Why does Sonos force us to update the software?

Hmm, ok. Let me see if I’ve got this. I’ve been complaining about my system dropping sound, and the only thing that fixes it is doing controller updates. Occasionally a firmware update, but usually a controller update. I ask if Sonos is forcing people to update by doing this. 

You show up, you proclaim that I don’t have to update if I don’t want to, and that I can shut off automatic updates - which has nothing to do with my question - and then claim victory. 

I tell you that has nothing to do with my question. You reply that it then must be something I’m doing because its impossible for Sonos to do what I’m saying. 

I tell you that its very possible, that other companies do it, and Sonos has done something akin to this in the past though not by the same modality. I also remind you that you were wrong in your initial post, which you still haven’t acknowledged. 

You sidestep all this and bring up your brother and how his system has never been updated and he doesn’t use the app. Fine, but how did his system get put together? Ah, you did it, using the app, which you then just admitted you’ve dissociated from his system, so the controller couldn’t be causing an issue. I have half a dozen controllers here, and software updates for those have more often than not been the problem. 

Finally, you stick to saying that I’m talking about a non-updated Arc causing this, when the problem is generally solved by updating the controller app. 

So, in summary:

You misunderstand the question, you post the wrong solution. You still misunderstand the problem and continually bring up firmware updates when this is apparently a controller issue. You then use an example that can’t possibly prove my situation isn’t valid because your own description of your example proves you’re wrong. I repeatedly remind you that you were wrong in your very first post and you still can’t admit that. You’ve been shooting in the dark during this whole thread. And you ask me if I’m always this wrong? Maybe on your Bizarro world. On this world you’re at around half a dozen errors and counting, and thats just in today’s posts. 

And to your last question: I understand every bit of your mini bravado statement about posting. However, I don’t think you understand what you’re doing. You should go now. 

lol finally we’re getting somewhere...

ok you set it up, using your app, on your phone, so technically this system is yours isn’t it? It just “lives” at your brother’s house. Based on your time here, you of all people would have up-to-the-minute controller software, right? Maybe that explains why your brother’s Arc doesn’t have any trouble. Hm, gotcha, since that kind of thing is important to you. 

Yes I want to fix this problem, and thats why I posted here. Two pages in you suddenly want to help? Thank you for that kindness, but please just leave the thread. Seriously. 

So you just admitted it took a phone to set up his Arc. Excellent, thanks for confirming that. There's your gotcha, son. Make your exit now, please. 

We haven’t discovered if anyone else has been affected by this. Since many people have been directed to set their systems to automatically update, I doubt we’ll really see any meaningful sample there. In any case, its happening here, and its directly remedied by updating the Sonos controller(s). 

Updates to the controllers cause a reboot? On what system? None of my iOS devices and none of my computers have ever rebooted as a result of one of the controller updates. Nice try on your part, buh bye.

I’ve been dealing with self-important people for most of my life, especially within your business. Some of my biggest laughs start with hearing someone say “I am a coder”. In any case your attitude isn’t helping, and you certainly haven’t provided any concrete help. 

I don’t control this thread, but neither do you. Bye. 

No, I haven’t figured it out. I’m not a coder, can you not read? I’m simply making a guess as to how it could be happening. Software flags are known in the industry even to someone with experience as oblique to coding as mine. 

I never said Sonos is specifically targeting me, I said its happening to me. Unfortunately its not happening to your brother, who has an Arc you somehow set up for him without using an app. If you could let me in on that secret perhaps I could reinstall my system, get rid of the apps, and the problem would be solved.

In any case, there are tech forums absolutely full of people who have identical hardware and software yet not everyone has the same support issues. Go review the support threads for the last ten MacOS or iOS releases, for example. Apple has the tightest hardware and software integration in the history of computing, yet the hundreds of thousands of each model that they sell through each quarter somehow end up playing differently for each customer. Not everyone on the forums has the identical problem. Go look. “I just installed MacOS Salton Sea and now my video out on my MacMini doesn’t work.” and thirty five people will stand up and post “it works for me”. 

Sonos, with even tighter hardware and software integration than Apple - because Sonos isn’t fighting the detritus of 35 years of legacy code across several different processor architectures= has the same kind of problems. Scanning the past two years of posts on any player will show you many people who have unique problems. Like mine. Apparently I’m the first person to present this issue. Will I be the only one? Will anyone ever bother talking about it if you hammer them in their thread like you did to me?

I’m still waiting for you to show actual impetus towards fixing this. Everyone else made suggestions which I was able to respond to. You made an actual mistake, dragged down the entire discussion, you refuse to acknowledge this, and now you’re doubling down on projecting this back at me instead of recognizing your error. With insults on top of it. 

Please leave this thread. Don’t reply any further, just leave. 

I already assumed you weren’t lying to me, but thanks for posting the link. 

I didn’t miss it. Based on what I’ve read in other threads, I have to wait until the next time this occurs to do a diagnostic report, otherwise Sonos will not have the information they need to investigate. Picture bringing your car in multiple times for the same trouble, and the service writer always responds with “Could not reproduce the problem.” So I’ll be sure to let you know when I do that. 

Once again, my brother has had an Arc for over a year and has never done an update to either the hardware or the Sonos app.  Matter of fact, he doesn’t even use the Sonos app.  It works just fine, he never has dropouts.  So your problem has nothing to do with unperformed updates, time to look somewhere else.

In fairness to you, I went looking for that thread and couldn’t find it. But I did find a guy who posted up about his speakers changing to S2 “overnight”. At least one other person in that thread said they experienced the same thing. Its definitely not the same thing as what I see happening here, but at least it should open people up to the possibility things can change in a Sonos system without customer permission or involvement. 

“Where would this flag reside?  On your speakers on the controller?”  Since the Arc is the one shutting off, and its the root of the whole system, I would say the flag is set on the Arc. Thats just a guess. I’m not a coder, and I certainly don’t know the ins/outs of the Sonos system. 

“If you turn off your phones, or remove them from the WiFi, does the sound resume?”   Thats a good question. I’ll have to try that next time the drop occurs. I anticipate that there’d be no change, assuming this is a flag issue and it resides on the Arc. That flag would have to be reset in order for the sound to proceed, and turning off the very thing that can reset the flag doesn’t seem like it would cause a reset. Again, I’m not a coder, this is just a guess.  

“Do you think the Arc maintains a listen of all the controlling apps in your system?”  Perhaps. Each controller keeps a list of what speakers are on the Sonos network, so its not that hard to believe that a copy of that list includes controlling apps as well, and that copy resides on the Arc. But thats assuming the controllers are actually the ones causing the service drop. If its indeed a flag, as I suspect, then it doesn’t matter what controllers are on what list, anywhere at all. All that matters is what state the flag shows. 

“I can’t guess as to what incident your talking about.  However, your controllers and firmware must be on the same version.  It’s always been that way.  You may be referring to a case when a guess or other family member updated the firmware for a system, when the Sonos owner did not want it updated, forcing them to update the controler app on the owner’s phone.”      No thats not it. Let me see if I remember this correctly. This was around the time of the iOS controller version 7 and 8. There was a huge mess over some functionality that was deleted or modified. I didn’t do the update myself, just because the system was working and there was no need for any update. Then one day I recall opening my iPhone controller to use the dialog enhancement and I received a message that my Sonos needed a firmware update. I was able to clear that but it came up every time I used the app. Then a few days later the app stopped working. I switched over to using my iMac, and it worked for a while. Eventually that controller stopped working. I gave up on controllers and just used the Playbar until one day nothing came out and I was forced to update. 

“There is a thread regarding the Sonos Arc/Sub base issues where numerous people have stated they are not updating their software till a fix is provided.  None of them are complaining about drop out issues.”

Yet.

Where would this flag reside?  On your speakers on the controller?  If you turn off your phones, or remove them from the WiFi, does the sound resume?  Do you think the Arc maintains a listen of all the controlling apps in your system?

I can’t guess as to what incident your talking about.  However, your controllers and firmware must be on the same version.  It’s always been that way.  You may be referring to a case when a guess or other family member updated the firmware for a system, when the Sonos owner did not want it updated, forcing them to update the controler app on the owner’s phone.

There is a thread regarding the Sonos Arc/Sub base issues where numerous people have stated they are not updating their software till a fix is provided.  None of them are complaining about drop out issues.

Thats the summary of it. There’s only really three pieces to this chain: Sonos, Arc, and the controller(s). 

How? I don’t know. But if I had to guess, I would say its a simple flag that is set by an inbound update notification, and that flag shuts off the sound. Updating resets the flag. But I’m not a coder so this is just a guess. 

Why? Again I’m just guessing, but I’d say its to frustrate the user into turning on automatic updates. I did some reading on Sonos updates when I got into this Arc and I found out they did some really heavy-handed stuff at one point in the past to force updates. I don’t exactly recall what it was but it was either a firmware update that broke the controllers to force people into a newer version of the controller that they didn’t like, or vice versa. I’ve already spent too much time on this topic today or I’d go look into it for you. 

Why has nobody noticed this before?  I’ve spent no small amount of time reading threads here about software issues, and one of the most common pieces of advice is “you should have auto updates turned on”. So perhaps nearly everyone here has auto-updates turned on, and since my problem relates to unperformed updates, those customers don’t run into a forced controller update issue? Once again, I’m just guessing, but that seems like the simplest answer. 

1. And as I’ve said numerous times, most of the pending updates are controller software updates. Firmware updates are rare, but they also solve the problem. What does “bouncing the system mean”?
2. I don’t have automatic updates turned on. And on numerous occasions we've found one single controller out of our many, that had an update pending, but none of the others. 
3. My wife uses the TunedIn radio portion of the Sonos controller to play a single local FM station. The Arc drops out with that as well. We’ve also run into an unrelated problem with TunedIn where it will not work unless we update the controller, but the tv is still passing sound to the Arc. That kind of deflates the whole “your TV is causing this” scenario so I’m glad you brought this point up. I have no use for the rest of the streaming stuff so I can’t comment on that. 

You have identified a solution to the problem.  Not the cause.  As I stated, if your pending update is a firmware update, you’re bouncing the system.

Your phone and your speakers are two different physical devices that can be updated.  When the software on the speakers need to be updated, that’s generally referred to as a fimware update.  When the app on your phone needs to be updated, that’s an app updated.  Sonos will usually schedule updates so that both the app and the devices getted updated at the same general time, however, there are cases where just one or the other needs an update.    And obviously, if you do an update on one phone or tablet in your home, the apps in your other devices will need to be updated...when firmware is already updated.

Your answer makes me thinking that you don’t play any streaming sources directly to the Arc, all the audio comes from the TV.