play 3 keeps dropping out

It’s always possible that wifi interference is coming from outside your network, and even outside of your home. I’ve had issues with a degrading microwave, as well as a new neighbor with a router stomping on my system. Another forum member has had challenges with a neighbor’s wireless phone. 

Rebooting the router did no good.  I am near the switch so I hardwired the PLAY3 and normal operation was restored with the ethernet connection.

That certainly suggests either wifi interference of some type, or a hardware failure of the WiFi system in the PLAY:3 was the culprit. If it was the latter, you could submit a system diagnostic and call Sonos Support to discuss it. There would be evidence of the hardware failure, I’d think. 

I have a Play:3 and 2 Play:1 units, the Play:3 has been misbehaving for some months, requiring a power cycle every few days or couple of weeks maximum.

The Play:3 is, and always has been, connected via wired ethernet. I last changed my WiFi setup 3 years ago and again it has never made any difference to the Sonos network functions. All 3 units are given static IP addresses as they always have been since I purchased them.

I find that when the problem, interrupted play usually when listening to a BBC Sounds service, is occurring the Android and Windows Sonos app struggle to see the Play:3 on the network while both Play:1 units are perfectly fine and visible without problems. My Google WiFi APs all show good connectivity and good mesh performance.

There is no doubt in my mind that this is a software problem in the Play:3, probably created in an update sometime in 2023 as this problem did not happen before the middle of last year. It gives every impression of being a memory leak or something else that means incoming streaming data is being lost or overwritten before it is played.

I find that when I try to capture diagnostic information the Sonos app fails to actually obtain any data because it can’t see the Play:3 on the network. I can ping its IP address from another computer, but that’s all I can do until I power cycle the Play:3

Over to someone who can see a way around all this beyond reprogramming the damned thing with an axe.

Are you running S1 or S2 on those devices? 

Since the controller, no matter what device it is being run on, is only a remote control app, showing you what is happening on the speakers themselves, that suggests trouble with some devices connecting to your router, either via WiFi or via a wired connection. Unfortunately, only Sonos employees can see the data in a diagnostic that would tell us why, so idk suggest submitting one and calling them to discuss it. They won’t contact you if you merely submit one, you must call. And, yes, you should run that diagnostic when the PLAY:3 can be ‘seen’ by the controller. 

Another option that I could see is a difficulty with the stream coming from the BBC Sounds server. Do you have this same problem if you begin the stream from the PLAY:1s versus the PLAY:3s? Sonos, unfortunately, has no control over the BBC servers, the speakers are merely fed the data across the internet. 

The final potential issue I can see is failing memory in the PLAY:3 itself, and the stream coming in running up against not enough RAM to run properly, again, a Sonos diagnostic should reveal that, it’s not something accessible by those of us on these forums. 

S2 on all of them, nothing and no one is still running S1 that uses the system.

The network is fine, which is why I can ping the Play:3 even when it’s not behaving, it’s something in the Play:3’s own streaming firmware, the network stack part of it is behaving as I would expect. The Play:1 devices never miss a beat, if I have the system set as Everywhere only the Play:3 is interrupted. I think that rules out my network and the BBC Sounds streams (when the Beeb is having trouble the symptoms are completely different, the PC controller displays odd images and the data stream with the presenter/track info disappears or freezes). I can also stream the Beeb to my Google Home speaker in the same room as the Play:3 and it keeps going when the Play:3 stutters and stops (the different decoding delays make listening to both devices simultaneously for other than diagnostic purposes unpleasant).

Failing memory is possible but I think that a power cycle would not fix the problem for a few days or a couple of weeks, that’s the sort of thing memory leaks in software do in many systems.

If I can get it to fall over and collect a diagnostic then I will see if support can help, as I said before this was a problem when I tried it before but maybe that has changed more recently. The Android controller app simply refused to see the Play:3 no matter what I did.

It’s quite simple. S2 is broken for older S2 compatible devices and the only solution (until Sonos fixes it) is to revert back to S1. 
 

Over on the architectural forum there has been a gathering momentum around the fact that Sonos broke S2 for older devices back in the summer of 2023. 

This has taken a long time to come to light because each reporting of ‘my system is dropping out and my devices can’t be found or won’t connect’ is met with derision by forum members and the insistence that it’s an environment issue.

The stock diagnostic response is that the device is running out of memory. Sonos has finally admitted that there is a problem affecting Gen2 Connect and Connect amps. And now it seems that Play 3 is also badly affected as the problem is affecting older speakers too.

So if you have this problem, revert back to S1 until Sonos fixes S2 for older devices.

Thanks for posting this, it appears to confirm much of what I have said in my 2 recent posts.

I don’t expect to never have to upgrade my hardware, but if the choice is between supporting old hardware by limiting changes to firmware needed for new features and adding features that break fundamental expectations (being able to stream without a power cycle every 2 weeks or less) then I know which I prefer.

This is a problem occurring to lots of hardware
See this thread:

I’ve been running the S1 rollback on my system for 4 weeks now and it’s rock solid stable. 
 

I sure don’t miss S2 and all its associated performance problems with older kit. In fact, it’s not at all clear to me what enhancements S2 brought over S1 (for the older gear).