 

buzz

I spend 20 minutes collecting only negative comments and 1-star comments.

 

 

 

As you walk through a hospital the lesson will be: “everyone is sick”.

 

jgatie

I’ll definitly try this today, but if the static feature resolve the problem then a update of the firmware would be recommended since this should not be made manualy.  The system should alocate is own ip manualy and switch and ajust if encounter a problem by itself.

 

A unit cannot allocate itself a new IP, the DHCP service in the router does that, and it's the router which is the problem in the first place.  If a router loses power or its allocation table is corrupted, it doesn't know the IP addresses that it previously assigned and can start handing out ones which are already in use. 

Sonos is particularly sensitive to this because all the players need to interact with the others.  Also, Sonos updates require a reboot, which means all Sonos devices get a new IP at once, exasperating an already messed up router.  Which is why people blame the Sonos updates, when it is anything but.

The ultimate fix is reserving IP addresses, so each device can only get the IP it was assigned, and no other device can get that IP.

1

I bought a sonos 100 era 3 weeks ago. I contacted the company  because after 2 weeks it stopped connecting to my phone and the company led me to hours of calls to India where they tried to get me to adjust and service my modem at my cost for the speaker, while not considering all of my other electronics in the house that may get affected by this, emails to sales department and chats to no avail. My time had no value to them, but a measly $249 product was, which I’m sure cost them a LOT LESS to make. In the end, they thought it would be best not to reimburse me and rather to have a dissatisfied costumer with the ability to use social media to tell his story to the world. NOT SMART. So keep in mind I bought their defective product in a store and not directly from them and so, I’m done, the money is gone. The worst costumer service with their nice meaningless words, bar none. They talk about how concerned they are, but do nothing.

ratty

Describe your network in detail for us, with makes/models. Presumably the speaker is on the WiFi? What model/OS is the phone? Does it have any kind of VPN installed?

ratty

My question is not to fix connectivity. My question is why to stay with a company with this UI / UX . The fact that the trouble shooting leads to a dead end is a primary qualm. 

The Sonos app’s troubleshooting maybe leaves something to be desired. Basically it’s lost until it can contact the players.

All the screenshots in your OP suggest a connectivity issue, albeit an intermittent one apparently. The network configuration is therefore a crucial detail if we’re to assist. One can envisage a number of scenarios which could give rise to the problems you’ve experienced. Most can be readily resolved. 

Ken_Griffiths

My question is not to fix connectivity. My question is why to stay with a company with this UI / UX . The fact that the trouble shooting leads to a dead end is a primary qualm. 

If you’re not looking to ask how to fix, what initially appears to be a basic network SSDP multicast discovery issue, that’s ‘possibly’ causing the connectivity issue between your iDevice controller App and speaker, then the answer is you’re probably best to just step away from a company that makes computerised wireless network speakers that use that discovery protocol and maybe look for something that you may know how to troubleshoot yourself.

Personally, I would have first asked for the help being offered here by @ratty and others, to troubleshoot your issue, but clearly that’s not what you seem to be looking for. However, if you do change your mind, you really need to detail your network, with makes, models, wireless AP details, channels & switches in use etc.

melvimbe

My question is not to fix connectivity. My question is why to stay with a company with this UI / UX . The fact that the trouble shooting leads to a dead end is a primary qualm. 

 

Because once you resolve the connectivity issue, the apps troubleshooting feature will be unused and irrelevant.  If you’re unwilling to take steps, outside of the app troubleshooting steps, by creating a diagnostic, calling tech support, or getting advice from these forums, then no, you probably should not stick with Sonos.

To be clear, I’m not saying every Sonos customer needs to be willing to do take these steps, as the vast majority of users will not have connectivity issues and/or be able to resolve issues through the troubleshooting, as you pointed out already. 

Danny
ratty

Networks can be complex, despite all of the efforts by various manufacturers to make them as simple as possible. 

And regrettably some users will sit around for years with faulty networks, blaming Sonos for not fixing issues that are outside their purview. 

ratty

99%? 100%? I know that on the rare occasion that my Sonos misbehaves it usually just requires a reboot. They’re computers. I’ve yet to meet a computer that didn’t need the occasional reboot. 

ratty

@Thewizard2000 I’m not sure what you expect us to make of your random selection, and I don’t recognise the source. (The app stores currently show pretty adequate scores of 3.9 and 4.4 stars.) It could well be the type of platform which tends to attract detractors; the vast majority of happy customers are not inclined to go online and crow about the product.

I only skimmed the posts, but there appear to be a mix of: failures to understand that what the product features actually are, possible issues outside Sonos’ control such as Spotify, and, yes, network or possibly mobile malfunctions.

ratty

@Thewizard2000  Of course I don’t know who you spoke to, nor their level of authority to openly discuss Sonos’ internal engineering activities. In my experience they’re notoriously cagey about such matters. 

As a complex system of asynchronous semi-autonomous units, interfacing with each other and a plethora of third party devices and services, Sonos of course has to deal with all manner of interactions and potential race situations. The “many stability problems” to which you refer might well only affect corner cases, otherwise one would have expected Sonos’ product business to be severely affected and this board to be deluged with consistent and repeated complaints. Compared to the size of Sonos’ customer base the post flow here is normally not much more than a trickle, really. And when a genuine issue does arise a thread will often grow by hundreds of posts per day. 

I hope I’ve never implied that all Sonos problems are down to dodgy networks. They clearly aren’t. That said, over my 15+ years here I’ve seen enough occasions where network issues have indeed been responsible for Sonos struggling. It’s therefore not unreasonable to expect that the first thing the user should do is put their network in order. A healthy network is a basic sine qua non for successful Sonos operation. 

jgatie

I’ll say it - It’s your network.  I’ve been helping people here for 15 years, and I’ve posted the steps to fix a network problem, specifically duplicate IP addresses, hundreds of times.  I can count on one hand the times a person performed those steps exactly as written and didn’t fix their problems.  This includes “network experts” who swore to high heaven it could never be their network, until they actually tried to fix it.  

ratty

@Thewizard2000 A simple solution may be getting a cheap Echo Dot and see how that works in your Wifi environment for a week or so. The outcome may guide you to next steps. 

Now, please. Echoes wired to Line-In are not the universal panacea. In fact if they depend on Uncompressed WAV they could lead to a worse outcome. 

jgatie

@jgatie Well if you think you are better than the technical service of sonos level 2 which they have tried many times to solve my problem without success as I have already mentioned, you are more than welcome to solve it. I can even give you access to my computer, my phone number and all the information you want to obtain. If you manage to fix my problem that I have had for 2 years as you seem convinced you already know it so well, I will even give you a monetary reward.

 

No rewards needed, and I don’t need access.  And considering even “level 2” technical service (whatever that is) use canned scripts and are just above minimum wage, yes I do know more, especially when it comes to things Sonos won’t say because it makes them look like it needs special setups.  So, are you ready to try?  

Reboot/power cycle each of these in exactly this order:

Modem
Router
Hubs or switches
Wired Sonos components
Wireless Sonos components
Computers, printers
Phones, tablets, all other wireless devices

Allow time for each device to come back up before moving to the next one. Note you can prevent duplicate IP addresses by reserving a permanent IP for each Sonos unit in your router setup. See your router manual for details.

jgatie

@jgatie

You can write the whole process to do from A to Z and you can be assured that I will do everything with the utmost precision tonight. Take note that in my orbi wifi if I go to the 192.168.1.1 page I see all the ip addresses of my sonos devices which are all the same except for the numbers at the end which change.

Example:

ZonePlayer ZP100
SONOSZP

192.168.1.27
192.168.1.26
192.168.1.7

etc...

I can't modify anything so I don't know what you mean when it is necessary that the ip addresses are duplicated as well as to reserve a permanent ip address.

 

Duplicated IP addresses aren’t going to show up in your router table.  It’s a corruption of the router table which causes the duplicate IP, usually due to a power failure or a reboot.  So looking for the problem in the device which caused it is an unfruitful task.  

 

Here’s a Netgear forum link for instructions on how to reserve an IP on Orbi routers:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-Wi-Fi-5-AC-and-Orbi-with/Orbi-setting-up-static-IP-address-for-one-of-my-quot-appliances/m-p/1883572

buzz

It depends on the router. Some routers manage DHCP address assignments better than others. You can get lucky 100 times in a row without reserved addresses, then the phantom strikes. It’s a “never happened before” event, therefore something must be buggy or broken. Since program or device XYZ was the latest change, it must be the perpetrator.

Even though it may seem lame and unnecessary, address reservations prevent issues.

buzz

 but if the static feature resolve the problem then a update of the firmware would be recommended since this should not be made manualy.  The system should alocate is own ip manualy and switch and ajust if encounter a problem by itself.

This IP address assignment must be done centrally using an established protocol.

Imagine the chaos if you could arbitrarily change a bank account number, perhaps to indicate your birthday, then another account holder changes their number and chooses your old number -- all this while one of your older checks is in the mail. The new owner of your old account number would be somewhat upset when your old check arrives and a lot of time would be wasted in the attempt to straighten this out.

Reserved IP addresses avoids the chaos of various network clients vying for the same address. It’s not quite good enough to ask “is anyone using this address” because the owner might be busy, sleeping or updating and will come back online a fraction of a second after the address query came back negative.

Early in networking all IP addresses were assigned manually with some rather arcane commands. This would be pure misery in the modern era when dozens of phone/pad/computers might arrive simultaneously (in a bar, restaurant, school, or stadium) and a poor network administrator would need to manually enter each device, then remove the device when the user left the premises. Now the DHCP server automatically attempts to take care of this. Address reservation for regular clients avoids misunderstandings.

Airgetlam

Can’t like that post enough, @jgatie…way too much shade thrown at Sonos for something they just exercise, not control.

Bruce
Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

In my case I resisted the suggestion to reserve IP addresses. Spent a LOT of hours pouring over very detailed (pfSense) firewall logs looking for DHCP issues and found nothing. Tried a network monitor program to see even more details and was quickly swamped with data that went beyond my skill set.

My Sonos was still messing up at most power failures and updates.

Went ahead and reserved the IP addresses and have not had any similar issue since.

Do not know why it works. Don’t have proof it is needed.

But I know ten minutes clicking my router’s DHCP web page ended the issue for me.

buzz

Thewizard2000,

I don’t know your environment, but my wireless environment can be difficult. There is a medical facility next door and I can sometimes see about 70 access points. A number of access points use channels, 3, 5, and 8, with an occasional 10. The channel 5 system uses 40MHz channel width. It’s difficult to deal with this level of congestion. There can be periods of erratic PING. times.

Overall, I think that SONOS copes well with this environment.

For those users who report that their phone/pad always works, therefore their WiFi is “perfect”, I’m rather sensitive to response times and it is obvious to me that the wireless phone/pad is struggling at times, but not at the point of ‘fail’. I don’t attempt to precisely log each potential event. With respect to external Internet connectivity there is always the potential for rare transient issues there.

With respect to my phone’s 5GHz connection to the gateway, the average latency is reasonable in the 3-5ms range, but there are occasional spikes to the 90ms range and I have observed singular, much longer PINGs. I cannot prove that these events are actual communications failures or some sort of lag in the reporting device. (It’s simply a logging App)

Back in 2005 I had major issues with my SONOS system. Most of these resolved after I reserved IP addresses. … Then there was the neighbor’s 2.4GHz phone system to work around.

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