Contributor I

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Arc was working fine but now intermittently disappears from the app

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I realize this has has been addressed in another post, but the solution there didn't help, so reposting. First some background:

1. Been using Sonos since 2008. What attracted me (despite their high price) was their robustness

2. In 2021, while my fellow Sonos users were complaining about Sonos' new products not being backwards compatible to their older products, I replaced all my Sonos S1 products with new S2 products (again because Sonos products are reliable, robust and always just work)

Now my issue:

1. Since my upgrade on 2021, my Arc/Sub and Port have been working flawlessly fir months. However in the last few weeks, my Arc/Sub intermittently disappear from the app. My Port *never* disappears from the app. What is specific about the Arc that isn't applicable to the Port?

2. I've tried factory resets to the Arc, reinstalling the app and going through the entire setup process and everything works fine for like 30min or an hour. Then the Arc disappears again

3. My Arc is connected via ethernet. I've tried disconnecting the Ethernet and going wireless, but it still disconnects after about an hour.

4. I've tried turning off wifi for the Arc via the app and just using the Ethernet cable, but the app wouldn't let me select this option - it just kept saying "this can take several minutes" but it didn't allow me to switch over to disabling the wifi.

It goes without saying that these products are not cheap and then to buy them all over again a second time and have the robustness factor that Sonos was known for go to crap is extremely disappointing.

If anyone has a solution for the above, I'd certainly appreciate it. Else, I'll be getting rid of all of my Sonos speakers and will be sure to tell anyone and everyone who'll listen about my recent experience with Sonos.

Thanks in advance.

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AirgetlamAnswer

Notwithstanding your unnecessary threat, it sure sounds a lot like an issue with a duplicate IP address being held in your router. Rather than doing a factory reset, which more often obfuscates an issue than it fixes one, why don’t you try unplugging all Sonos devices from power. While they’re unplugged, reboot your router. Once the router comes back up, plug back in your Sonos devices. Then see if the issue recurs. If it does immediately, my suspicions are unfounded, and you should instead submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it.

There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and network.

However, if the reboot process does solve the issue, I’d recommend looking at the manual for your router and setting up reserved IP addresses in the router’s DHCP table for all your networked devices, not just the Sonos.

Bruce

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UKMedia

To further explain the comments from @Airgetlam, you may want to look at my article here: Tips & Tricks - Resolving random issues impacting Sonos devices.. | Sonos Community

Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)

Airgetlam

Firmware without updates means limiting the features provided to the users, which means fewer sales. That’s never a good business strategy.

If there is no issue on the majority of networks, and people can resolve the issues on routers that have issues by simply following appropriate network etiquette, why would Sonos want to avoid increasing their potential for additional features, or bug fixes, or whatever?

I understand where you’re coming from, but it seems like an odd thing for Sonos to change their business plan based on a minority of poorly working pieces of hardware that are outside of their control.

Bruce

K

kandullaAuthor

Contributor I

Firmware without updates means limiting the features provided to the users, which means fewer sales. That’s never a good business strategy.

If there is no issue on the majority of networks, and people can resolve the issues on routers that have issues by simply following appropriate network etiquette, why would Sonos want to avoid increasing their potential for additional features, or bug fixes, or whatever?

I understand where you’re coming from, but it seems like an odd thing for Sonos to change their business plan based on a minority of poorly working pieces of hardware that are outside of their control.

Fair point. I do think that Sonos can do a better job in batching their firmware updates though, but that is just my opinion. Ironically, their very frequent firmware updates may in fact be deterring repeat sales rather than increasing them as you suggest, but again, that's just a hypothesis that I have no data to prove one way or the other.

But thank you again for your help. 12 hrs later, the system is still up, so clearly your fix solved my issue!

K

kandullaAuthor

Contributor I

To further explain the comments from @Airgetlam, you may want to look at my article here: Tips & Tricks - Resolving random issues impacting Sonos devices.. | Sonos Community

Awesome - thank you!

Airgetlam

Managing software releases is a fun job, there is always a frisson between getting that latest fix out for the people suffering from some bug or the latest new whiz-bang feature that might increase sales by 5%, versus the whole ‘we released two weeks ago, it’s too soon’ kind of thing.

I suspect my release process in video games was more easily formatted in a schedule than the Product Manager who deals with Sonos software releases, but I’ve never done that kind of thing. However, I’m also the impatient guy who wants that latest thing right now, and not in two weeks when we’ve got 3 things to include. And those two other things are only possibilities, since either the code isn’t yet done, or QA hasn’t had enough time to test, or the beta testers have found X as an issue….

Software release management is a dark art.

Bruce

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