The app in unfixable - start over of Sonos fails

Oh dear🤪

The app is perfectly usable here and I’ve never had any technical programme management experience and never specialised in data science. I would imagine if I had that level of experience and was having difficulties that I’d be able to get into my router/network and sort it out. If you can show Sonos how to do it, why can’t you show your home network how to do it?

Yup, the same mis-direction from Sonos and it’s diminishing club of super loyal fans who NEVER seem to have any problems even back over a year ago when this pile was foisted on customers to make some greedy CEO richer!  IT’S YOUR NETWORK, ROUTER, INTERFERENCE, ON and ON and ON!  

Hey people, Sonos is broke bad and not anywhere close to better after over a year!  

Just check the most recent Apple or Android reviews!  How about the now many negative reviews on the products on Amazon and other sites (“ love the speakers, hate the app!”)?? 

Two Sonos households to this day:

1st - running Sonos app (Orange) pre May 2024 - great, all good, no issues. 

2nd - running latest app (Black) still having multiple issues, drops, disconnects, lost speakers, and the only apps they can muster by with is SonoPad and SonoPhone. 

Tech support?? LMAO, they laid-off most of the good support engineers and farmed out the rest to off-shore 3rd party contracted service companies who don’t have a clue.

Over a year now Sonos so called management team, and it is still garbage - or the reviews, thousands of complaints, and continued flow of trouble posts here and on multiple social media sites would be as glowing as the last of the last super-defenders of the App/firmware changes who never seem to have issues and try to convince the rest of us it’s our network!  BS.

An Tom? Where is Tom? Radio silence since he took over the “helm”.  

Comments to this recent article help others understand, it’s not just them having issued still:

https://www.theverge.com/news/630883/sonos-update-new-features-future-updates#comments

Yes, the new software seems more vulnerable to disturbances. But part of this could be solved by taking a good hard look at your network. I do not see you mention having done this.

Tom Conrad has appeared on YouTube and an interview is published here: https://www.theverge.com/speakers/664329/sonos-ceo-tom-conrad-interview-app-speakers-subscriptions

But it is, I’m afraid…

I have a normal network with a normal router with normal mesh nodes and normal devices running the normal app. I’ve done nothing special. it loads in 2 seconds and plays what I want, when I want, where I want. I’d be gutted too to read of others not having any problems if I was in your shoes.

But IT DOES WORK. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t. It just doesn’t work for you and a proportion of others. But the number of people having issues reported on here is minuscule compared to 6-12 months ago, so that tells its own story. That said, it seems all the complainants are now camped out on Reddit, moaning into the echo chamber…

Don’t forget, no-one comes here (or Reddit, or Amazon, or anywhere else) to say they have a working Sonos system. I bet your car works fine, or your TV, or your electric razor, so you’ve not had reason to go onto the manufacturer’s website to tell them. The same applies with Sonos - you see complaints and so you feel it’s a global issue that Sonos has done nothing to remedy. All you see are those (like you) for whom it doesn’t work. So to you, it remains a major issue and one that causes your sweeping assumptions.

Not what you want to hear, I’m sure, and it will no doubt trigger a diatribe involving “super fans”, “shills”, “paid by Sonos”, “Sonos apologists” etc etc.

For those still having issues with their Sonos system, I’m curious – what is your router’s Wi-Fi security set to? Mine is set to “WPA2-PSK [AES]” and has been throughout. I wonder if anyone has their network set to a different security level – such as WPA, WPA3-only, or None – and whether that could be causing connection issues or dropouts with Sonos…? 

That said, from what I’ve seen, the main causes of Sonos not finding speakers or dropping out often relate more to network setup than Wi-Fi security. Things like:

• Mesh networks with separate bands or nodes, where devices can’t properly communicate

• Smart Connect or band steering enabled, which can separate devices onto different frequencies

• DHCP or IP assignment conflicts

• Access Point (AP) isolation or client isolation enabled on the router

• Interference from other devices, or weak Wi-Fi signals in certain rooms

So if you’re still having issues, it might be worth checking both your security settings and these other factors. I appreciate it’s not straightforward for some people to do some digging into these things if you’re not technically confident (and I also appreciate no-one should have to) but often just one toggle of a setting can bring a network back to life.

• WiFi Assist enabled on iOS causing phone to connect to mobile data when WiFi coverage is not ideal. Similar on Android, eg ‘Adaptive Connectivity’

But Sonos DID start over on app development, that is how they got into the current mess. A better idea would be to go back to the pre-May 2024 version.

Or, you know, try a third party app :-)

I don’t know how anyone can conclude that an app is unfixable without intimate knowledge of the design framework and coding behind an app.

Rhonny, with all due respect because you’ve helped a lot of folks on here as have other stalwarts.  But you/they keep NOT responding to the overwhelming and recent negative reviews on the App Stores, on product reviews, on tech and retail press coverage, and even Tom C. admitting they have a long way to go.  Just because there are fewer (In your estimate) complaints on here doesn’t necessarily mean we’re back to pre-May 2024 levels of satisfaction/functionality. 

Many… Too Many Sonos users new and old have abandoned this product line and many others who are having serious issues don’t come here any more b/c there are told too many “it’s you network, not the app/firmware change” so they give up.   Don’t forget to count those.   

Nor does it address why those still on S1 or S2 orange are NOT having these issues and that still more use SonoPad and SonoPhone with ease.  

We are pleased as punch for those who have the magic set-up that works, but that misses the whole point.  It should NEVER EVER be this difficult for the mass majority of new and veteran users of these whole-home wireless speakers to get them to work OUT OF THE BOX.  + Support now is an exercise in frustration and takes too long.  Return rates for new product purchases are much higher than prior to the rotten app update the company was deceptive and lied to its loyal customers on the roll-out.  Glad yours is working, but don’t assume the majority of others are.  And truly, thank to you and so many through the years who have helped others on these forums. I wish Sonos’ own support team was as well and able to assist their customers.  

Happy listening. 

You must have much better information on the return rate than I have. (None)

​@kassey22000 

Thanks for the measured and respectful reply. Appreciated.

And I really do get your frustration. The one thing that is missing - and it frustrates me as I only come on here to try to help solve issues - is that you haven’t mentioned anything about what you have done to explore whether there might be something to adjust at router level to rectify the situation. I understand that one should not have to change anything to get Sonos to work - but given the app and firmware do work, there is something in the mix preventing you from getting a reliable system. So I am just recommending you take a look, if you haven’t already. It does no harm to investigate. 
Or if you have, let us know what. ( @106rallye asked the question earlier but you didn’t respond.)

If new and old Sonos users are abandoning the product, where are their devices going? I still see a healthy market for used Sonos products on eBay, and digging deeper in eBay Seller tools (UK) its possible to get average sale prices for past 90 days, 6 months and 1 year and filter on USED items to get the SOLD prices.

If there was a greater supply (users abandoning) and less demand (less users), the average sale price would drop, but I don’t see this. The Era-100 price has dropped a little, due to the RRP changing a few months back, also the Arc dropping slightly, probably due to the Arc Ultra release, and users upgrading.

eBay Product Research

Hey Rhonny, Thanks much and I’ve learned a lot from the contributions on this forum (more than I should have too, but that’s another story).  It would take a very long reply to list all I/we have done since May 7th 2024.  The gist of it is this.  I was an early adopter and praised Sonos’ ease-of-use, simple set-up, and whole home streaming music to friends, family, tech associates, in reviews, on and on and helped many of them purchase and set up their system.  The S1-S2 was a major hassle but the company finally came around.  Last year was a total stick in the eye to EVERY one of the households I know with Sonos products.  Before they canned almost all of the great engineers (top level support), I/we had a fantastic engineer in Boston who helped us keep on going.  Then he too was gone.  Offshore support was terrible and there were lots of conflicting opinions on the forums/social media on what and how to address the multiple growing issues.  

So several households (including mine) stopped all iOS/Win app updates, locked the systems down with S2 Orange and waited to see what our friends/family did with S2 black (some accidentally getting trapped by the S2 forced update).  We tried almost all the suggestions from contributors here, but the app/firmware just keep updating and many times the work we did was unwound by another intrusive firmware/app update which made us have to run around the house and in crawl spaces resetting units/boosts, etc.  Hundreds of router/unit/phone/pad/pc power cycles in month after month.  Only a couple of folks were able finally work around the forced chaos by using 3rd party apps (which as we know don’t control settings).  

In each and EVERY household we have all STOPPED purchasing Sonos products and probably never will again.  A few friends gave their units to Goodwill or charity (not wanting to deal with eBay etc.) and moved to wired or other distributed music solutions, others have shelved these for perhaps when/if Sonos get’s their head out of their rears and introduce a stable, fully functional (to pre-may 24), system that doesn’t depend on the cloud for almost every function.  And yes a few took them to the e-waste facility out of yes spite and anger.  

The app is not even barely intuitive to most of us now.  So it’s not just my household, it’s many and too many of us just don’t have the time/patience any longer to fiddle/struggle with this mess.  

Glad you and others have a stable working system, it’s likely not the majority in my opinion.

Happy listening and we’ll check back now and then to see if there is any real progress - or it’s possible Sonos will be sold off, shut down, or left like a burnt-out star cinder while the c-suite folks retire comfortably ;-)  

Here in the “hospital” ‘everyone’ is sick. This morning I spoke with a house guest who is not reporting any issues with his SONOS S2 system. I refrained from telling him that he is wrong and ‘everyone’ is having trouble. (Except the few of us, often accused of being SONOS shills, who are attempting to guide users who are having troubles.) If he was having trouble, he would not hesitate getting his hands dirty and fixing his network.

Typically, only sick people come to a hospital. Note that SONOS doesn’t not necessarily log all events posted here because the reports are often just expressions of rage, not including enough details to help develop a solution. If an issue is reported through the SONOS support channel, a formal report can be generated that includes appropriate data.