You could try turning off the Play 5 at the wall to take it out of the picture and then try to downgrade the Play:1s again? The Play:5 having been successful might be affecting the Play:1s somehow. 

Worth a try?

You have to use the new app, not the S1 app to downgrade the Play:1 speakers to S1. This *may* perversely require you to update the Play:1’s first before ‘downgrading’. I don’t know how accurate the guide is but this is what Sonos say…

https://support.sonos.com/en-gb/article/downgrade-a-sonos-product-to-s1

As the Play:5 can’t be upgraded to S2, it should be safe! 

I successfully downgraded 4 Play:1s to S1 yesterday. Hopefully this might help:

Hi Ian, yes, Ive been using the new one but no joy unfortunately

Thanks Anton, will give it a try

So unfortunately still nothing.

The S1 app can still see the Play 1 speakers but says they need downgrading

Ive tried both to downgrade using the new app and also tried to add the Play 1 speakers as if setting up a new system to then downgrade. In both cases it finds the speakers then creates a temporary network which I connect to but then it won't go any further, just says there was a problem setting up your Play 1 , Lets try something else then just loops round doing the same thing over again.

I have been trying with customer service however , it takes roughly an hour to get through on live chat which has twice crashed on me today. I did try and call earlier but there was a 45 minute wait. May try again tomorrow . Very frustrating

What is the LED on the Play:1’s up to? 

Hi, seems I have the same issue with two Play:1 after upgrading to S2 following recommendation of customer service. But now impossible to reset the two play:1 to downgrade. After spending hours with customer service asking me to do the same not working process several times (same with level 1 and level 2 support…) the surrealistic answer is to buy new speakers with the 30% discount!!!!! if I sum up :you have two speakes working with S2 you follow Sonos step by step process and the, you get TWO destroyed unusable Play:1 units!!!!

Waiting with no delay a working solution further to a known bug in the process…

Have you tried hooking them to Ethernet for the downgrading?

Hi Stanley. Yes for several hours directly to the modem port, not via router. No way to have green led showing reset. Continuously blinking orange/withe after play/pause button holded after mains power up for several minutes ( other combinaison tryed no more success. The reset and downgrade process is working on other models not on these two Play:1 !

What modem port? They need to be wired to the router, they require the IP address from the DHCP table to operate. The DHCP providing device is your router, not some ‘modem’ device, unless they’re combined in a single device, but they still need to be wired to the Internet ports, not one labeled ‘modem’. 

Yes of course…not one of the routers connected to the modem but directly on one of the 4 RH45 port of the modem/router. And yes it is DHCP. 

I guess you might see the phrase “Yes for several hours directly to the modem port, not via router.” might be confusing to many of us. 

After 15 years of sonos use and all back and forth with sonos support you can be sure we are not at this level…in any case we need to distinguish the routers ( in this case 2 times 16 ports) and the modem router port to avoid router/switch issues… any solution?

Are you using the word router instead of switch? If so, is it unmanaged?

As written before one of the 4 RJ45 unmanadged

That doesn't make sense or answer the question though.  You refer to routers (plural), can you tell what model they are?  16 ports on a router?

The issue is simple the play:1  are RJ45 connected direct online fiber network on one of the 4 ports on the modem/box and two netgear rourer/swtich also used in the installation but two Play:1 where the same problem are NOT connected to theses…please read my issue from the begining.