It’s odd. I have two PLAY:5s in my living room that work flawlessly. Which makes me think the issue you’re experiencing is network related in some way, and not the PLAY:5s themselves. 

Out of interest, can I ask what mobile device are you running Spotify on?

I’m using an IPhone 11 with the latest iOS but it’s happened with previous iOS versions (it’s not recent).

Hi Folks, know I am late on parade; recently bought a play 5 Gen 1 with only 1 router upstairs for whole care  home! Started with apple music on Android phone on cd quality as sometimes use aux in. Stopped all the time not sounding great. After trying everything with no success, switch to Deezer at similar quality. Audio blows Apple away and not a single interruption! Logic tell me they should be similar, they are simply not. Well worth extra quid a month because I am mostly bedbound, I listen to music approx., 9 hours a day. The old speaker just keeps on going . Cheers all, thanks for a wonderful forum.

PS

Sorry, should add I have an upstairs room only 50 metres from router and try to have not more than 5 apps at a time 

There was no mention of Spotify in your post. 95% of what I play in my PLAY:5s is local music, the rest streamed data, from iHeart, or TuneIn.

The old Sonos play 5 gen 1 will only play on the s1 app. It you try to connect it with the s2 app, it wil show you a picture of the old speaker and tell you it's not connecting, but not why!?! Duh took me ages to work that out!! The gen 2 will connect to both apps but love my old gen 1:).

I have the same issue as well. ONLY with Spotify. Radio or Apple Music works fine. Also I have sometimes the sam, but less often on my Sonos Play:AMP.

Had Sonos on the line yesterday and after a long conversation (Chat) and sent in diagnostics I got this answer:

“As with any device that uses memory, memory cells degrade over time. They are deleted and reprogrammed for the most part, but as the device gets older the memory gets smaller and smaller and won't be able to work as well, the best we can do is try to reduce the data load on the affected product.”

“There is a possibility that playing from Spotify requires a larger data load than playing from Apple Music. Since you have already reset the device, we recommend that you test whether connecting it to the router with an Ethernet cable would help.”

Then they also proposed the 30% dicount to do the upgrade to newer hardware…. Surprise.

Thanks for that -  so helpful. I am not surprised but sad that those of us on a truly limited budget are being gradually priced out of the market. I will stick with my old Sonos speaker as London as it works, as it is the one I to successfully deal with the complexity of a care home WiFi system. I have no interest in Bluetooth as I also cannot afford to buy a phone with the advanced versions, of it and for the record, boy can I hear the difference between the two every time! Thanks again.

J

FYI, see link below w/ similar concerns after fairly exhaustive testing w/ multiple device and network setups (including direct ethernet) and using Sonos signal diagnostics. The channels for two wireless networks (1, 11) and SonosNet (6) were fixed to separate frequency ranges to minimize interference. However, following the tests, there was no definitive explanation for the cutouts w/ the Gen 1 devices.

Cutouts occurred more frequently on Spotify (premium streaming rate), but also occurred on Pandora. A level-2 Sonos evaluation (supervisor) suggested that it’s not an interference issue but an undefined legacy issue (??) and promised level-3 support if it occurred w/ new Gen 2 devices. However, I’ve been reluctant to follow through with a purchase of discounted Gen 2 play 5.  

Play5(gen1) periodic cutout of left speaker in stereo mode for ~10 seconds | Sonos Community

Why does this not happen with my Play 1 Gen1? I play them together and the Play 5 cuts out for 5-10 seconds but the Play 1 keeps going no issue.

Probably because the Play one have more (and thereby sufficient) memory for playing spotify?

Either way the whole bricking legacy device fiasco of a few years back has turned me off and I haven’t purchased any more of their products and once these two devices go I will go with a different system.

Electronic memory is a constant across all ‘smart’ devices. If you want to avoid memory failing, stick with technology that has none, if you can.