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Josh Guss
Contributor I
December 9, 2023
Answered

Recently I have been having a number of issues with my Sonos system

I’ve been a long time customer and really love my Sonos system that I have added to over time. However, in recent weeks we’ve been encountering a number of different issues including:

  • Different speakers randomly not showing up in the app (this is not consistent to specific speakers)
  • Sound randomly cutting out of individual speakers while music is playing (also not consistent to specific speakers)
  • Volume randomly changing on individual speakers while music is playing (note that the volume in the app is not changing but the volume of the actual sound coming out of speakers)
  • Sound from the TV routed via optical cable to Playbar cuts in and out (note this is not an issue with the content/streaming since no issues when using the TV’s built-in speaker for the sound)
  • Search within the app takes an excessively long time and does not consistently return results for connected services 
  • Skipping tracks in the app does not work consistently (will sometimes hang for a bit before skipping, will sometimes say cannot connect to service requiring multiple attempts before skipping)
  • Connected services will randomly not show content when manually browsing in the app
  • Randomly everything on the My Sonos page in the app will show everything as unavailable 

My setup is as follows:

  • Playbar and two Play:1s setup in surround configuration 
  • Five
  • Two additional Play:1s
  • Roam

App is up to date as are system updates (according to the app).

Steps taken thus far have been unplugging and plugging speakers back in, adding back speakers that were previously in the system but then just stopped showing up, and doing a factory reset on the Roam. 

I was thinking the next step is to do a full reset of everything and basically setup again from scratch but wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing anything similar or has other suggestions.

Thanks!

Josh

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Airgetlam
AirgetlamAnswer
December 9, 2023

Most of this is indicative of network issues. Might be wifi interference (possibly from outside your network), or simply duplicate IP addresses. 

At the very least, if the first link doesn’t provide any relief when you follow its suggestions, I’d recommend that you power down all of your Sonos devices. While they’re powered down, reboot your router, and give it a couple of minutes to reboot, before powering back up your Sonos devices. However, this is a temporary thing…if it does fix the issue, I’d encourage you to prevent it from happening again by reading your router’s manual, and setting up reserved IP addresses for all your permanent network devices in the router. It’s good housekeeping ;)

However, if neither approach works for you, I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it.

There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your network and Sonos system.

Bruce
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19 replies

Airgetlam
AirgetlamAnswer
December 9, 2023

Most of this is indicative of network issues. Might be wifi interference (possibly from outside your network), or simply duplicate IP addresses. 

At the very least, if the first link doesn’t provide any relief when you follow its suggestions, I’d recommend that you power down all of your Sonos devices. While they’re powered down, reboot your router, and give it a couple of minutes to reboot, before powering back up your Sonos devices. However, this is a temporary thing…if it does fix the issue, I’d encourage you to prevent it from happening again by reading your router’s manual, and setting up reserved IP addresses for all your permanent network devices in the router. It’s good housekeeping ;)

However, if neither approach works for you, I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it.

There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your network and Sonos system.

Bruce
Stanley_4
Stanley_4
Grand Maestro
December 10, 2023

The factory reset rarely solves problems and you’d loose all your Sonos settings, data and lists so it is best avoided if at all possible.

The static IP setting solved my similar issues here.

    buzz
    buzz
    Grand Maestro
    December 10, 2023

    Factory Reset will waste time and not likely result in permanent resolution of your issues. Have you recently replaced your router or added additional wireless items?

      Josh GussAuthor
      Contributor I
      December 16, 2023

      Thanks everyone for the suggestions and apologies on taking some time to respond. Last Sunday I followed @Airgetlam ‘s advice on WiFi Interference and changing the WiFi channel. However with a two year old and a newborn in the house, most of our Sonos use is on the weekends and therefore haven’t really had the opportunity to properly test. I should have a better idea if this helped after this weekend and will report back. I’m holding off on trying to dedicated IP Address thing for now in case the channel change solved my issues.

      What I did not think about - and did not occur to me until after reading through the responses - is that these issues started at the same time we had our second kiddo, which includes a second video monitor (Nanit) and smart bassinet (SNOO) - both using the network.

      Will follow up here once I’ve had time to test this channel change this weekend.

      buzz
      buzz
      Grand Maestro
      December 16, 2023

      ... I’m holding off on trying to dedicated IP Address thing for now in case the channel change solved my issues.

      What I did not think about - and did not occur to me until after reading through the responses - is that these issues started at the same time we had our second kiddo, which includes a second video monitor (Nanit) and smart bassinet (SNOO) - both using the network.

       

      Reserving IP addresses is a great investment of your time because it is a significant long term time saver. Factory Reset will often work through a current issue caused by duplicate IP addresses, but before long they’ll bite again. This has been a great investment for me. I stopped having (frequent) duplicate IP address issues for my SONOS system in 2005.

      Those new baby monitors are high on my list of probable causes. I suggest that you submit a diagnostic and follow up with SONOS phone support. Take the diagnostic within 10 minutes of an “event”.

        Stanley_4
        Stanley_4
        Grand Maestro
        December 17, 2023

        Seriously, give your router’s DHCP Settings page a look, most will let you reserve IP addresses with a few clicks.

        Josh GussAuthor
        Contributor I
        January 20, 2024

        Hello,

        Checking back in here. After continuing to use the system for a while with the channel change, it unfortunately is still having similar connection issues. As such, I am know trying to static IP address approach but have a couple of questions…

        1. I was able to locate all of my speakers except for my Living Playbar and two Play:1s that are setup as surrounds. I can’t find any of the speakers in my router’s device list. I was able to update all of my other speakers
        2. While working on this I also came across THIS thread which talks about assigning IP addresses outside of the DHCP range. This is all a bit over my head but my router does not seem to give me this an option - it only allows for me to set a fixed address that is within the range. How much does this matter?

        Thanks

        Josh

        Airgetlam
        Airgetlam
        January 21, 2024

        That makes sense, the surround speakers would contact your router and get their IP addresses through the PLAYBAR. Try powering off both the PLAYBAR, and the pair of PLAY:1s, and reboot your router. Give the router a couple of minutes to recover, then plug back in your PLAYBAR, and a minute later, the surrounds.

        I have fairly rudimentary knowledge about networking, I’ve never investigated assigning IP address ‘outside’ of the range of 255 numbers provided to me in my DHCP table. I just don’t have that many devices that I need on my network. I do tend to start my assigned addresses at 100, just to keep those numbers ‘below’ as floaters for things like phones, tablets, and friends. My computers all get assigned IP addresses…and in fact at least one of my tablets does too. I haven’t looked in years. It’s that stable for me.

        Bruce
        106rallye
        106rallye
        January 21, 2024

        The reason behind choosing ip adresses outside of the ip-range seems to that’s that way the router will not hand them out to other devices because it simply does not do “outside the range”. 

          Josh GussAuthor
          Contributor I
          January 21, 2024

          Thanks @Airgetlam. So I tried what you suggested but unfortunately no change. The speakers are showing in the Sonos app and I can see the IP Addresses assigned to them via the app about page but these IP Addresses are not available in the device list of the router and therefore I am still unable to assign them a fixed address. Any other ideas?

          Thanks!

          Josh

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