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Reproducible Playback Failure on Sonos Arc+Sub+Era300 with Apple Music Dolby Atmos Album

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I'm using Apple Music with a Sonos setup consisting of Arc + Sub + two Era 300 speakers.

When I play the following album, playback consistently halts mid-track, and the Sonos system becomes completely unresponsive—as if it's frozen. After a short while, it recovers as though it had rebooted.

https://music.apple.com/jp/album/tchaikovsky-the-sleeping-beauty-childrens-album-piano/1825381287
(Tchaikovsky: The Sleeping Beauty; Children's Album; Piano Sonata, Op. 80; Theme and Variations, Op. 19/6 – performed by Danil Trifonov)

If you're using Apple Music, could you try playing this album from the beginning and see if the issue occurs?(not via AirPlay, but directly from Sonos App) In my case, the problem happens 100% of the time, although the timing varies. It usually doesn't take long to reproduce.

There have been reports in this community of similar issues with Sonos + Apple Music—such as tracks skipping, audio dropouts, or playback stopping unexpectedly—and I believe this may be related.

From my experience, music encoded in Dolby Atmos tends to trigger these failures more easily. This album is in Dolby Atmos and features very short tracks (most of the early ones are under a minute), which I suspect creates an especially unstable playback scenario for Sonos systems.

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craigskiAnswer

Local Superstar

Report Apple Music playback issues on Sonos here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/apple-music/

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AjTrek1

@barrygster

Please remove the diagnostic number. Sonos considers that confidential information related to your privacy. No one will call you. You need to call Sonos tech support to be actionable.

Together Everyone Achieves More = T.E.A.M.

Stanley_4

Grand Maestro

Actually the moderators are instructed to remove posted diagnostic numbers and we rarely see visits from the developer bunch. It may get passed up the chain as they are removing it, I'm not sure.

Airgetlam

Sonos support doesn’t live in these forums, just Forum moderators. It might benefit you to read the Diagnostics - How do they work? thread.

Bruce

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Cant

Lyricist III

I also had the same issue with another Dolby Atmos album: Sabaton - The Last Stand

https://music.apple.com/album/the-last-stand/1463625294

I have also tried playing the album mentioned in this post:

https://music.apple.com/album/tchaikovsky-the-sleeping-beauty-childrens-album-piano/1825381287

I can so far reproduce this issue on both albums.

I currently have an open case with support on this; I’ll update here on how it progresses.

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Cant

Lyricist III

I also had the same issue with another Dolby Atmos album: Sabaton - The Last Stand

https://music.apple.com/album/the-last-stand/1463625294

I have also tried playing the album mentioned in this post:

https://music.apple.com/album/tchaikovsky-the-sleeping-beauty-childrens-album-piano/1825381287

I can so far reproduce this issue on both albums.

I currently have an open case with support on this; I’ll update here on how it progresses.

Forgot to mention my setup:

Beam (Gen2) + Sub Mini + Era 100 x 2

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Cant

Lyricist III

Similar to the previously reported issue, they closed my support case and transferred the issue to be investigated by the engineering team. They aren’t able to give an exact resolution date.

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Cant

Lyricist III

Here’s another album, during which the playback fails also:

https://music.apple.com/album/an-immersive-tribute-to-astor-piazzolla-live-ep/1833045274

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CCCarlAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

@Cant

Thank you for your replies. It is so important information that not only Arc but also Beam has the same issue.

And I’m so sorry to hear that your support can’t fix the problem as mine.

The albums you shared contain very short tracks and I think they make Sonos system broken. From my experience, tracks shorter than 2 minutes make the problem so often.

I hope the Sonos managers and technical team recognizes this problem, and fix it as soon as possible.

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Cant

Lyricist III

@Cant

...

The albums you shared contain very short tracks and I think they make Sonos system broken. From my experience, tracks shorter than 2 minutes make the problem so often.

I hope the Sonos managers and technical team recognizes this problem, and fix it as soon as possible.

I think your hypothesis is correct. To test it I created two playlists from this album: https://music.apple.com/album/the-last-stand/1463625294

Playlist 1: Created a playlist from the full album

Playlist 2: Created a playlist from the full album, and then removed the 4th song (Diary of an Unknown Soldier) that’s just 52 seconds.

When I play the Playlist 1, I can reproduce the issue, around 4th or 5th song it crashes.

When I play the Playlist 2, it plays through to the end of the playlist.

Indeed looks like the Sonos or the Apple Music app on Sonos isn’t able to handle (some of the) short atmos tracks.

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CCCarlAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

@Cant

Thank you for your report.

Yes, this problem is easily reproducible for us. However, Sonos suppot told us it was not reprodcucible.

So there might be another factor regarding the problem.

I hope someone find it so that Sonos can analyze it easily.

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