Question

'Can't connect to Sonos', and NOTHING HELPS!!


Hi,

So we’ve had a Sonos One in our bedroom for some time, and last year decided to get a Beam and two SLs to create a surround sound in our Living Room. Great. Everything was easy peasy to set up, sounds fantastic, no problems whatsoever.

Early March things started to suddenly go a bit wrong; products randomly dropping off the app and reappearing, whole rooms disappearing, and we weren’t really sure what’s going on. I assumed it was something to do with wifi connection and needing a dedicated channel to minimize interference or something, and thought the Boost would be the best way to go about solving it. However, plucking £100 out of the air wasn’t easy, and with the beam still plugged in to the tv and working on that front, we put it on the backburner and decided to wait a while before investing.

Sonos Boost arrived today. Everything has disappeared off my app now anyway and it says ‘Can’t connect to Sonos’ at the top. Been through the whole troubleshooting article to fix it, no joy. So off we go with setting up a new system (yes, we chose that option) plugging in the boost and connecting it to the router. Hooray! It is connected, super easily, and shows on the app as a wired product without issue.

Now, we took one of the SLs and plugged it in via ethernet to the router (it wouldn’t work wirelessly), and it still won’t find the product even with it connected directly to the router. Tried the Beam and it’s exactly the same.

So we’ve done a factory reset on all of the products, and tried to connect them to the app, adding them as new products to the new system with the Boost, both wireslessly and using an ethernet cable, and every time it finds the product, but then when you try and connect and set it up, it says it can’t connect.

I really dont know what the heck is going on anymore and it’s the most frustrating thing - my stress levels are through the roof. Going through the various troubleshooting articles on here and they’re easy to follow, but the products just aren’t connecting for anyone.

I went onto my profile to look at my system just now, and all of my products show on there. Slightly strange that all of them bar the boost that was registered today say they were registered in March 2020, which isn’t true, they were all registered in 2018/2019. But this was around the time they all started going wrong…

Planning on ringing customer services on Monday, but with it being Friday night and they’re closed at the weekend, just wondered if anyone had some wisdom to shine on the situation?

I’m confused about:

  • the registration date that appears as March, when I didnt do anything to the products at that time
  • how long after doing a factory reset do the products disappear from your system? Could this be interfering with trying to add them to a ‘new system’ we’ve set up on the app?
  • why, when using an ethernet cable to add them as new products to the system are they not found? Surely this should work? We’ve tried THREE cables!!!

Thanks in advance for any help and advice you can give.

Gael


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12 replies

  1. Ignore the date, it has no meaning to your situation
  2. Once a factory reset is done, the device will be removed from your Sonos account when someone sets it up on their own Sonos account. A factory reset does not remove an item from the Sonos account system.
  3. Heres where things get problematic. In general, a pan Ethernet cable wired directly between a router and a non-bonded Sonos does several things. It provides a connection between the two devices so that the controller can ‘see’ the device, and you can actually add the Wi-Fi information to it, if you’re setting up a Wi-Fi/wireless system, and if you’re not, it sets up the SonosNet signal for all the future devices to connect to, in what is also called a ‘wired’ system.

However, doing a factory reset is generally a bad idea, and merely confuses things. And can be worse if you didn’t successfully complete the factory reset. 

Since you’ve already started the process, however, we don’t have much choice but to continue down that road. First, reboot your router, to ensure that it’s running ‘clean’.  Connect the BOOST to your router with an Ethernet cable, and open the controller. You should be presented either with the choice to set up a new system, or connect to an existing system. If indeed you get the latter option, choose it. If not, just create a new system, and we’ll just need to ensure that all devices get appropriately added. Since you’ve already done a factory reset on all the products, all of the stored info is probably gone. We may need to go through the factory reset again, depending on the status of each device. If they’ve all been properly reset, you shouldn’t have to do it again.

Once you’ve got the Sonos system set up with the BOOST connected to your router, and have the controller connected to a Sonos ‘system’, go ahead and use the ‘add a device’  process in the controller to add each speaker to your Sonos system. If you’re adding surrounds, set them up as a separate room first, and then go back in and switch them from that room to surround speakers. 
 

Sonos does offer 24/7 support via Twitter. Click on Sonos Support for more information. 

  1. Ignore the date, it has no meaning to your situation
  2. Once a factory reset is done, the device will be removed from your Sonos account when someone sets it up on their own Sonos account. A factory reset does not remove an item from the Sonos account system.
  3. Heres where things get problematic. In general, a pan Ethernet cable wired directly between a router and a non-bonded Sonos does several things. It provides a connection between the two devices so that the controller can ‘see’ the device, and you can actually add the Wi-Fi information to it, if you’re setting up a Wi-Fi/wireless system, and if you’re not, it sets up the SonosNet signal for all the future devices to connect to, in what is also called a ‘wired’ system.

However, doing a factory reset is generally a bad idea, and merely confuses things. And can be worse if you didn’t successfully complete the factory reset. 

Since you’ve already started the process, however, we don’t have much choice but to continue down that road. First, reboot your router, to ensure that it’s running ‘clean’.  Connect the BOOST to your router with an Ethernet cable, and open the controller. You should be presented either with the choice to set up a new system, or connect to an existing system. If indeed you get the latter option, choose it. If not, just create a new system, and we’ll just need to ensure that all devices get appropriately added. Since you’ve already done a factory reset on all the products, all of the stored info is probably gone. We may need to go through the factory reset again, depending on the status of each device. If they’ve all been properly reset, you shouldn’t have to do it again.

Once you’ve got the Sonos system set up with the BOOST connected to your router, and have the controller connected to a Sonos ‘system’, go ahead and use the ‘add a device’  process in the controller to add each speaker to your Sonos system. If you’re adding surrounds, set them up as a separate room first, and then go back in and switch them from that room to surround speakers. 
 

Sonos does offer 24/7 support via Twitter. Click on Sonos Support for more information. 

So I’ve done the steps you said:

 

I unplugged the boost and rebooted the router - when the router came back online I attached the boost again and opened the app. The app gave me the two options you said, so I selected to connect to an existing system, as you suggested.

At first it said it couldn’t find an existing system, but when selecting retry, it asked me to press a button on a product, so I pressed the button on the boost and it immediately found it and said it was connected.

However, on the app there is still the message at the top “can’t connect to Sonos - fix it”, and each page on the app looks like it’s constantly trying to refresh or find something. This has been my problem for three months.

I will try and add an SL to the system now to see if it works, but so far, nothing I’ve done that you’ve suggested is any different to anything already tried 🤷‍♀️

So I just got an SL and went through the process to add it to the system. 

I must say first that after my last comment, the app was continuing to do the same as usual - in settings, the top three options of Account, System, Services are all greyed out and not able to be selected. I know I was not signed it at this point, but even when I have been signed it, this randomly happens and I’m unable to have any control in the app. I’ve tried using my iPhone 7+, husband’s iPhone X, and our brand new iPad Air as the controller during the process of trying to get it up and running, each having the same issue.

I also must add that I have a Phillips Hue hub connected to the router, which works absolutely fine. I also have an Xbox wirelessly connected, two Alexa dots, and Apple TV. Everything else works fine and has no drop in connection, and my broadband speeds aren’t a problem.

Anyway, as I selected to add a product, it asked me to sign in first. (The greyed our options appeared, allowing me to select system and add product.) Powered up the SL as asked, it was flashing white before flashing green. It found the product and showed it on screen, asked me to press the button to connect, heard the chime, started flashing red, and then started the process of connecting it to the WiFi. Usually when we’ve got to this point in the past, it shows our WiFi in the drop down, but for the first time today it didn’t… even though I’m stood a foot away from the router with the controller and speaker. So I entered it manually with the password, it searched and tried to do it’s thing, then said “let’s try to connect with an Ethernet cable temporarily before moving it somewhere permanent” or whatever. So did that, as we’ve done before. Plugged the Ethernet into the back of the router and the Sonos SL, asked to press the Chime button, chimes and searches, then says “Not Connected. Your Sonos product was not found. If your product is a long way from your router, you may need to try moving it closer. Please select try again. For more information go to faq.sonos.com/icr”

We’ve done this and gotten to this point with the Beam too. We can’t get past it. I couldn’t be any closer to the router if I tried, and it’s asked me to connect it via Ethernet anyway? I have strong WiFi signal where I’m stood and it’s found the product initially moments ago, so I don’t know why it’s struggling to connect any product and why the controllers repeatedly say they can’t connect to Sonos? This is why we bought a Boost, as we thought that it might help.

At a loss.

@GaelRose, According to your profile you have a Boost, so there’s no need to enter the WiFi credentials into the system (unless you own a Move); on the contrary, the SonosNet does not rely on your home WiFi and operating the system in mixed mode can get things messed up.

 

Make sure that the WiFi details have been removed: On iOS or Android: From the Settings tab, tap System > Network > Networks. Select the WiFi network you'd like to remove, and tap Remove. Subsequently wait about 10 min, then go to 'Settings → System → About my Sonos System' and see if WM:0 is being displayed next to each unit.

@GaelRose, According to your profile you have a Boost, so there’s no need to enter the WiFi credentials into the system (unless you own a Move); on the contrary, the SonosNet does not rely on your home WiFi and operating the system in mixed mode can get things messed up.

 

Make sure that the WiFi details have been removed: On iOS or Android: From the Settings tab, tap System > Network > Networks. Select the WiFi network you'd like to remove, and tap Remove. Subsequently wait about 10 min, then go to 'Settings → System → About my Sonos System' and see if WM:0 is being displayed next to each unit.


This is exactly what I thought. I was confused as to why it was asking me to input my WiFi details and password when we have a Boost set up.

 

When I go onto the Sonos app and follow your instructions, when selecting Networks, it just says ‘loading...’ and nothing happens. The Sonos Net Channel is set to 1. The only product showing in my app in the system is the Boost, which is the only product connected at the moment as unable to set up anything else, and the Boost shows WM 0.

 

Not sure how to rectify a network issue if I can’t access any networks through the app.

@GaelRose, When you plug in all Sonos devices, do they appear in the Sonos app after a few minutes?

@GaelRose, When you plug in all Sonos devices, do they appear in the Sonos app after a few minutes?

@Smilja no, before everything was disconnected, it all just stopped working and over a few weeks everything disappeared from the app 🤷‍♀️ because I have done factory resets on the products now, when they are plugged into power they flash white, then flash green ready for set up.

The only thing that stayed in the app was the Beam, which has been connected to the TV and working fine (until yesterday when we started faffing around trying to get everything to work again). In the early stages, I tried to find missing products, instead of adding them in. This didn’t work and we kept on coming back to the same problem, with the app being very unresponsive and seemingly struggling to connect to anything. 
Now it will find the products, as I stated before, when I try to add a product, it will initially find it in the very first stage, show you the product, ask if it’s the right one, but then when trying to connect it up it says it can’t find the product…

The app will ‘drop out’ and grey out options intermittently. And it won’t find any networks.

@GaelRose, You may have created a 2nd Sonos system by accident. Best to call in to Sonos Customer Care for assistance.

https://www.sonos.com/en-gb/contact

@Smilja yup, going to call first thing Monday. Thanks for your help though. 

@GaelRose I think I have a similar issue (https://en.community.sonos.com/setting-up-sonos-228990).

Were you able to resolve it through Customer Care?

@GaelRose I think I have a similar issue (https://en.community.sonos.com/setting-up-sonos-228990).

Were you able to resolve it through Customer Care?


Absolutely. I did the online chat, and a fantastic guy talked me through everything step by step and we got it all working and up and running. Wish I’d done it earlier! 

@GaelRose I think I have a similar issue (https://en.community.sonos.com/setting-up-sonos-228990).

Were you able to resolve it through Customer Care?


Absolutely. I did the online chat, and a fantastic guy talked me through everything step by step and we got it all working and up and running. Wish I’d done it earlier! 

 

How did they fix your issue? I’m having the EXACT same issue(s)! It’s beyond frustrating for something so expensive. I’m about to sell all my sonos products and switch to Bose lol