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Sonos App Won't Find System After Multiple Setups and Factory Resets

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I am having another Sonos love/hate relationship that we are all so familiar with. I love these products but why do they have to fail so hard with setup?

So, I got a new router…..(I know that’s how it always starts)….

I have tried literally everything and I am several hours in.

I disabled all the old networks. I disabled wifi-assist and cellular data on my phone. I closed the Sonos App on my computer so that it wouldn’t interfere and I was only operating on the IOS app on the phone. I unplugged my other Sonos devices. I plugged the One SL into the router with a hardwired ethernet cable. I made sure the phone was on the right WiFi network. I did reset the Sonos S2 app in App Preferences. I did a factory reset on the One SL. I tried to install the One SL as a new system. I did all of these things multiple times. EVERY SINGLE TIME IT IS THE SAME PROBLEM--it finds the One SL and says I added it to the system successfully, but that the system might not find it. It tells me that if the system doesn’t find it right away, to unplug the One SL and my router and then allow the router to reboot, then plug the One SL back in and complete setup in the “System Tab”. Sure enough, it doesn’t see it, but when I follow these instructions, app won’t even find the system after setup. The System Tab is greyed out and not clickable. When I search for the system, it’s still not found.

The Wifi network is my primary network, not a guest network. It is a 5ghz network, if any of that matters.

I want to throw this thing at the wall. Can SOMEBODY, please help me install this thing?

I did run a systems diagnostic report and submitted it to Sonos. The ticket # is 108534059.

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buzzAnswer

Grand Maestro

it finally detected the new router on its own which I had left plugged in for some odd reason. It just prompted me out of the blue on its own to see if I wanted to set it up on this new router after about a day of doing nothing but using it on the old system.

While some very sophisticated enterprise level networks might tolerate multiple routers, the intent of home networking is that there is only one router. The “fault” was that the two routers and elements of the SONOS system could not figure out which router you intended to use long term. Some SONOS units were using router ‘A’, some were using router ‘B’ and the controller phone/pad was probably hopping between ‘A’ and ‘B’. Further, as you rebooted and Factory Reset this-n-that, units may have flipped between ‘A’ and ‘B’ or there could have been duplicate IP addresses.

In a word: chaos

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TryingReallyHardToAbideAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

Factory Reset that Factory Reset unit again and add it to the system with the functioning unit.(s). I recommend wiring both this newly Factory Reset unit and a working unit while you do this. If you don’t have enough network ports to do this, wire the working unit. While you have the units wired, make sure that the WiFi SSID and password are correct.

As you swap routers it would be best to reboot EVERYTHING on the network. Yes, I know that you might get away with skipping this reboot 100 times in a row, but on 101 you can run into the issues that you are experiencing.

What I find odd about these “wire your unit” recommendations is that it specifically prevents you from being able to set up the wireless. I finally just put it back on the old network. I keep doing the wired thing and it seems to help to keep one connected AFTER it’s set up. But it won’t help DURING setup. I am still hoping to move it to the new network. Oddly, today is started having trouble with the old network and started prompting me to set it up on the new one finally….I am stuck back in yesterdays loop. It will detect it’s connected to ethernet and tell you to disconnect, but then when you do, it keeps insisting it’s still connected to ethernet.

buzz

Grand Maestro

Go to Settings → System → Network → Update Networks.

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TryingReallyHardToAbideAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

Have you tried to set the old wifi name and password to the new router? This way a speaker you did not reset might not even know there's a new router…..

That’s a genius workaround.

I tried that and it made things worse. It created more problems.

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TryingReallyHardToAbideAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

Go to Settings → System → Network → Update Networks.

I did that several hundred times. Plus the problem with that recommendation is it doesn’t work when it won’t even find the system.

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TryingReallyHardToAbideAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

I DID finally succeed after about 20 hours over multiple days. Here is what I did. Somehow, after moving back to my old router and restoring functionality to the one unit I did not factory reset, after about a day of using it with this one speaker on the old system, it finally detected the new router on its own which I had left plugged in for some odd reason. It just prompted me out of the blue on its own to see if I wanted to set it up on this new router after about a day of doing nothing but using it on the old system. Once I had done that, I managed to get the factory reset unit added back to the Sonos system without a hitch. However, I spent another day having problems with getting both speakers to work consistently. They seemed to work if they were plugged into ethernet, but Wifi would alternate between neither unit working, one or the other working, and one or both working on Wifi if a unit was hardwired with ethernet. So I finally decided to turn EVERYTHING on the entire network off (again...but this time closer to my goal) and do a reset on every device. I had done this before, but this time I did a hard factory reset on the router and reconfigured everything in my router settings to auto and factory settings while every device, computer, Sonos unit, etc were still unplugged and off. Then, i renamed the Wifi networks back to the names I had when I managed to change the network settings on the Sonos units when I got them back on the one system. Once that was done, I powered up the units and they both worked perfectly. I immediately deleted all the old network credentials from the other router so nothing would ever interfere again…..hopefully.

T

TryingReallyHardToAbideAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

I DID finally succeed after about 20 hours over multiple days. Here is what I did. Somehow, after moving back to my old router and restoring functionality to the one unit I did not factory reset, after about a day of using it with this one speaker on the old system, it finally detected the new router on its own which I had left plugged in for some odd reason. It just prompted me out of the blue on its own to see if I wanted to set it up on this new router after about a day of doing nothing but using it on the old system. Once I had done that, I managed to get the factory reset unit added back to the Sonos system without a hitch. However, I spent another day having problems with getting both speakers to work consistently. They seemed to work if they were plugged into ethernet, but Wifi would alternate between neither unit working, one or the other working, and one or both working on Wifi if a unit was hardwired with ethernet. So I finally decided to turn EVERYTHING on the entire network off (again...but this time closer to my goal) and do a reset on every device. I had done this before, but this time I did a hard factory reset on the router and reconfigured everything in my router settings to auto and factory settings while every device, computer, Sonos unit, etc were still unplugged and off. Then, i renamed the Wifi networks back to the names I had when I managed to change the network settings on the Sonos units when I got them back on the one system. Once that was done, I powered up the units and they both worked perfectly. I immediately deleted all the old network credentials from the other router so nothing would ever interfere again….hopefully.

All that being said, Sonos REALLY needs to figure this *** out. The app is a big POS. It’s SO slow at every stage and so particular about wifi settings, etc. With the amount of people having these problems, I don’t know why they can’t figure this out. If you’re going to have to do each step hundreds of times to get it to work, it’s really a pain that it takes so long at each step. But it really makes no sense that the app developers can’t figure out how to get this to work more seamlessly. The app was clearly detecting the units via bluetooth, but couldn’t find the system in the app. All of the crucial settings are only available when you have already found the system. The Wifi would update network settings and then still fail to connect to the network, even after reporting success in connecting at setup. This is all maddening to the owner. Even the 24/7 support chat doesn’t work. They just leave you waiting for days and nobody ever shows up.

Moderator Edit: Language

buzzAnswer

Grand Maestro

it finally detected the new router on its own which I had left plugged in for some odd reason. It just prompted me out of the blue on its own to see if I wanted to set it up on this new router after about a day of doing nothing but using it on the old system.

While some very sophisticated enterprise level networks might tolerate multiple routers, the intent of home networking is that there is only one router. The “fault” was that the two routers and elements of the SONOS system could not figure out which router you intended to use long term. Some SONOS units were using router ‘A’, some were using router ‘B’ and the controller phone/pad was probably hopping between ‘A’ and ‘B’. Further, as you rebooted and Factory Reset this-n-that, units may have flipped between ‘A’ and ‘B’ or there could have been duplicate IP addresses.

In a word: chaos

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