Question

Can’t play on Sonos from within Spotify

  • 17 October 2020
  • 14 replies
  • 898 views

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For some time now, I’m unable to play music on Sonos (in any room) from within the Spotify app.

Spotify identifies the different rooms (2x Sonos One and 1x Sonos Amp) but upon selecting a room it waits and waits, looks like a song is playing, but no sound.

If I open up the Sonos app, I can perfectly play the Spotify content in any room. 

I’ve tried reinstalling the apps, reconnecting the services, changing wifi channels on my router (Asus RT AX92U). Actually several months ago I even bought a new router, hoping it might help…

Any suggestions? It used to work fine, cannot figure out what has changed the situation.

Just realized something: when I try to play a personal playlist (like Daily Mix) from within the Sonos app, it fails: it skips song after song and sometimes a small popup ‘connection with spotify lost’... I can only play public lists, albums etc.

 

Additional info: apps on IOS


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14 replies

There is a current Spotify outage, as mentioned on the Sonos Status Page here:

https://status.sonos.com. So I would wait a short time and see what happens later when the Spotify issue is resolved. 

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Thanks but the outage is not the issue unfortunately...

Thanks but the outage is not the issue unfortunately...

Perhaps try a reboot of your router first of all and see if that resolves your issue, if not, can you perhaps describe your local network in a bit more detail (router make/wifi access points/any cabled sonos devices/switches etc.)  - thanks.

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I’ve rebooted my router several times. Yesterday I gave every Sonos device a factory reset. Installed the system from scratch.

I have:

1x Sonos Amp (cabled network, connected to TV and set of “old skool” speakers in the living room.

2 x Sonos Play: 1 (one in the kitchen, one in the bedroom, both wifi connected)

I’m still unable to:

  • play directly from Spotify, most of the time. Sometimes, after trying 6x times, waiting, doing nothing it suddenly start to play just one song or first skips a song from a playlist, then play 20 seconds and skips to the next song. But most of the time I’m unable to play from Spotify (directly)
  • I can play music with the Sonos app connected to my Spotify account, accept for my personal playlists like Discover Weekly or Daily Mixes. It throws an error saying the connection with Spotify was lost

As you have the Amp cabled to your network it will be acting as your Sonos ‘root bridge’ and your devices running on SonosNet. See below points I have listed:

  1. Is the Amp wired directly to your main router or is it connected to a different access point? It’s best to wire it or one of your Play:1’s ‘direct’ to the main router.
  2. Can you check to see if your router is using a ‘fixed’ non over-lapping 2.4ghz WiFi channel (1, 6 or 11).
  3. Set the SonosNet channel in “Settings/System/Network” of the Sonos App so that it is at least 5 channels away from your chosen routers 2.4ghz channel.
  4. If using any other wireless access points in the home, set those up with the same credentials (SSID/password), the same ‘Fixed’ WiFi channels and channel width.
  5. Providing you do not have a Sonos Move in your HH, you could also remove/reset the WiFi credentials in the Sonos App “SettingsSystem/Network/Wireless Setup”. These are not needed when running your S2 devices on SonosNet.
  6. A further helpful, but optional. thing to do is reserve all your Sonos IP addresses in your routers DHCP reservation table.
  7. Finally ensure your Sonos products are at least three feet away from other WiFi connected products (where practicable) particularly any Sonos wired device connected to the main router.

See if that gets your Spotify App working. It’s also worth trying a different mobile controller if you have one available to eliminate issues with the mobile device itself.

  

On past threads, I have seen the following touted as solutions by someone they worked for.  (Generally followed by a few other people saying it didn’t work for them).  There seems little logic to any of this but it only takes a few seconds to try:

  1. Turn off mobile data
  2. Turn off Bluetooth
  3. Turn off Apple Watch {?!)
  4. Toggle ‘flight safe’ mode.

You should also, of course, ensure that you have the latest version of the Spotify app.

 

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Thanks for your input Ken & John,

I’ll dive into it this evening.

 

Viktor

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  1. Is the Amp wired directly to your main router or is it connected to a different access point? It’s best to wire it or one of your Play:1’s ‘direct’ to the main router.
    » It is wired directly, though with an intermediairy switch
  2. Can you check to see if your router is using a ‘fixed’ non over-lapping 2.4ghz WiFi channel (1, 6 or 11).
    » If set the 2.4GHz on the router to channel 1 and Sonos Net to channel 11. 
  3. Set the SonosNet channel in “Settings/System/Network” of the Sonos App so that it is at least 5 channels away from your chosen routers 2.4ghz channel. » check
  4. not appliccable

  5. Providing you do not have a Sonos Move in your HH, you could also remove/reset the WiFi credentials in the Sonos App “SettingsSystem/Network/Wireless Setup”. These are not needed when running your S2 devices on SonosNet.
    » there’s no Wifi connection configured in theSonos app
  6. A further helpful, but optional. thing to do is reserve all your Sonos IP addresses in your routers DHCP reservation table.
    » i’ve assigned statis addresses to all Sonos devices
  7. Finally ensure your Sonos products are at least three feet away from other WiFi connected products (where practicable) particularly any Sonos wired device connected to the main router.
    » that’s a tough one… The AMP is close to my TV (wireless), Playstation (wired) and Apple TV (wired)

See if that gets your Spotify App working. It’s also worth trying a different mobile controller if you have one available to eliminate issues with the mobile device itself.

» So far no good. I will try other devices...

» I’ll also now try John’s suggestions  

 

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OK, it took me some time, but I’ve tried everything mentioned here, but to no avail. Spotify and Sonos are not happy together (in the Sportify to Sonos direction).

Any suggestions?

OK, it took me some time, but I’ve tried everything mentioned here, but to no avail. Spotify and Sonos are not happy together (in the Sportify to Sonos direction).

Any suggestions?

Can you briefly explain your setup now you have made the changes suggested - are you still running on SonosNet? Which speaker are you using as your wired device  and what channels are in use (any other access points etc)… thanks.👍

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I’ve got:

Sonos Amp, cabled to Asus RT-AX92U (which has another RT-AX92U in mesh-configuration)

Router set to wifi channel: 1

I have set the channel bandwidth manually to 20MHz (used to be 20/40Mhz)

SonosNet channel: 6

2x Sonos Play:1

I’ve got 4 analogue JBL speakers and a subwoofer connected to the AMP.

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Thanks a lot to @Ken_Griffiths and @John B for helping out. I appreciate your expertise, those are superb advice, and input indeed.

 

Hi @Don Vito.

Thanks for reaching out and for the detailed responses, we are glad to help.

To add up with the suggestions above, upon checking with your router (Asus RT AX92U), I noticed known symptoms that are quite similar to this issue, which includes association failures with other ASUS RT routers with Airtime Fairness.

If this router has the said feature, I suggest that you may try to “disable” and see if that will help, here’s how:

  1. Log into the ASUS router.
  2. Under Advanced Settings, click Wireless.
  3. Click the Professional tab.
  4. Disable Airtime Fairness and click Apply.
  5. Change the Frequency to 5GHz.
  6. Disable Airtime Fairness and click Apply.

 

If the problem continues, it would be worthwhile checking also and making sure that the router is not blocking Sonos. 

  • Download the Asus App on your mobile device.  (if you don’t have it yet)
  • Ensure that your mobile device is connected to the right WiFi and launch the Asus router app.
  • Tap Devices.
  • Scroll to see if there are blocked Sonos devices and tap on it to open a new menu.
  • Disable Block Internet Access.
  • Then, test music playback, or any other activity to Sonos that was previously failing, and see if the problem will be resolved.

NOTE: You may need to reboot the affected Sonos players.

 

Hopefully, that helps but if not, please submit a diagnostic report using the Sonos app when an issue occurs, so we can review your system further and see if there’s anything under the hood that might be causing this issue.

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Hello Annazel, 

I’ve disabled Airtime Fairness on all frequencies. No luck.

There are no devices blocked so I couldn’t unblock them.

I’ve submitted my diagnosyics, this is my confirmationnumber: 942401437.

Looking forward to you response.

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Hi @Don Vito.

Thanks for your response and for your effort in submitting the diagnostic.

Upon checking on the diagnostic report, it was triggered using MAC OSX and the network connection of this controller is ‘Unknown’, meaning, it is not connected on the same network where you have your Sonos system.

  • Please ensure that the controller is connected to the right WiFi network. 
  • Try to use another controller (mobile device) and if the issue still occurs, please submit a diagnostic using this device.
  •  

There are also transport errors detected by the system. I see that both SonoNet and your router are using the same WiFi channel (6) and that is not suggested because it can cause interference.  

In reference to @Ken_Griffithsthe Sonos component that is currently hardwired (Amp) must be directly wired to the router. You mentioned using ‘intermediary switch’, can you try to remove it for this troubleshooting, it will help us isolate the issue.

 

You can visit our article on reducing wireless interference to change wireless channels and move Sonos away from certain electronic devices in order to avoid interference.

I recommend changing the wireless channel on the wireless router (or access point). NOTE: This may involve disabling automatic channel assignment on the wireless router or access point.

 

  • Log in to the wireless router or access point that Sonos is associated with through a web browser or through the router/AP's designated App.

  • Change the router/AP's wireless channel to a different channel. If the router/AP uses an automatic channel assignment, it is recommended that this be disabled for this exercise. Ideally, select channels 1, 6, or 11 are the preferred non-overlapping channels.

  • Test it and attempt music playback, or any other activity to Sonos that was previously failing, and see if the problem is now resolved.

 

If the issue still persists, please submit a new diagnostic report and reply with the confirmation number so I can check further and see if there’s anything else causing this issue.

 

Let us know how it goes and if you have any questions feel free to reach out, we’re always here to help.