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Sonos Roam keeps disconnecting while playing

R
Userlevel 1

We use our Roam to play white noise in our daughters room. The speaker is set up in her room on the wireless charger. Previously it always worked fine, and then now it randomly just drops out and appears as “not connected” in the Sonos app. It’ll play for an hour or so, and then it disappears. 
 

Hard rebooting the speaker via the button on the back returns it to the app and makes it usable again, but it’ll play for another hour or so and then randomly stop and disappear. 
 

For reference: my home sonos system runs on Sonosnet channel 6

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Best answer by Ken_Griffiths 4 January 2023, 14:39

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99 replies

F
Userlevel 2

I hate this Sonos roam - it keeps disconnecting randomly.  If the sound wasn’t so good, I throw it against the wall.  I called customer service and they told me to turn off the cellular data- doesn’t work and they won’t take back the product.

J
Userlevel 1

I’ve been having this problem now with Roam for the six months I’ve been using it. From where I’m sitting, it’s a Sonos Roam problem and anything said to the contrary is letting Sonos off the hook. My system -- 2 One SLs, Beam, Sub, Port w/cd player, and all Apple devices -- does not suffer this disconnection problem. If it did, I wouldn’t have purchased the Roam. So: I await a fix from Sonos. 

F
Userlevel 2

For someone who doesn’t know what the heck you’re talking about with bandwidth, 5Ghz—-it’s about Sonos. All i wanted to do was plug and play my SONOS.  I had no problem with my Bose, JBL speaker and i shouldn’t have to be a tech wiz to fix this problem. Nor do i want to learn- technology is not my forte 

F

I hate this Sonos roam - it keeps disconnecting randomly.  If the sound wasn’t so good, I throw it against the wall.  I called customer service and they told me to turn off the cellular data- doesn’t work and they won’t take back the product.

I have Google Mesh Network and same issue, only turning it on and off works.  Sometimes setting it as a priority device on my network can give it a few more days before it disconnects again.  So frustrating that it’s been over a year and still no fix or workaround.

Same issue and spent hours with Sonos tech over past year to no success, poor product 

C

It’s happening the same with my Sonos Roam and it's been like this for months,   no matter if I’m using Airplay or  Spotify, it stops playing randomly.   my router is the M5 from TP Link, rebooted several times, updated the app and reinstall the controller but it makes no difference, no matter if other devices work fine in my network, the Roam kips glitchin    

Same.  Doesn’t matter if I’m on wifi or Bluetooth, Spotify or from phone directly.  Always dropping out and/or failing to connect.  No other network issues in house.  Think it’s an issue with Roam that Sonos aren’t acknowledging.  Lots of reports of this.

J
Userlevel 1

Ken, thanks, but I’m not going down that rabbit hole, seriously, and I shouldn’t have to. Nothing else in my Sonos system is (mis)behaving this way, for one. And life is too short, for two. The Roam disconnects whether I have it right next to my brand spanking new MacBook Pro, or right next to the router, which is all of 10 ft away (10 ft of open living room space). It disconnects whether I use the Sonos app on my brand spanking new iPhone, or the Sonos app on my iPad Pro. To put it simply, it disconnects. And to judge by this entire comment stream, I do believe this is a Sonos issue. At any rate, as I say, I’ll await a Sonos fix. Absent that I’ll have to put up with the disconnect issue, as everyone else commenting hereabouts seems to have done.

 

 

V
Userlevel 1

Great to receive some solutions but in my opinion Sonos Roam should be the easy to use carry on speaker. I mainly use it outside in my garden where I like to have the same stream as inside the house. I use Tune-in for streaming and because the Roam keeps disconnecting, I get the annoying ‘Tunein’ soundlogo followed by commercials every time the Roam reconnect. 
 

If Sonos does not take these issue seriously, I’ll start to swap all my Sonos equipment for another brand. 

J
Userlevel 2
Badge

The Roam is actually dropping its IP address. It does not shut down or go to sleep. It shows a solid white status LED. It stops being available through Sonos direct and Airplay.

After over 3 weeks and over 7 calls to Sonos support, they finally swapped the defective Roam with a replacement

V
Userlevel 1

Having the same issues. When I bought the Roam it was working excellent, as it should. Never had issues. Now I’m about to through it in a deep River and never buy such a faulty product again. @Sonos  please listen to the complaints and fix it! You are losing your brand ambassadors 

M

I have Google Mesh Network and same issue, only turning it on and off works.  Sometimes setting it as a priority device on my network can give it a few more days before it disconnects again.  So frustrating that it’s been over a year and still no fix or workaround.

S

I have the same issue, which makes my Sonos Roam almost unusable (for how I want to use it). Drop offs happen usually after, several minutes to under an hour, and that’s only if the Roam hasn’t already disconnected when I try to play music in the first place. I have a BT Smart Hub 2 Complete WI-FI mesh network. It’s worth noting, my other 5 smart speakers (from other brands) have no issues, nor do the large number of other WI-FI devices I have. My advice, don’t buy a Sonos Roam if you have a mech network. I’ll reach out to Sonos, and update if I’m ever provided a solution.

C

Agree with others--this is obviously an issue with the Roam. Like many, I have a mesh network with many devices connected and the Roam is the only one that exhibits this behavior. If I have to analyze or alter my network topology to suit the whims of one device, that’s just bad design. I also don’t understand why it won’t connect to SonosNet--why build a gadget that’s incompatible with your own proprietary networking scheme?

Let’s see a fix for this, Sonos.

Ken_Griffiths

The Roam does not use SonosNet, as you perhaps may be aware. Do you have your router WiFi 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands using separate SSID’s? - if so, then ensure the Roam is put onto the 2.4Ghz band and set the channel to either 1 or 11 (non-overlapping) and if the router allows, also set a channel-width of 20Mhz only and see if that improves the connection to the Roam.

If the SSID/credentials for the 2.4/5Ghz WiFi bands are the same, and cannot be easily separated, then check your router user-manual to see if you can perhaps manually steer the Roam onto the 2.4Ghz band, via the router configuration pages.

R
Userlevel 1

Did not know the Roam’s don’t use SonosNet. That certainly sheds some light on the issue.

For anyone stumbling upon this in the future: I have a Wifi Camera placed very close to the Roam device. The two devices are more than likely interfering with each other.

 

Thanks for the help!

F
Userlevel 2

Time to write to Patrick Spence, president, and  CEO of Sonos

pspence@sonos.com

M
Userlevel 3
Badge +5

It’s happening the same with my Sonos Roam and it's been like this for months,   no matter if I’m using Airplay or  Spotify, it stops playing randomly.   my router is the M5 from TP Link, rebooted several times, updated the app and reinstall the controller but it makes no difference, no matter if other devices work fine in my network, the Roam kips glitchin    

La discapacidad visual no es ningún impedimento, a disfrutar Bros
F
Userlevel 2

So what do we do about this?  Sonos needs to address this issue and find a solution. Do we bombard management with our concerns?

R
Userlevel 1

Following up again:

turns out the camera interference is not the problem. The Roam is sitting on the 5Ghz network as you suggested and it drops off. Unfortunately, my router does not support forcing a device onto a specific frequency at this time (although they say it’s coming).
 

Is there anything that can be done on the Roam’s end? If the device can’t use a 5Ghz connection reliably, why does it connect at all? I know my WiFi cams will only connect via 2.4Ghz. Can’t the roam do the same?

 

Edit:

Updating again: Fully disabled 5Ghz on my router just to test the theory and the Roam still drops off 2.4Ghz. This is very frustrating.  

Ken_Griffiths

@TechBrothaOG,

I see you mentioned Spectrum in your post -

We’ll see if things get better or not once I replace the Spectrum router with my Eero 6. But given the posts here, on Reddit, and quite frankly … all over the internet …. I’m not particularly hopeful. It really does appear that there is some sort of bug or design flaw in the Roam’s networking stack.  As I mentioned above, I don’t have these issues with my HomePods. And we can’t even chalk that up to Apple hardware working better with Apple software because the Roam exhibits the same issues with both Apple’s app and its own Sonos app. That being said, I do find it to be rock solid as a Bluetooth speaker. I have no issues in that mode whatsoever. So I’ve found that if I want to be able to reliably control it from my iPhone I’ll connect via Bluetooth. But if I want the best sound quality with music playing in the background I’ll connect via Wifi from the Sonos app … which is “sub-optimal” at best compared to the Apple Music app for a variety of reasons … so the music will keep playing at least when it inevitably disconnects from my iPhone. But TBH I’ve found that I can’t recommend the Roam to a potential customer because of this. I paid the premium for it precisely because it’s an Airplay 2 speaker in addition to being a Bluetooth speaker. I should never have to use Bluetooth when I’m at home on my WiFi network. But it’s so unreliable on WiFi that I’m forced to choose between control and sound quality. 

My Wife and I have two Roams that we each use - I have a Plume mesh network here at Home and never see single issue with the Roam. It shows up and is always discovered and I can’t recall a time when it wasn’t. It will play all day everyday.

When we go out & about in the camper van, we connect the Roams to a D-Link dwr-2101 mobile WiFi 6 router and that works well too if we have either a 4G or 5G mobile LTE connection - If no mobile signal, (or we are away from the camper) then we may use Bluetooth in that situation with some limited tracks stored on the iPhone via the Amazon Music App.

The Roams have always worked well here. So I suspect it’s the multicast device discovery issue in your case, or I guess we can’t rule out that you may have a faulty device, but in that case I would have expected the device to have dropped off the network completely, rather than it just not being discovered using the  mobile Sonos controller App. You can always go onto reproduce the discovery issue however, then immediately submit a Sonos system diagnostic report from within the Sonos App, note it’s reference and then contact/chat with Sonos Support via this LINK to discuss the matter in detail and see what the Sonos Staff say about the matter.

J
Userlevel 2
Badge

The replacement unit arrived on Saturday and I haven’t had any disconnection problems yet. If I get past a full week without any disconnections that will be a very good sign. I will keep you posted.

F
Userlevel 2

Yes same thing. won’t connect to bluetooth. It’s random. Doesn’t matter what room of the house I’m in…..

F
Userlevel 2

I’m don’t know much about tech but i have Verizon Fios router and my Bose speaker worked perfectly as does my JBL. 
I’m going to call and try to speak with someone in management because this is ridiculous. 
 

buzz

Reserve IP addresses for all SONOS units. I reserve addresses for all regular house clients. There is no point reserving for guests. For most routers this is a time consuming, boring task, but it does not need to be repeated until you replace the router. Minor updates are recommended as you add clients — especially after adding a SONOS unit. It’s not critical to delete entries belonging to removed clients.

T

Hi,

I’m experiencing the same issue and also have a TP-Link Deco Wi-Fi system. Re-booting the system didn’t make any difference for me. Are there any other possible solutions?

G
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

Same issue. The tech support person i spoke with about a month ago said it is a known issue with mesh networks. I think it’s just a defective product. A friend of mine thinks it’s because it’s their first Bluetooth speaker. Who knows. At this point thought I wouldn’t buy any Sonos speaker that has Bluetooth. 

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