Move and Roam continually disconnecting from Sonos App

Can you describe your home network? What router are you using?

I am using BT SmartHub2 as a router, but also have 2 wifi discs, so therefore assume that means its working as a mesh network.

My house is fully networked i.e. ethernet in every room so will use that where I can depending on device, eg sky Q and miniboxes which all use ethernet.

The play 3 is using ethernet but the remainder of the Sonos speakers are using the wifi network.

Hello,

The BT Smart Hub 2 was known to cause issues. Take a look at the following:

• BT Smart Hub 2 - Connection Issues (April 2021) F.A.Q.

I’d definitely check your router’s firmware is up-to-date.

Thanks, firmware is well beyond that.

Probably need to just need to put up with it.

My Sonos Roam disconnects daily and I’m 100% sure it’s due to its incompatibility with my Eero mesh network. When it disconnects it won’t even allow you to connect via Bluetooth. I have a $5 Bluetooth speaker from Amazon that has better reliability. It’s so frustrating this will be my last Sonos product. 

Hi, @NomoreS0nosproducts. 
Did you find a sollution for your Roam disconnecting? Mine stops playing music randomly no matter if I’m using Airplay, Spotify Connect, Apple Music or Bluetooth, but with Bluetooth the audio drops out for a second every 5 to 15 minutes or so, quite frustrating and infuriating.
My Ultimate Ears Wonderboom2 bluetooth speaker has absolutely more reliability, I use it a lot especially  in my shower time, and I can’t remember about any single playback issue since it was new. Compared to my Sonos Roam, I will say it’s an 85% more reliable than the Roam, to not say a 100% and throw hate to Sonos          

Hi @Manu84, I have not found a solution except for doing the reset(hold power and play button for 5 seconds) and reconnecting the Roam via initial setup. 

@NomoreS0nosproducts, Factory reset didn’t make any difference  for me either, I don’t know how to return it because it’s already out of warranty, but I don’t want it in my home near me anymore, it sucks🤮   

Sure sounds like network issues to me, I’d be contacting Sonos support. 

Without any data, I’d be guessing either wifi interference or even duplicate IP addresses being handed out by the router. There’s always the tiny possibility of a hardware failure, too, but until you contact support, there is no way to be certain . 

@Manu84 ugh and sorry. The most frustrating part for me is not being able to connect via Bluetooth and the application pushes you towards Airplay/Wi-Fi. It literally goes down almost everyday at about 11am ET. 
 

I have 10+ Sonos devices of multiple generations and Eero network.  Everything works but the Roam.  Constantly disconnects.  This tells me it is the Roam.  I really, really want to throw it against the wall or launch it into the backyard but my SO won’t let me…yet. Waste of money and my life dealing with it.  Oh, and yes, I have reset it to factory, updated firmware, sprinkled holy water on it, and put crystals next to it.  Nothing helps.

Wait for the glitch, submit a diagnostic and contact support with the number.

They may have better options than the river.

@aberger, thanks so much for your feedback and sorry you are having issues with the Roam also. The only semi-workaround I have found is power cycle then reconnect using the Sonos app. It doesn’t work every time though. I did try submitting a diagnostic report and contacted support, but didn’t help. They basically help you get it reconnected, but can’t solve for why it disconnects in the first place. I’m going to try your magic crystals approach and will report back, lol. 

In case it helps - I have the same issues.  USUALLY, not all the time, but usually.  If I turn off and back on my wifi on my phone and reopen the Sonos app the Roam will shop up again and start to work. It’s frustrating as all get out, but it’s a fairly easy work around that works 98% of the time.  The other 2% it’s a 20 minute session using words I need to confess later. 

I will never recommend Sonos to anyone.  It’s a royal pain in the ars. 

For context, I have 2 Sonos Ones, a Boost and my Roam.  We don’t have a lot of other devices connected.  We don’t use a voice box device at all and no mesh, just the router and the Boost.  

I did call tech support who seemed to have tried to help pushing firmware or something.  Didn’t do squat to help.  The did mention that the Roam DOES NOT connect to the Boost.  It wasn’t meant to.  I think that’s just the stupidest thing I’ve heard.  The whole reason I got the Boost was to try and resolve the issues with my Roam and it doesn’t connect to it.  

I think Sonos needs to get some better network software developers on board.  This is insane to pay this much for a product that is unreliable at best.

Roam is fairly new, Boost is obsolete and only available from the Last-Chance section of the Sonos store so it isn’t surprising they didn’t build in the backward compatibility in the Roam. Same for the 100 / 300 speakers, no SonosNet.

The change in most router’s capabilities between when the BRIDGE and BOOST were produced, and now, is substantial. 

My experience is that Sonos doesn't seem to work reliably with mesh networks with additional WiFi disks.

Adding disks improved the connection of everything else in the house, but Sonos speakers started dropping off the app at random.  All firmware on the router is current.

Connecting one speaker to an Ethernet cable so that the others then use the private SonosNet helped for most of them, but as the Roam doesn't support SonosNet, it remains on standard WiFi and still drops off regularly.  It's a pity Sonos chose not to support this on Roam.  I raised this before on the forum, and someone commented that SonosNet is itself a mesh, so it wouldn't be a good idea to support it on a portable speaker, as moving it would cause the mesh to reconfigure.   This seemed to make sense initially, though personally I mostly keep Roam permanently on charge in a fixed location, it only moves when taken out of the house.   Other discussions on the forum suggest that quite a lot of people use Roam in a fixed location, so perhaps Sonos could give us a choice on this by having SonosNet support as a switchable option?  - either that or figure out why the app seems to have a problem with speakers on mesh WiFi.

​​​​​

Similar issues here with the Roam SL, where it loses connection to the network after a certain amount of time. Restarting seems to solve the problem temporarily, but is not a solution. i was just on the phone with their ‘support’ for an hour...yes, an HOUR, and got nowhere. They were trying to blame everything on my router and network (no extenders or mesh, just a very common xfinity router) and trying to get me to go through all the configurations. I almost lost it. It is the only device out of 30 connected devices that has this issue. Seems the problem is a Sonos wifi issue and not my network. Since my network does refresh IP addresses after a period of time (good security practice and very common out of the box setting from xfinity) I did decide to reserve the IP address for this one device to see if that solves the problem. I did notice on of my Moves was set as reserved, and I recalled I had similar issues a couple years ago. Definitely poor design on the part of Sonos and even more disappointing that they fail to own up to it.

Similar experience to @SteveC_4 , my Roam seems to have an issue with the mesh network. Switching off the mesh roaming for my Roam so that it’s connected to a specific disk (so my Roam is unable to roam) seems to have done the trick. Which seems ironic…

@PhilRuse how do you switch off the mesh roaming? Is that on the Roam or your mesh network? 

@NomoreS0nosproducts On the network. I have a Deco system which lets me see all the connected devices; you can select any one and see which disc it’s connected to, WiFi strength etc, including a toggle for switching off “Mesh technology” for that device. It’s the only mesh system I’ve ever had so don’t know if that’s a typical feature.

@PhilRuse thanks for the additional details. I have an Eero mesh system so I’m going to take see if I can do the same. Thanks for the idea!