Just lost a room that was playing

Hi @Gaham 

Thanks for your post! And, apologies for the delay.

Sorry to hear of the issue you are having with grouped playback.

At the time of diagnostic submission, the Beam in Lounge was missing from the system and therefore the diagnostics too, so I cannot say specifically why it stopped playing.

However, it looks like I can give a good guess - your Sky Q boxes are repeating the WiFi broadcast by your Sky router, but they basically act as extenders and as such are unsupported by Sonos. As some of your speakers are connecting to them, this basically draws lines across your Sonos system, across which performance may suffer (as in, if a room on one Access Point is trying to share audio with a room on another AP, there may be issues).

To combat this, I highly recommend that you ethernet-wire one non-surround speaker (not a Sub either) to the main Sky router (or to a switch wired to the router) - this will make it broadcast SonosNet which your other speakers will prefer to connect to over the Sky Q broadcasts.

Once done, please wait a couple of minutes, then open the Sonos app and ensure that all room/speakers are present. If - and only if - all speakers are present, please then go to Settings icon » Manage » Network » SonosNet Channel » Channel 1.

If you ever find you’re having difficulties connecting to your Sonos system in the app, please move so you (and your phone) are closer to the main router than to any Sky Q box and toggle WiFi off and on again in your phone’s settings.

Note that Sky Q boxes only repeat WiFi broadcasted by a Sky router - in theory, you could replace your Sky router with a third-party router (or mesh) to prevent this behaviour. I found this page which mentions using a third-party router with Sky.

I hope this helps.

Thanks @Corry P 

The setup you describe is exactly what I had before 7th May but once the new App arrived I had all sorts of problems so unplugged the Play:3 that was hard wired to the router and things improved drastically.

As that was a few months ago I guess a lot has changed so I will try it again and let you know how things work out (positive or negative).

May be a few days before I get to it.

Hi @Gaham 

Understood - I do think things have improved in that regard, but please keep in mind my last two paragraphs:

If you do find that this helps, then the next suggestion would likely improve matters considerably.

Lets wait and see, however.

It may even be worth waiting for the next app update, which should be on Thursday (it was supposed to be today but was delayed) before trying.

Thanks @Corry P I’ll wait for the update and see how things progress after that.

@Corry P do you have any news about the update that was due today?

Hi @Gaham 

Yes - it has been delayed till next week.

Hi @Corry P 

Where was the delay announced? I did not see any information on this.

Just a word of warning around Sky Q. It configures STP on the main Sky Q system and any connected Mini’s regardless of whether or not you have a Sky Router. It uses this internal ‘mesh’ WiFi to do the initial authentication of any Mini to the main unit, so either adding a new one, or setting back up after a reset. 

It also uses a lower default STP root bridge ID than Sonos for all its products and I think uses the newer path cost values making it hard to get going with Sonos reliably at times. You can disable the Sky Q WiFi from the engineering menu on both the main box and Mini’s, which helps reduce interference, but you can’t turn off STP… So I find the best solution with Sky Q unless you have a LAN switch that allow you to fix the STP issues, is to not use Sonosnet. 

Thanks @Ian_S 

I have had Sky Q for years now and had no problems using Sonos with or without Sonos Net before 7th May.

I would hope that Sonos have a Sky Q system in their testing lab given how popular it is in the UK.

They have a test lab? 😳

Hi @Gaham 

As far as I am aware, the app update wasn’t publicly announced in the first place (discounting my mention of it above), so I don’t think they felt the need to announce it’s delay either.

@Corry P 

There is an expectation, based on the message from Patrick Spence, that updates will be every 2 weeks and that we will see significant progress with each update. Sadly this schedule has been repeatedly missed, most likely for good reasons, but the thing that really annoys me is that we still do not get proper communications.

Whilst I really appreciate your hard work managing the issues raised here it seems to me that you are being let down because your management team are failing to deliver regular and transparent communications.

As I have previously stated, along with others, if the Sonos management team want to rebuild trust the best place to start would be an effective commutations strategy. I really do not think we are being unreasonable in asking for this and I can think of no good reason why they fail to keep us updated through a weekly bulletin.

As a company Sonos clearly has the ability to do this because I see frequent updates that relate to marketing activities. 

So once again, in the hope of an improvement, I ask that you raise this issue with the senior management team for their action.

Hi @Gaham 

Nowhere was a strict schedule promised of an update each and every two weeks. 

Please see Patrick Spence’s (our CEO) own words on the matter:

https://www.sonos.com/en-us/blog/update-on-the-sonos-app#:~:text=We%20plan%20to%20continue%20releasing%20new%20software%20updates%20on%20a%20bi%2Dweekly%20cadence

Please take particular note of the word “plan”.

I take your points, however - they are not entirely unreasonable, and I have forwarded them on.

I hope this helps.

Thanks @Corry P 

Like the others here I appreciate your efforts.

Sorry to say though that I have absolutely no confidence if the senior management of the company you work so diligently for. From the initial announcement of the new app until now they have failed to communicate honestly and transparent and yet, ironically, they speak of regaining our trust.