The first thing I have to say is that I am a big Sonos fan, especially when it comes to audio, and this caught my attention from the first sound, so I'm here with a beam bar, 2 play 1s, and a play 5. I have everything wired except the play 5, everything works perfectly, but the play 5. Now. I have reserved my play 5 IP and make it static, it works good for some time, the it disappears and I have to plug it off and plug it back in to make it work. Now, to my title, I have seen many people complaining here and there about sonos dissapearing from the app, usually the people got the blame for x or y, but the fact that the system needs an auto refresh recover system that won’t imply the user doing technicalities, in a perfectly working wifi with low noise and good reception, is just needed, is totally there! You guys from Sonos blaming always the users won’t help this great company, is always the situation with the user having “not done something” but is never the system, come on! Set a good team with engineers testing the different escenarios and make Sonos smarter even to do something to try to recover and regain access himself to again, a perfectly working wifi network, you guys work on a Unix based system, take advantage of some programming there, a good recovery script could make the trick, and I’m not trying to be the smart ass here but , surely things can get done within the system level, there is a lot room for improvement, is not a good idea to leave someone frustrated with expensive equipment, doing manually the tricks, the fact that a speaker from a group of speakers just vanished from the app without any effort or detection from the app saying something like “ oops , it seems I just lose a device, let’s do…” whatever but, put on something better that the help text page, which is the most annoying thing a user can get when in trouble, put real effort on the recovery process for this events. You can get the best advice here, and I'm giving it away for free! It sounds great to me. Don't forget to be grateful.
+18Hi @aleenmax
Welcome to the Sonos Community, and thank you for your feedback.
I have to disagree with you - there are literally millions of Sonos systems that just work, day on day, for years on end without any serious issue - including my own. And I’m confident we can get yours to work too.
Unfortunately, few people show up here in the community to say that everything works without issue. I’m not going to say that issues are never the fault of the Sonos hardware or software, however, but in all cases of troubleshooting it’s best to start with what is far more likely to be the cause - and that is usually the environment and network topology/configuration.
Sonos utilises your local network in ways that most other home devices don’t - not only does each Sonos speaker or component communicate simultaneously with multiple other devices on the network, be they other speakers, controllers (your phone), or NAS drives, but they need to be able to do so continuously and without serious interruption for extended periods of time. Because of this, devices such as WiFi Extenders or Boosters do not work well as they halve the available bandwidth and often block multicast packets from being relayed intact.
Combine this with a local environment which is different and unique in every single case with electromagnetic interference from other devices nearby (microwave ovens, baby alarms, the e-book device on the coffee table, the tablet on the counter, or the smart refrigerator placed between the kitchen and living room). Add to that the construction of your walls being important factors, as well as what the other devices on the network are doing, like multicast flooding where network packets not intended for Sonos arrive at a Sonos device regardless. This is interrupting the wanted data, and explains why we have diagnostics available - sometimes, you just have to ask the speakers what’s happening.
Now throw in the fact that a large fraction (I assume over half) of homes have routers that have been supplied by the internet service provider, and you have yet another factor - some routers simply can’t handle a larger amount of connected devices due to a lack of internal CPU and memory resources. Many users don’t realise that routers are computers and can often benefit from a regular reboot. Then there’s the router’s configuration - many, many different makes and models of routers exist and they don’t all have the same feature sets, and I doubt any were designed specifically with Sonos in mind. But this is why routers have settings in the first place - so they can be adapted to certain use cases.
When issues do arise with Sonos hardware, they are usually fairly obvious (lack of power) or are able to be narrowed-down to after some troubleshooting steps. Hardware issues are also well documented and understood, internally. With any serious software issue, the customer response is generally immediate and obvious, and in such cases we aim to get to a resolution satisfactory to all as quickly as we can.
Regarding your Play:5, the first thing I would look at would be which of the multiple wired units you have it is connecting to, and the quality of the link between them. The second thing would be the likely connection path between the Play:5 and your controller app, which is why topology is very important. The third thing I would check is if there is multicast flooding coming from another device on the network. A combination of discussing topology with you and looking at the diagnostics should reveal the actual problem. This is why, when contacting Sonos technical support, you will generally get advice much more specific to you and your system than is average - we’ll interrogate the Sonos system and tell you where the problem likely lies. So, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team directly, they’re a smart bunch with impressive tools.
Your idea regarding a recovery script is not a bad one - in fact, a few years ago we did add a Find Missing Products feature in the app (Settings » Support » Find Missing Products), but it was never going to be able to actually resolve the underlying issues, only attempt a rediscovery of the missing units - they’ll soon go missing again if the underlying cause hasn’t been addressed.
I hope this goes some way to helping you understand why the answer “it’s your network” is repeated here so often.
What if there is an intermittent hardware issue with the PLAY:5 causing its wireless card to shut down? This should leave clear tracks in the diagnostics.
<rant>
I’m getting really, really tired this attitude that you and others take toward the Sonos system. After many, many, many frustrating evenings trying to make my Sonos system work (multiple 5s, a bunch of bars, ones, and a bunch of subs) I finally went to a wired system (all of the Sonos systems are on a wired 1GBe network). Everything was copacetic, yet this evening I went to play some music and nothing, and I mean NOTHING, worked. I reset the entire system, and some of my speaker did not show up. Went around and power cycled everything and it appears they’re all back, but WTF?!
Sonos definitely has issues in their IP stack. I am an embedded systems engineer with years of networking experience, There appear to be big problems with the way the Sonos system is implemented. I love that it can sync across different units, but at this time, it will be a lot less headaches to put a couple of powered monitors in the room and add a dedicated net player. Sure, they’ll be out of sync across rooms, but at least they will work…reliably!
Please, let’s get Sonos to look at these issues from an engineering standpoint rather than blaming users for a system that from all appearances is marginally engineered at best. Yes, there are microwaves and a universe of network attached devices, but that’s what engineers and test folks do to assure a competent and reliable product. I’ve spent many dollars on these devices, and I presumed that this cost supported world class engineering development and support. Please prove to me that I have not been mistaken.
<\rant>
I assume you’re with Sonos: why would I have these issues on a fully wired system?
As a network engineer, why haven’t you supplied a system diagnostic for Sonos to look at, and give you any assistance? Or do you always work from anecdotal bug reports?
I was having intermittent issues with an ancient NAS drive. Since it was a very old drive, I assumed that it was finally EOL, but drives usually fail and that’s the end, they are not intermittent.
In some ways this seemed like a duplicate IP address issue, but I’m too smart for that, right? Well, a few weeks prior I had replaced the router and reconfigured the DHCP range slightly. Ultimately, I swallowed my pride and checked for duplicates … darn! There was a seldom used, palm size item hidden away in a cabinet that had a fixed IP address and had not been reconfigured. In this new setup it shared the NAS’s IP address.
I got a few more years of use out of that drive.
If your product doesn't work with the top 10 isp-provided routers in the country, then your product doesn't work. Your product doesn't work when a microwave is on, then your product doesn't work.
If your product doesn't work unless the user knows how to reconfigure their router, then your product doesn't work.
Stop condescending. Sonos can't figure out wireless, and I am sick of troubleshooting.
Never had a product that disconnected as often as sonos. No wonder the stock is tanking. They are the blockbuster video of speaker systems. Used to be great, until they had to go wireless.
Now the question becomes: who is doing it better?
Now the question becomes: who is doing it better?
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