Sonos volume changes on its own during playback

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Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

CEC wouldn’t be an issue when listening to music, as the OP stated was part of the issue. 
 

I’m certainly not aware of it as a ‘common issue’.

Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll reach out to the Community Center of Excellence and share the details there. Hopefully they can help look into this further.

I have what sounds like the same issue with my Sonos speakers. I have four speakers and every so often the speakers volume will just lower on their own. Out of the blue I will wonder why I can’t hear the speakers in the other rooms. I’ll look at the app’s volume and for some reason they will be showing the volume setting lower.

For instance, I will have the speaker in my office at about 10 because it is a smaller room and will have my other three speakers set at 20 because they are larger open area rooms. Out of the blue the speakers will lower the volume to 5 on the one that was set at 10 and the others (20 volume) went to 12. No one else in the home to change any of them and I did not change the volume in the app, but when I looked as to why I wasn’t hearing them as loud the app is showing the volume is lower.

What did Sonos support say? 

Again, hard to tell from an anecdotal perspective. There are three things I’m aware of that can alter a volume in Sonos. 
 

1. a voice command system installed, and a recognized start word (including incorrect ones)
2. a controller (you can have up to 32 connected) changing the volume, there is no restriction to a single ‘remote’.
3. some oddity with the sensors that control the speakers themselves. Most often in the past, this has been an animal stepping on them, but there may have been odder ones. This can easily be controlled by turning off those switches in the controller, in the room settings for that group.

But as ​@nik9669a suggests, the best way to find out what’s going on is to call Sonos Support to discuss it. So far, there hasn’t been an issue in the Sonos software, but anything is possible, no matter how unlikely. 

I appreciate (actually love!) the ability to call Sonos support and be able to talk to someone each time there is an issue.

But it becomes a nuisance to have this as being the answer every time to every issue with the Sonos speakers. It would be nice to be able to get answers to an issue online every now and then without having to call support to get a resolution; and after having to do multiple tests and or calls.

On a side note, on one of my previous different issue support calls (about a year ago) I made the suggestion to have the volume controls be easier to toggle through to select a specific volume level and be able to lock the volume levels. If this suggestion would have been taken and implemented, us Sonos users wouldn't be having this problem of the volume just adjusting on its own.

To answer your questions…

1. a voice command system installed, and a recognized start word (including incorrect ones) - The only voice command system I use is the Sonos speakers voice command.
2. a controller (you can have up to 32 connected) changing the volume, there is no restriction to a single ‘remote’. - I only use one controller; the Sonos app on my phone and only 4 Sonos speakers.
3. some oddity with the sensors that control the speakers themselves. Most often in the past, this has been an animal stepping on them, but there may have been odder ones. This can easily be controlled by turning off those switches in the controller, in the room settings for that group. - No pets or anyone else in the home.

In most cases, this is caused by the TV connection. If you are using HDMI-ARC, the TV or the remote control, then it may be changing the volume automatically via CEC. You can try turning off HDMI-CEC in the TV settings and see if this stops.

I don’t have my Sonos speakers connected to any TVs, nor play anything from my TVs through my Sonos speakers via WiFi or Bluetooth. I don’t have any Sonos soundbar speaker.

I only have HDMI cables connected from my Rokus to my TVs. But my TVs or Rokus are never playing at anytime the speakers decide to change the volume on me.

Would the speakers still change the volume from that scenario?

I’m not sure what the previous poster is driving at, but your best bet in this situation is to submit the diagnostic within 10 minutes of occurrence, then call Sonos at your leisure, referencing that diagnostic number. They should be able to look at the data in the diagnostic, and tell where the volume change was coming from. Normally speaking, there is no reason for you to be experiencing what you are, and I’m curious as to why you are, but neither if is have access to the data in the diagnostic. What I can tell you is I don’t experience this on any of my Sonos devices at all. Which doesn’t help you determine what the issue is. 

If it is software related, that will be a first report and confirmation of that. If it’s a hardware issue with perhaps a failing speaker, again, none of us would be able to identify that. If it’s the fact that the command came from some voice activated system that included that particular Sonos speaker as a room, without being a Sonos installation, most of us would require lots of back and forth to determine that, and have to poke into your network via these posts fairly deeply. And likely over several days of back and forths.  The easiest, quickest, and safest route is for you to capture the event in a diagnostic, I.e. within 10 minutes of its occurrence, and call Sonos Support to discuss it.

If you generate a diagnostics report within a few minutes of an occurrence, Sonos support may be able to identify what generated the “volume down” command from the diagnostic report. So, though you don’t like it, the advice is still: “what did Sonos support say?” - but be sure to generate the report before calling them 😜

I agree, scheduling a call with support to do troubleshooting while on the phone without a diagnostic report first while be nonproductive for both of us.

I get the point that a diagnostic report would need to be run first within 10 minutes of it happening.

I will try to do that if, and when, it happens again. As said, it doesn’t do it a lot or regularly, it happens occasionally. Also, it will do it with the speakers in my other rooms that I currently may not be in at the time it does it. So, even though it may have done it, I may not be aware it did it right within those 10 minutes.

So, be patient, who knows when I could be able to capture a diagnostic report and send it the next time it does it.

Till then....

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there, does it make any noise?🙈

It doesn't matter which room you are in when you send the diagnostic report, just that it is sent before the log entry on the volume change is lost. The internal memory is small leading to the short submission window.

Once sent, the data is saved at Sonos so you can call when it is convenient. 

If you see multiple events before you have time to call, submit after every one, more data never hurts.

I wasn’t meaning that I am in the room when it changes. I was meaning the volume would change in another room and I may not know it did until I would have walked into that room maybe a half hour or more later.

Would the diagnostic report be of any help doing it that much later?

Depending on how busy Sonos is internally... Maybe.

It couldn't hurt.

Any data is likely better than no data. We in the public don’t know how the diagnostics work, so I’d agree with ​@Stanley_4 on this. 

Diagnostics are stored in a buffer. As the buffer fills, older entries scroll out. There is enough room in the buffer to store at least 10min of prime data. Some older data might be available, but not with the detail available in the 10min block.

You’re not understanding. I may not notice the volume changed until a hour or more later, and maybe 20 songs later.

Will a diagnostic report still be usable after that long?

Since the buffer only holds about 10 minutes’ data on a continuously rolling sequence, data that was recorded an hour earlier will have been overwritten. 

See, this is my exact point I have been trying to make in my past three posts.

 If the issue keeps occurring set “Volume Limit” for all rooms until the issue is resolved.   maybe you already did this.

Not sure how volume limit would keep the speakers from voluming down on its own.  (The volume never increased on its own, only adjusted down on some speakers.)

But I turned it on for each speaker and set it at 95% anyway to see if it makes any difference.