There really aren’t any ‘Sonos servers’ for Spotify content. When you select Spotify in the Sonos controller, your speakers reach out to a server operated by Spotify, on which Spotify has implemented the Sonos API. This usually (not sure with Spotify, but would be stunned if not) is a separate server than in use for Spotify’s normal app.

I tend to agree with your conclusions, and would certainly press my complaints to Spotify. I have to imagine they’d take a paying customer’s complaints with more seriousness than random feedback from a company like Sonos who has no financial relationship with them. 

Based on this discussion, your system had very poor connectivity. Directly playing Spotify on your phone uses a different set of network resources than multiple SONOS players.

You need to improve connectivity. Consider the possibility that you have a defective player that is poisoning the wireless environment. The diagnostics are the place to research this, but you could bring the players online, one by one, while checking the Matrix. When the rogue comes online, the Matrix will go sour. Remember, the Matrix is static.

@buzz Yes exactly, what you are mentioning is the current test we are running w/support. One by one bring the speakers online, then run a diagnostic after each, with the test including one speaker actually being hardwired (with and without the boost). 

Keep you guys posted!

I found solution...kind of

Sonos support said that: “ ‘Stream Limit detected for Music Service on Sonos’ A stream limit error is a failure condition that occurs when multiple streams are initiated from the same account. When this occurs, the music service terminates the oldest audio stream to allow the newest one to play”

We have 10 teachers and their Spotify accounts are all loaded onto the Sonos Account, never an issue for the last 1 year and 4 months, but now is apparently?

Well here is the Solution I found: The issue to me now seemed pretty isolated to Spotify. After testing Sonos Radio, today I had a teacher add her Apple Music to Sonos and she had 1 playlist and the entire thing played through with Zero issues, none. So it dawned on me to try to play the audio via the Spotify App then select the Sonos as a “nearby Source” and bam the audio started piping through as expected, but to my surprise not a single drop, nada, it was absolutely perfect. I went and opened the Sonos App then for finite control of the audio (cause Spotify’s audio control is terrible) and it has full control, shows the album art and everything, the thing it does not show is the track list, it shows an image saying “Audio started on Spotify” and a big End Session button.

What does this mean? Pretty clear to me based on what is happening...it’s not Spotify, not Sonos, but when Spotify runs through Sonos as a Service, the issues begin. Sonos has their most Senior and Management team trying to assist and remoted into my PC to see if they can test their Spotify account, the issue was immediate with their account too.

Simple question…I think …

So you’re saying the when Spotify is selected as a service via the Sonos app it skips (or stops) based upon the high number of individual streams…correct???

I don’t use Spotify therefore I have no experience. However, the same is true with Amazon music… unless you have a family or business account multiple streams started by different individuals will stop the music. So is that what occurred in your situation?

Having ten connections form different Spotify accounts is not a widespread use case for a consumer system, so Sonos might not have much experience with it. But, since it has worked before, I can see you want to know what happened.

@AjTrek1 So you are correct when I select Spotify and add it as a service then begin to play it goes south.

@106rallye I completely agree, they have very limited experience with it based on my numerous conversations, we are going down a rabbit hole.

Not sure if the number of Spotify accounts I have on Sonos is causing this though, I would like to say no it's not for the pure fact that Spotify plays seamlessly when using the Spotify app and sending the audio to Sonos.

This is truly not ideal to use a 3rd party app to control Sonos, things like Cross Fade cannot be used and when you have multiple teachers Spotify can't maintain the new playlists, meaning it reverts to the last playlist in their queue, a whole different issue. Sonos was just easy, but clearly now it's not.

But I will say this, My Audio Works in this manner and not on Sonos app sigh....this problem to me is becoming Black and White and there is a resolution but not sure if I can get Spotify and Sonos to work on a fix together, but I will try for sure!

When you play Spotify songs (through the Sonos App), do you have crossfade on?

If so, try turning it off and see if you still have the problem.

I think that it would be a very messy work around, but you could break the system into two or three separate systems, perhaps ‘east’/’west’ or similar. While this would work around the stream limit, it would eliminate the ability to Group all of the rooms and playlist maintenance would become inconvenient because you’d need to share or maintain them across separate systems.

This is the messiest workaround and today resulted in the exact worse case scenario.

Had a special event and the teacher selected to play via Sonos instead of Spotify so the skips ensued...I almost walked in halfway to change her connection to be direct from Spotify but imagine mid Yoga Class that was an active class, down for about 45 seconds it would have thrown it off and created a bad experience while I walked in there.

Now sadly I'm Jerry Rigging everything to work, which works, but will inevitably lead to issues like it did today. Honestly so much stress for something that should really be stress free.

Not sure how this can be resolved beyond this workaround

You probably need a higher grade system, not a system for consumers.

Does one even exist?

Is your facility organized as separate physical rooms? Is there any reason to play the same content in multiple areas?

So you walk in to the lobby and there is one Symfonisk where the shoe cubbies are and another Symfonisk by the front desk. The Studio which is directly behind the lobby separated by a single wall has 6 Play 3s and 1 Sub Gen3 and a Boost.

In theory I can stop the lobby music but I still need 7 speakers connected in the Studio side.

Here is a zoomed out shot of our lobby when we shot a commercial last year. You can see the studio to the right through the door:

This is suggestion is too little too late…but here it is….

Your studio and lobby appear to be open with exposed beams. An alternative setup would have been to use Sonos outdoor speakers with amps. The speakers would be wired and the down angles can be adjusted on the attached arms. One amp can handle 6 speakers to a room. However you would probably require 3 amps?? The expense would be the stumbling block assuming all other considerations are nil.

Am I correct that there are only two spaces? The lobby and the studio? You are using multiple SONOS speakers to create more uniform coverage? In this case you might want to trim the Volume in certain areas, but there is no need for individual content?

I suspect that the teachers are attempting to use their Spotify account simultaneously in two different locations. For example, while they are teaching in your facility, someone at home is using the account too. I have never tried this, but it might cause trouble if their Spotify account is playing through your system while they attempted to access Spotify using their Spotify account on their phone.

I just tested my hypothesis. I started playing a Spotify playlist using a SONOS controller. Then I started playing another Spotify playlist on my phone and the SONOS system stopped.

@buzz yes that is also what happens here but usually the teacher teaching is only playing their account here at the studio, so that becomes less of a direct issue. Here is our account:

Not everyone is added yet but you get the idea.

I am dying a slow audio death…

Things I can try at this point:

-Remove all Spotify accounts and test with just one

-Ad the teachers Playlists to Sonos, creating Sonos Playlists and test from there.

-Remove all speakers and 1 by 1 add a speaker and run a Diagnostic after each, see when the issues shows up on Sonos's back end.

-Hardwire one Play 3 then make it the Coordinating device and test this method adding speakers 1 by 1 to that setup (would this not be the same as just hardwiring the Sonos Connect and making that the "coordinating device" instead of a Speaker?)

-Test all the above again without the Boost connected.

Last Resort:

-Replace all Play 3s with Era 300s and Lobby Symfonisk with Era 100s and just connect via Bluetooth (not sure how a Bluetooth setup would even work compared to an existing setup)

Anything else I should be trying that we have not yet?

The most productive home trouble shooting step at this point would be powering-up players one by one, then checking the Matrix. Just looking your photos, I think that it would be practical to wire more players.

*Update* After testing speakers one at a time I noticed the issue never went away, with one speaker I was skipping tracks. 

I missed a reply from @sjw about testing Crossfade (thanks for the reminder). As it turns out there were a couple things going on here. First was the amount of Spotify accounts connected to the system (10) and the new “Crossfade” issue. The crossfade issue seems to be the Primary issue to causing the skipping. I have now tested hours of use with Zero skipping, all via the Sonos app, it was Definitively Crossfade for us. 

The issue with too many accounts didn’t cause the skipping but apparently is throwing up some kind of red flag to the Sonos team, they said the issue (Both) will be resolved with a new update forthcoming.

I appreciate all the help from @buzz @AjTrek1 @Airgetlam @sjw @106rallye @Stanley_4 for all your replies and support!

Thanks for the update.