Reading the 14.10 release note again, and thinking about the various differences in how each of us experienced this issue is interesting. I don’t feel like I ever experienced the delay or ‘echo’. Maybe a handful of times (less than 5% of my dropouts) I heard some poor audio that I characterized as a mis-mapping of channels and when restarting the stream to fix, immediately got a dropout. But it sounds like the root cause is the delay (transient processing or buffering glitch of some kind??) which the Sonos system seemed to handle poorly by dropping the satellite channels completely and then not self-healing? I wonder if the fix was more on the processing or buffering side or the handling/healing side. Maybe both? Might also explain why some users (myself included) attributed the issue to higher bit rate stuff like Dolby Mat (higher likelihood of processing strain?). And if the processing glitch was upstream of the Sonos device (TV or streaming box), could explain why some users attributed to Dolby vision or other high bandwidth video formats (sacrifice the audio for sake of video?). Also makes me think back to this thing on Nakamichi website I found:

Dolby Atmos MAT audio playback:

Some content devices output Dolby Atmos audio in "Dolby Atmos MAT" format, a new audio format that adds Dolby Atmos metadata into lossless pulse-code modulation (PCM) audio. The content devices are designed to prioritize internal buffering for high quality video when playing Dolby Atmos MAT contents. Therefore, the buffering process might cause random audio cut-outs. This is reported by various users with content devices that outputting Dolby Atmos MAT format

 Anyway, all just speculation for which we’ll probably never have a definitive answer.

The fun y thing about the "echo" is the first time I heard it was a scene in Apple TV's Severance.  I dont know if you have seen it, but it is a mystery type show and I actually thought the echo was someone's muffled talking in another room and thought I was catching onto a clue no one else had....sadly when I watched another completely different show and got the "echo" I realized how big of a clown I was.

haha yes I’ve seen it and can totally get it. That show begged you to try and pick out clues and make predictions and something subtle like a faint side conversation could totally contain a big clue. 

Well I had my first sub and surround dropout with 14.10.  It had been working perfectly but we were watching the Kenobi finale on Apple TV and that worked fine.  Then we started watching the new episode of Ms. Marvel and it worked great until half way through one of our kids came down to talk to us.  We paused it but the conversation went so long that the Apple TV turned off.  TV was still on but Apple TV was off.  Turned Apple TV back on and started the show back up and the sub and surrounds were gone.  Turned off the TV and turned it back on and the sub and surrounds returned.  Doesn't appear like 14.10 fixed all the bugs.  But until that incident tonight it was working.  Still can't trust it 100% like we used to be able to. 

Oh and I should point out that when we lost the sub and surrounds I went and used one of the physical buttons on the surrounds and it did mute the Arc so they were still talking to each other just no sound getting to them.

Hi @bschwartz 

If you are experiencing issues with your system, please contact Sonos Support with a diagnostic so we can help identify your specific issue and work to resolve it. The Sonos team is committed to resolving any issue you experience so you can continue to enjoy your music and listening in the seamless manner you should expect.

Sory to hear that. Anymore drops again or was it a one and done? Did you complete restart your system after the install? I had sub glitch when playing music and moving back and forth between my move and arc, but a complete system reboot solved it.

I 100% agree that 14.10 changed the overall mix.  I’m noticing way more coming to the rears than before, and slightly more stereo separation.  It all sounds good. 

No drops yet since 14.10 . My system was highly unstable with the issue, had a dropout every 5 minutes. 

Hi @Corry P , thanks for the update. My system has been solid since 14.10 . I did wanted to ask however that while upgrading from 14.8, the update failed. I then restarted the entire system and everything worked. Then while I was adding surrounds, they took forever and didn’t add properly. I did eventually add up factory resetting everything and the system works. No dropouts since but I  did want to ask that is 14.10 the final fix for dropouts? What changed on 14.10 that was broken in 14.6 . Appreciate if your support teams are fully updated on this, should we ever contact them again rather than them pointing the issues to be with our network. 

Hi @kuwarrulz_11 

Failing updates and having difficulties adding surrounds are classic examples of what can go wrong when there are network problems present. Factory resetting your Sonos speakers/system will not address these issues in any way (regardless if setup happened to work afterwards) and we recommend you don’t take this step unless advised to by technical support. At that stage, my recommendation would have been to reboot your router or simplify/change your network topology. Adjustment of certain network settings would also have been suggested long before factory resets. If you encounter similar issues again, I recommend a reboot of the network first, then of the speakers, and for you to get in touch with our technical support team if you don’t see an improvement.

We are continuously working on ways to improve the experience for our customers.

While not related to the 14.6 update, 14.10 includes targeted improvements on audio synchronization for home theatre surrounds and Subs that will address some customers’ issues with delayed audio or dropouts to surrounds and sub.  

For each case submitted by a customer, the Sonos team works on isolating the issue and replicating anything out of the ordinary. We strive to be transparent and accurate in our reporting of an issue and its resolution. In this case, we did not see an increase in reported issues nor were able to reproduce any reported issues that connected to the 14.6 update. 

just chiming in quickly to say my system has still been stable since 14.10. I’m still touching my subwoofer occasionally though 

TMI…. :)

Me too - my system has been solid since the Sonos voice update except for one drop out that occurred after a neighborhood power outage. Installed 14.10 today and even though I had no drops since the voice update except for power outage, I sense a better sound overall. Still touching subs, ears to surrounds, etc. though - paranoid about it.

While I appreciate Sonos is being more forthcoming as to what is going on and regaining stability for the customers who purchased their products, it’s still obvious (in my mind) that 14.6 messed something up, To be fair, I’m sure is hard to diagnose on their part given all the various systems/factors.

Still, I personally spent $400 on a new Asus wifi mesh to replace my old Orbi system because of this mess. Spent another $90+ on a Sonos boost, and like everyone else, spent a lot of time submitting diagnostics, talking to support, trying everything possible…

Don’t regret the Asus purchase, it’s better than my old Orbi mesh, and I can sell the Boost (anyone interested?) but still, I might have held off spending $500+ if Sonos had just acknowledged the problem and said, “we’re working on it” or “investigating it”.

What I’ve read is that they still say 14.6 had nothing to do with it. I’m not buying that explanation, but I’m glad it’s been resolved. Automatic updates are off permanently. 

Oh, and just for the record - it was my choice to spend $$$ on new stuff to try to resolve my problem. Not looking for a gift card, or for Sonos to pay me back. Just saying as somewhat of a network noob, I might have not done so if not for the support people telling me it was my network, etc. causing the problem all the time.

Now I know better… and I learned a lot, but didn’t really want too this way… :)

Noted, but with the same network everything works. Also, if Sonos relies so heavily on networking, please ensure to put this in the user guides as well. These systems need to be intelligent enough (considering the price) to help the users get notified of potential wireless issues. Hopefully, all future updates don’t break anything. I have turned my auto updates off as I was out of listening experience for more than 2 months

My surrounds seem much better now in fact my cat is even reacting to them now

Driving him nuts!

I have turned off auto update for now as well I will wait for forum posts saying all is well before updating from now on 

I must also say that introducing the Panasonic ub820 into my system is amazing much better than the xbox ever was at bluray playback 

Let's hope all stays stable from now on

So it seems likely that the 10.8 has fixed the problems many of us were having since 10.6. I also haven‘t experienced the issue since updating to 10.8.

But Sonos basically still denying there was such an issue does not really increase my trust in their communication, or their future updates.

Will also opt for disabling auto-updates to reduce the probability of such snafus happening again.

They’ll never admit that it was a problem on their end because they’d have to compensate us for breaking our systems for 2 months.

Everyone still good?

All good here. My Move has not dropped since the update. Before the update it would only play for about 10-20 mins before dropping the group sound. I think I was also having some voice/sub weirdness. It's also gone as best I can tell.

Yup

No issues here with newest firmware; fully wired setup (all ethernet, all speakers with wireless disabled). Watched a variety of Atmos/MAT streaming, Atmos/TrueHD Blu-ray, DTS 5.1 streaming (Sony Bravia Core), Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 streaming, Stereo PCM 2.0 and Stereo PCM 5.1 Multichannel content last night try to break it. All good.

The long night may finally be at an end...

Lost sub and surrounds After switching from

Disney + to ps5. 
 

14.10

…

Ugh. Did you send a report and call?