Sonos Speakers Sound Great, Sonos Ecosystem is the Worst Music Ecosystem in the History of Humankind

Hi ​@JFriend3 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

I am sorry to hear of the multiple problems you are having with your Sonos system, and while I do not wish to trivialise them, I can assure you that the majority of our users do not see these issues.

In regard to the app UI, our CEO Tom Conrad is taking some constructive feedback from our users directly at the following thread, which I’d encourage you to take part in:

The rest of your concerns I think can be addressed with some troubleshooting - I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports. It sounds like there is likely some Wi-Fi interference negatively affecting your system. If you can capture some of this unwanted behaviour by submitting support diagnostics before you call in, it may expedite the process.

I hope this helps.

Hi Corry, Appreciate the response… I will acknowledge a fair bit of hyperbole in there, again: speakers sound awesome. An interrupted listening experience is frustrating. I'll try to summarize (and use less hyperbole... or more, I love hyperbole). Best, Joe

Sonos speakers sound wonderful. Their ecosystem is bad; there are multiple bad things about it, none of which have a single solution.

The "it's the WiFi guy" - they show up everywhere. 'Would that it 'twere that simple'. Yes, parts of it ARE the WiFi, but it's the obfuscated 2.4Ghz "SonosNet" Wifi that interferes with most household 2.4Ghz Wifi channels (often reserved for IoT). In my case, it's not the Wifi (I have the logs, excellent signal strengths, great AP density, etc.); points off for Sonos for coding their own little brand-named WiFi ecosystem that does not play nice with protocoled WiFi routers.

1. Changing the Wifi network (something I had to do in all the troubleshooting) is like a quest for Link from Zelda, where you have to travel from one further place of the map to the other further place on the map and then back again... hey, if you like that, if you are easily entertained, fine. But there is no way to universally change the Wifi for multiple speakers at once... you have to put each speaker in 'Sonos Cool Guy Program Mode', chase it down with the little audio blip, change the network, and start it back up. It's Byzantine minus the Minotaur. You know what you can do with every other system on earth? Change the Wifi once, minus the theatrics. At best, it's a series of unnecessary steps; easy to do better there.

2. The volume sliders are not synch per speaker, trying to sync them is an exercise in madness.

3. Every (non 'simple') user on earth: Hey I would like to listen to my TV, and then I would like to listen to my record player. Every other well-coded ecosystem on earth: no problem, we'll pick that up -or- at worst, you push a button. On Sonos it's like: "First decouple your 'Line-In' stereo pair... this super simple step will only take 15 minutes. Next, re-establish those newly decouple speakers now as part of the other speaker speaker thing and then once that it done you can now use your record player. You wanna switch back? Good Luck!

4. God-forbid you want to enlist your speakers tethered to the record player as stereo surrounds for the TV without dong the idiotic, unnecessary, and lengthy process that the genius coders at Sonos came up with (hence them being music haters, because in every other ecosystem it's [at most] a simple button press) because there will be a millisecond delay that gives you that baseball stadium sound coveted by audiophiles everywhere... wait, I mean nowhere.

5. Warbley stuttering with Era 100s over Wifi, complete dropping out of Era 100s over SonosNet; again, network is fine, even the units are reporting good signals (over Wifi where I can monitor tolerances...).

6. One knob exists on every audio system... it usually says something like: TV, Radio, Line-In, AUX... you can toggle between it, the system handles the rest.

The 2.4 gHz Sonosnet is only generated if you wire Ethernet to an older Sonos speaker, the newer ones avoid that mess. Even then you can disable tne radio in the wired speaker preventing Sonosnet creation. That does disable the 5 gHz Sonosnet needed for wireless home theater sets.

It has been requested many times and for years but Sonos hasn't offered an option to keep the radio active but disable the creation of the 2.4 gHz Sonosnet. 

If you don't create the Sonosnet Wi-Fi is not an issue, I change both my 2.4 and 5 gHz channels fairly often and so far have never had to TouchType app or speakers. Sonosnet, not even going to tnink about it.

Volume sliders are a huge aggravation, except on the Grouping screen, there they seem reasonably useful. 

#4 you might to research here a bit more, the reconfiguration issue is often discussed.

#5 Era 100s do not do Sonosnet, not sure what you are saying.

With respect to synchronizing the Volume setting of Grouped speakers, first drag the Group Volume to zero.

sorry Corry, but that’s BS. I’m sure it’s painful for people who work for Sonos, but it’s no less true: EVERYONE is tortured by Sonos. It sounds great, but it always screws up, and screws up in mysterious ways, at inopportune times. We all dropped coin and integrated pur systems around it … and it just makes life MISERABLE, because the system is wonky as hell and the user interface is the worst among any product I the world.

I really liked my system when I got it.  As I added more I started noticing issues. Occasional drops, updates not happening at scheduled times, swearing that sound quality dropped after software update.  I’ve done the full circuit on troubleshooting (diagnostic to Sonos. Full reset of network, putting everything on Ethernet, dedicated ip, trying web streaming and streaming from local library, etc) and have seen no change but it is infrequent enough to be hard to diagnose but frequent enough that it is very annoying.  Not fed up enough to get rid or it but no longer adding or replacing with Sonos.  

Hi ​@Riddler 7 

I completely understand your frustration, and I want to assure you that your feedback is heard and valid. Our CEO is already asking for UI feedback at the above-linked thread, and while it’s true that online forums often highlight users facing technical challenges, we rely on broad performance metrics to gauge the app's stability across our entire user base. These diagnostics currently show that, for the majority of users, the new app is performing more reliably than previous versions.

However, that data doesn't change the fact that your experience hasn't been seamless, and we want to help fix that. Every setup is unique, and what works for one person may not work for another.

To get your system back on track, I recommend that you start a dedicated thread detailing your specific setup and the errors you're seeing. This would allow our community to provide tailored troubleshooting steps to resolve these issues for you as quickly as possible - if things really are miserable for you, let’s do something about that!

My Sonos system never works reliably on WiFi and I have all the same problems. Even in a newly built house with no other WiFi in use, the tech tried to tell me it was interference. Corry, it’s painfully obvious that nobody at Sonos knows how to make WiFi stable (or a usable app). Telling people to “start a new thread” is insulting. Why should we do all the work? How about telling your CEO to stop marketing new products until he can fix the thousands of products that his update broke?

I have had connection issues with SONOS over the years on both ethernet and wifi.  I have had SONOS equipment for almost 15 years  It has been over several different routers and different configurations in an effort to troubleshoot.  I have never been able to really figure out what is going on. It developed over time after software updates and equipment upgrades.   it is usually just a long hiccup but occasionally I have needed to stop the music and restart or restart the devices.  I have sent in diagnostic info but never felt that my problem was taken seriously by SONOS support.

What was the response from Sonos when you called in to have the diagnostic looked at?

I hesitate to suggest you take the 30 seconds to start a new thread given how horrible that request is. :-)

Seriously, post a new thread, give us other users some information on your setup and it is likely so done will have a suggestion to help. 

If that fails, get the issue to happen, submit a diagnostic and call Sonos support. Without the call diagnostics are not looked at.

I appreciate the response but have just come to accept and live with it (one reason I have moved a bit from a full SONOS system).  I have an IT background so have done the full change wifi channel, dedicated ip, change router, ensure a good signal, just wifi, just ethernet, change router, different streaming services, group/ungroup, etc.  It is infrequent, just annoying.  The only constant is that it only seems to happen when I least want it to (ie have company, getting into the music, heading out, etc) and is least convenient to gather diagnostic data.

The diagnostic takes a few clicks and scrolls but only a few seconds once requested.

Generating the report on my seven Room system takes about 20 seconds.

A screenshot of the diagnostic number a couple more seconds.

All under a minute to complete and once done you can call support any time it is convienent.

The support folks can see the information that is hidden from users that is so necessary to debug  any issues.

Stanley, these events aren’t isolated or happening in a vacuum. A brief skim of the forums makes it painfully obvious that the software is inherently unstable and, unpredictable and the Sonos techs are playing whack-a-mole. Starting new threads is not going to change that and it just gives Sonos the cover they need to pretend the issues are fixable. They are not.

Lol “oh it’s so quick”. Yes but a new problem happens almost every day. I have had three separate issues this week. I am a network engineer and the last time I talked to Sonos tech support, I could tell they were in over their heads. The tried to tell me that the syslogs were saying something that they clearly were not. You think I’m gonna come here for each problem and start a thread and do diagnostics each time? Have you been on the phone with tech support lately? It’s an hour out of your day each time. 
 

“Restart your router” “Power cycle the unit” “Reset the unit” - great there’s half an hour and it still doesn’t fix my “content could not be played, try again later”. But it only takes “30 seconds”. 

Yet there are so many users out there with perfectly functioning systems.

Mine sucked, fought it for months, a couple suggestions from here helped. A call to support found the re,aining issues (100% my fault) and now the system has been rock solid for a long time. 

With the limited access we users have to essential logs and data there is no way for us to do this ourselves.

Don’t recall where I read this but someone in this community was talking about how his Sonos system would misbehave when he was having a party and was trying to use the system for party music.  A reply stated when there are several people in your WiFi environment it can cause interference with the WiFi signal.  Is that BS?

That’s not BS, IMHO, it’s physics, the nature of the frequencies of WiFi (2.4 and 5Ghz), and the nature of human bodies (mostly absorbing water). Has nothing in particular to do with Sonos. 

Not BS at all.  Water is an poor conductor of high frequency EMF, like WiFi, and people are basically bags of water.  Put enough people in between the WiFi transmitter and receivers, and interference is going to occur. 

I am not going to say all, but many of the complaints about Sonos not working properly seem to be posted by users who cannot or choose not to hardwire a main speaker. Others copy this type of setup but also have tabletop routers or mesh systems. On one system I have 5 out of 9 speakers hardwired.
Again not all users will have issues with the app or speakers with this type of setup.

I am not trying to understate the plight of users with issues, but I have to believe the number of users who do not have issues far exceeds those that do.

Sonos would be a distant memory by now if the numbers were reversed.

I am a Sonos fanboy and still recommend it to family and friends, because it simply works. I also joined communities to try and help those who are having issues, to be able to enjoy their systems as much as I do.

I may not be the best at networking, but I did make sure my networks are up to par for the stress that Sonos, URC, Control4 and others can throw at it. 
Everything else is sure to benefit from the settings made for network audio

Lastly, I use the app almost exclusively with Bluetooth and AirPlay a distant second and third.

Most humans are resistant to change. Pile releasing an app that was NOT complete on top of that and you will have users who will move away from it or be very critical of it.

I only had minor issues that didn’t warrant a complaint. So I decided to explore the app and have learned to love it. It does everything I need it to do.

I know I am repeating much of what has already been said, but I feel users need to read it again.

Wiring speakers can be useful but for older ones it raises the Sonosnet issue and choices between disabling Sonosnet and connecting surrounds and Subs.

For the Era line wiring requires the adapter, that is not cheap, for each speaker. Others have no wired option.

Today, for a vast majority of users a Wi-Fi setup is preferred, and suggested by Sonos.

When I finally took their advice and pulled my Ethernet connections things got a lot better and I'm not fighting Sonosnet issues.

I’m an expert at networking. Doesn’t matter whether system is wired or not (mine is). Errors, connection speed, app flakiness, random cutouts: they’re all frequent and they all happen regardless of which home I’m in (I have three Sonos setups in three apartments). The common denominator is the software/hardware. 
 

oh look, I got an error while writing this. 
 

and good lord, if you can’t make a sound system that stays functional when you have people in your home, it might be time to choose another field?