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The S2 system is a disaster. My current list of problems are:

  1. Responsiveness to controls renders the system unusable. It takes 5-15 seconds between pressing play or pause before it takes effect, or adjusting the volume, or selecting a new song, and so on … that is if these requests succeed at all. Many such requests don’t.
  2. Searches don’t include content from my Music Library which I finally managed to “configure”. I can see on the Synology logs that the Sonos system is accessing it but I can’t browse the content.
  3. A pair of Play1’s that were working as a stereo pair before, on S1, can’t be paired together since the S2 system deems them incompatible.
  4. Apple TV is unable to control the volume in the room with a playbar, subwoofer and two Play1’s although this might not be a problem with Sonos

This is my second attempt to make use of the S2 system since the S2 fiasco was launched on us earlier this year. It has wasted a considerable amount of my time without providing any positive results. I would like to know what my options are since I have an unusable system comprising of the following hardware in four rooms:

  • 1 x Boost
  • 7 x Play1
  • 1 x PlayBar
  • 1 x SubWoofer

I suspect that S2 goal was over ambitious in terms of scope and feasibility. It may well work very well for new Sonos hardware but it clearly doesn’t in other scenarios. There is not enough help and diagnostics to effectively troubleshoot problems efficiently. It is just a hit and miss and very time consuming.

 

I will call customer support tomorrow, again. They were helpful the first time, but it took over two hours of my time, and theirs, to fix the problem in one room by downgrading it to S1. Just to be clear I would really appreciate some honesty and transparency about upgrade/downgrade paths, known problems and workarounds, if any. I’m seriously considering selling all of my Sonos equipment and never purchasing anything being sold by Sonos ever again.

What a cluster f*** …

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

I can understand your frustration when faced by such problems, but some of your comments are misguided. 

First,  S2 came in years ago. A radical update to the app occurred in May of this year and it would be an understatement to say it has been problematic.

But it isn’t, indeed cannot be, responsible for the network latency you describe in point 1. That is a network issue, or possibly to do with the configuration of your Sonos system. And there is no reason why the Play:1s should not function under S2.

I see you have a Boost.  Is that wired to your router? What does the rest of your network look like?

 


Regarding your point on the full range of Sonos equipment, my system works well and includes a Play:1, Arc, Era100 psir, Era300 pair, Sub gen 2, Sub gen 3, Sub Mini, Move, Roam. Until 3 months ago it also had a Playbar.

I say all this in the hope that you will be open to the possibility that SOME of your issues are with your system, not generic issues.  Then they can be addressed. 


Regarding the network latency issues, well, I did not experience those problems using S1. It also doesn’t make sense in that the user plane content doesn’t suffer from these latency issues, only the control plane. It seems to me that some form of Sonos connectivity diagnostics would not go amiss. To at least indicate the system will not operate with sufficient performance given the underlying connectivity infra it is depending on, when detected.


The current network protocol is different from the previous protocol. Some network defaults do not adequately support the new protocol. If you give us details about your network (connections, model numbers, etc.) we may be able to help. If you submit a diagnostic within 10 minutes of an “event”, then contact SONOS support, they can see network issues.


The current network protocol is different from the previous protocol. Some network defaults do not adequately support the new protocol. If you give us details about your network (connections, model numbers, etc.) we may be able to help. If you submit a diagnostic within 10 minutes of an “event”, then contact SONOS support, they can see network issues.

What network defaults don’t support the new protocols? Is there a Sonos support document on this you could point me to 🙏?


The current network protocol is different from the previous protocol. Some network defaults do not adequately support the new protocol. If you give us details about your network (connections, model numbers, etc.) we may be able to help. If you submit a diagnostic within 10 minutes of an “event”, then contact SONOS support, they can see network issues.

What network defaults don’t support the new protocols? Is there a Sonos support document on this you could point me to 🙏?

Perhaps see the attached comments from Sonos - albeit most things mentioned now appear to have been addressed - it seems though that some router/network configurations are still having some issues.

I suspect they are perhaps now in the minority, but those who are having any problems with their Sonos setup, I think @buzz is correct to say that they should now get in touch with Sonos Support and see if they can assist, or provide the user with some further advice to help resolve any issues they are seeing. 


Perhaps see the attached comments from Sonos - albeit most things mentioned now appear to have been addressed - it seems though that some router/network configurations are still having some issues.

I suspect they are perhaps now in the minority, but those who are having any problems with their Sonos setup, I think @buzz is correct to say that they should now get in touch with Sonos Support and see if they can assist, or provide the user with some further advice to help resolve any issues they are seeing. 

Lots of people still having issues with the app, just scroll the community. This isn’t what I asked for. Maybe you don’t understand what I’m asking. Can you link me to the Sonos support document for the network defaults that may cause issues? 


 

Perhaps see the attached comments from Sonos - albeit most things mentioned now appear to have been addressed - it seems though that some router/network configurations are still having some issues.

I suspect they are perhaps now in the minority, but those who are having any problems with their Sonos setup, I think @buzz is correct to say that they should now get in touch with Sonos Support and see if they can assist, or provide the user with some further advice to help resolve any issues they are seeing. 

Lots of people still having issues with the app, just scroll the community. This isn’t what I asked for. Maybe you don’t understand what I’m asking. Can you link me to the Sonos support document for the network defaults that may cause issues? 

I guess this may sometimes depend on the network setup - for example if using managed switches then here are the STP settings recommended:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/configure-stp-settings-to-work-with-sonos

If using a Ubiquity Unifi setup then the router settings are here…

https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/18930473041047-Best-Practices-for-Sonos-Devices

But the general Sonos system requirements are shown here, including unsupported network setups and devices…

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/sonos-system-requirements

Theres also a network hardware incompatibility list here…

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/incompatible-network-hardware

If those things help?

 


@BMZ 

I do agree though with @buzz and that many things have been resolved by Sonos since the App was first launched in May, so if anyone is having issues with their Sonos System, such as ‘device discovery’ issues, or problems with grouping/ungrouping, or difficulty using room/group volume controls etc. then they’re perhaps best to go onto discuss the matter with Sonos Support and see if they can assist to resolve the matter.


 

 

 

 

If those things help?

 

 

No it does not. 


@BMZ 

System, such as ‘device discovery’ issues, or problems with grouping/ungrouping, or difficulty using room/group volume controls etc. then they’re perhaps best to go onto discuss the matter with Sonos Support and see if they can assist to resolve the matter.

Been there done that. Sonos needs to fix this pos app. I’ve wasted a s*** ton of time dealing with their mistakes. Had zero issues with the old app. My network has not changed.  Would love to know what’s not compatible with the new protocols. 

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


@Reformer77 .- it may be helpful to check whether there s problem arising from your use of a Boost, for example if the Boost has developed a fault.  This is not as easy to check as it used to be, but if your Boost is wired to your router then any speakers that are wireless will appeared as wired in your router. Are you able to check that?

Are any other Sonos devices wired to your network?

What wireless channel is your SonodNet using?  What channel is your router using?


So, in answer to the question of this post, namely, Will the S2 System ever work for the full scope of Sonos Equipment, the answer is yes, but, perception is everything. I’m pleased to say that after contacting Sonos Technical Support today all of my major issues have been resolved. In summary:

  1. My network topology was not ideal. Ironically the choices there were driven by a shortage of access to power sockets rather than how equipment should be ethernet connected. For example, the ethernet connection to the Playbar was not active since the power to the nearby ethernet switch had been removed. The Sonos boost was connected to the network router and to the NAS, e.g. the Sonos Boost was imbetween the router and the NAS. This was changed such that NAS, Boost and Playbar all had direct ethernet connections to the main network router
  2. There was a second network router providing WIFI, connected to the main network router. This was removed.
  3. Channels 1 and 6 had competition with neighbouring WIFIs. Channel 11 was selected in preference.
  4. Connecting to my Music Library on my NAS was trickier. I downloaded the Sonos app for my MacBook at that app is easier to navigate than the iPhone and iPad apps. The solution was to ensure support for SMB3, create a sonos-music user on the NAS, make my /music directory a shared folder and grant sonos-music read/write permissions for all subfolders and files. Then on the Sonos app connect to the Music Library with correct host/path, username and password, in my case that was //DiskStation/music, sonos-music and ******. It took some time to complete the indexing, about 30-40 minutes. After restarting the app I could browse the Music Library.
  5. The solution to the remote was twofold. Firstly, on the Apple TV select Settings, Remotes and Devices, Volume Control (TV via IR). Secondly, on the Sonos app, in my case the app on the iPad, select Settings, the room with the Apple TV and Playbar, e.g. Living Room. Scroll down and select “Use IR”, “IR Signal Light” ( I didn’t select “IR Repeater”) and select “Remote Control Setup” and follow the instructions using the Apple TV remote.

The system is now more or less usable. the network latency issues are much improved regarding volume control, play/pause and content selection. Sometimes the response is too delayed but I will investigate those problems further with my ISP and ensure that I’m getting the bandwidth I’ve paid for. It is now a usable system. The improvement is significant. There are only two remaining issues:

  1. I had to reconfigure the Apple TV remote one more time and I’m not sure why. I do like to play music in the Living Room using Playbar, Subwoofer and stereo pair and in this mode the TV gets disconnected. I’m assuming that the TV gets automatically reconnected when being used. Anyhow I have not seen this issue again, so maybe all is well here.
  2. The Sonos app on my MacBook works fine regarding the ability to search and browse my Music Library on my NAS but I can’t do this on the Sonos app on either my iPhone or my IPad and don’t understand why. This is more inconvenient than being show stopper, but if anyone has any tips here it would be appreciated.

Finally, I must say that Sonos Technical support is first class, exemplary even. I appreciate the challenges of integrating a set of technologies from variant vendors and making it work reasonably well is really challenging. I said that perception is everything. I believe it would help Sonos’s cause to perhaps build tooling to detect potential connectivity issues regarding bandwidth and latency in an attempt to focus the problems towards the actual root causes, such network issues. Otherwise Sonos will be perceived to be at error. In my case I had a system that was working fine on S1 but didn’t work well at all on S2. I was bound to suspect the S2 solution.


@Reformer77 .; Really good of you to take the time and trouble to post back in useful detail. I'm sure other users will benefit.


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