I've done EVERYTHING possible. NO MATTER WHAT Sonos Connect keeps interrupting playback

I
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OK.

 

I posted a while back about this but out of desperation I tried a few things including:

 

Purchasing a 2nd CONNECT that is S2 compatible, AND

Moving the music library drive to a different host, AND

Downloading and installing S2 to all hosts, and yes EVEN…

Copying the .music library to a NEW standalone drive; I have tried that on the regular host as well as another host PC on the network.

Oh, I even rebuilt two operating systems thinking that maybe there were some files that had been corrupted. That’s right, I actually completely rebuilt the O.S. on two machines and reinstalled all software that I had previously installed on them. ALL of this in an attempt to make these two pieces of electronic excrement work reliably.

 

NOTE: This DOES NOT happen with streaming services. However, I have a broad record / CD collection that is in-house, and I like having them available rather than a possibly somewhat compressed stream version. The fact that this doesn’t happen with streaming does not, in any way, make this less annoying.

 

No matter what I do... either player - when playing alone, together, or different files (and this is ALL from my music library) will cease playing, there will be 2 - 10 seconds of silence, and then playback will continue. I have tried everything...checking firewall, turning off VPN, all manner of system checks over, and over, and over.

 

It is SUCH a downer when I have people over, because it kills the vibe. Also, as an audio professional it reflects poorly upon me. I have to admit I was a fool to purchase the first CONNECT. I should have

 

I can’t believe that I thought switching to S2 would fix the issue. I feel like a chump. I should have just purchased a real, reliable playback device; all of the hours (yes, hours) would have been avoided with a reliable system.

 

For all the geeks out there, yes, I reset the gateway, I reset the switches, I verified all switches were Connect-compatible.

 

Do you know what’s REALLY AWFUL? I had the interruptions before running S1 (with an S!-only CONNECT and an S2-compatible CONNECT) but they were actually less frequent.

 

That’s right...by spending more money on Sonos products (a used S2-compatible CONNECT) and the time to set up the system once more things are now actually WORSE.

 

The ONLY thing that seems to be consistent? Once my girlfriend downloaded S2 on her Android phone the issues seemed to start again; for a while I heard none of the interruptions. Maybe it’s coincidence (almost certainly).

 

Oh, and before anyone asks whether I have tried running wired instead of wireless, that’s how they have been set up since day one; I’ve never used wifi to get the music to the CONNECT units - always an Ethernet cable.

 

I’m DONE with Sonos. I know there are some much more expensive units out there. I don’t think I will sell these - why should some other person have to deal with crap hardware? I may just take all of the units (three of them now, two S2 “compatible” and one S1 only) to the recycling station.

 

I have been bounced around by Sonos support so many times, and each time it’s the same raft of pull-down menu questions to ask - EVEN AFTER I EXPLAIN THAT I HAVE DONE ALL OF THAT UP FRONT. All this time wasted on something that should bring happiness.

 

As an engineer nothing frustrates me more than unreliable equipment.

 

What an enormous disappointment.

 

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36 replies

I
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@immersifi,
To get your diagnostic report feedback, you can in fact speak/chat online with Sonos Support Staff via this link here below and refer them to thread here (and your earlier thread) so they can see the complete picture…

https://support.sonos.com/s/contact

HTH

WOW.

 

I simply can’t believe it. No, I’m not writing to express my thanks (though we’ll get to that) but to relay what happened via phone diagnostics (took two hours and being put on hold six times). I’ll cut to the chase:

Flavia (the rep, who was super helpful) had me check a few things but said there was an error being shown repeatedly in the log. HOORAY!

 

As it happens while I pinged the IPs of the connects early on there appears to have been an issue with the MAIN host PC to which the drive is connected insofar as S2 is concerned. Long story short the Sonos app was looking for 192.168.1.76 while in reality the IP of the machine had .85 for its last octet. Mind you I hadn’t pinged the IP for this machine in a while BUT when I did it WAS .85 and I had zero issues (I pinged .85 successfully, so the network and O.S. knew it was .85 but S2 thought it should bn .76). Also, just to front load this every device showing a valid IP via the gateway’s home page could be pinged with 0% loss.

 

I mentioned to Flavia that if there was a DNS type issue that would explain a lot but as an end user I can’t see that in the diagnostics file (users should be able to see its contents IMO) and truthfully that sort of thing WOULD have jumped off the page at me weeks ago, but we lowly consumers (we just fund the Company, we don’t deserve access to the diagnostics apparently).

 

PARTIAL RESOLUTION:

Flavia suggested that I rename the host PC and reboot, and then un-learn the library (more on THAT later on), reboot the machine, point to the library on the drive (where it had always lived) and let S2 relearn the library. I was overjoyed because during the reboot and generation of a new diagnostics file that I sent the diagnostics file NO LONGER SHOWED THAT ERROR! FANTASTIC! My problems were over! Or...were they?

RESULT: For a short while it seemed that the system was stable and yes, even fast at displaying album art and so forth. This lasted approximately a day or so. So what started happening? Well, here we go:

 

NEW PROBLEMS:

After renaming the host I noticed that all of the sudden the Android app was basically unresponsive (yes, I had a solid wi fi connection to my phone). Nothing that I could do would make the S2 app work. So I uninstalled S2 from my phone and reinstalled it. Things looked normal for about a few hours but then I noticed that NONE of the album art was loading. Not. One.

So, I go back into S2 on the renamed machine and look at the path for the library and within Sonos the directory name was DIFFERENT than the drive name and path on the operating system (I had selected the path via mouse - this was not an errant keystroke on my part). In other words I pointed to the FLAC_Public directory on the M drive of this machine after I had renamed it BUT when I looked again I noticed that the path for the music library was now shown as FLACPublic (the underscore separating FLAC and Public was not shown as the directory name). Despite this it still worked. Kind of.

 

The REAL FUN STARTS:

So I have some people over for a welcome home party for a friend of mine. During the night the S2 app, whether on Android phone or tablet became unresponsive. So much so that a) first the upstairs CONNECT disappeared (the one that we had been using) but then - hold onto your hat, a few minutes later b) a 2nd Connect appeared but was named “Garage”. Not “Whole Lotta House” (the original name) but instead “:Garage”. The Subterranean Playground Connect was there but “Whole Lotta House” was gone and “Garage” was there in its place.

NOTE: I did NOT rename that Connect unit. I can offer no explanation whatsoever for what had happened.

One. Two. Three. Four. times the unit locked up during the night and the only way to fix it in EACH instance was to unplug the Connect and reconnect to AC mains. Oddly the “Garage” unit went away and its alias (Whole Lotta House) showed up again while the other Connect that was not being used just sat there.

Basically, it ruined yet another party due to all of the interruptions in the music.

 

THE LATEST:

The music library has disappeared from my music source list twice. That’s right, just vanished.

Whole Lotta House has become unstable several times and ironically right after being very cooperative. That is after populating album art, the next instance shows maybe ½ the art, and each subsequent access shows fewer and fewer bits of album art. It SEEMS that after this progresses a while the Connect becomes unresponsive and I have to shut down the phone etc.

Oh and then there’s the “thinking” clock when I load some tracks only to see ERROR 1002 music could not be loaded. SOMETIMES I see a message stating that the path yadda-yadda-yadda could not be located! Could not be located? IT’s on the freaking PC to which the music library is connected. S2 located it a few minutes prior but now it can’t find the path? RUFKM?

 

All that I do now with S2 is watch the performance get worse with time.

 

THE BEST OF THE BEST PART OF THIS?

I thought “well I’ll just go back to S1 and live with “fewer features”. NOPE. Since I installed S2 apparently both Connect units got a sort of firmware update (I guess) and basically after loading S1 I was told that none of my products are compatible.

FUN REMINDER: Once upon a time my 2nd gen S2-compatible worked just fine on S1.

 

So what do I have?

Two units that are wholly unreliable for playing back my flac library. I’ve purchased a total of three Connect units (one new the others used) and a third unit that I *COULD* use with S1 were I to take the S2 code AND HARDWARE off of my network OR set up a 2nd system with a different wi fi network etc.

 

NFW I’m doing that.

 

Thanks, Sonos for building a product that seems to get WORSE with time and revisions.

 

JUST AWFUL.”Upgrading” to S2 has made things infinitely worse.

 

So the quest for a new device continues. I’m trying to decide whether to drive over the Connect units or merely send them to the landfill. I hate dong that sort of thing but holy hell, if moving to the new application makes things worse that tells me that the code has some major flaws going unaddressed.

 

Also before anyone goes off on me about “it’s your network” keep in mind that EVERY OTHER DEVICE on my network (multiple smart TVs, several computers, peripherals etc) EVERY SINGLE DEVICE works just fine on my network; always discoverable. Can be pinged successfully etc. Every. Single. Computer or peripheral...all just work. I should add my network printer is about six years old and has had its driver / software updated countless times. Guess what? It still works like it is supposed to work. My computers are all accessible etc. The ONLY devices that are problematic on my network are the two Connect units running under S2.

 

buzz

Are you using Alexa? If so, check this out.

I
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Are you using Alexa? If so, check this out.

No. No use of Alexa et al.

106rallye
Userlevel 7
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Apple will also rename devices.

To downgrade Sonos devices (be reminded this can't be done with the One SL) take a look here: 

 

I
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Apple will also rename devices.

To downgrade Sonos devices (be reminded this can't be done with the One SL) take a look here: 

 

OK, first, the downgrade.

I did that which was suggested. However, after doing so I tried to install / set up S1 and I got the message that both devices were incompatible. I ran through the steps again but got the same message, so I gave up.

 

I’ve reinstalled S2 (but of course with all of my playlists etc gone as a consequence of the reset) and that made things status quo.

I
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@immersifi,
To get your diagnostic report feedback, you can in fact speak/chat online with Sonos Support Staff via this link here below and refer them to thread here (and your earlier thread) so they can see the complete picture…

https://support.sonos.com/s/contact

HTH

Yeah, I chatted with them via chat window and have a case number so that I can call later once my phone gets some charge. I did this once before a few months ago as I recall; nothing positive came from it. I’m going to pour myself a drink before I call. This time in chat I gave them all three submission numbers so that they could reference them as well as the URL for this thread. How I HOPE that I don’t get “Pull-Down Menu Pete” who suggest that I do everything that I have already done and documented in the thread.

I had hoped to be able to use this (CONNECT) with client files (recordings), that is, have them audition their finished work in the critical listening area of The Subterranean Playground but I can’t risk it; if a client’s work starts and stops it will kill the mood not to mention making me look like an idiot. I’ll just have to be at the laptop and run either VLC or Windows Media Player (32-bit no less) when I have clients in to hear their work. It’s 1995 again!

UPDATE:

 

Hopes crushed against the rocks of despair.

 

I ended up taking the drive (4 TB WD in a USB) and making it an internal drive in the main workstation that I use. However, before I did this I cleared the Sonos library and pointed it to a COPY of the library on a WD Mybook just as a “well maybe it’s the USB drive” exercise. As expected that did not fix the interruption.

 

So, I took to heart another suggestion, namely to remove the 4TB volume for its USB enclosure and make it internal to the T7500 - put it right on the host buss. Result?

 

It still glitches.

 

This means - taken with pointing to the copy of the library via USB and now the 4 TB internal volume as an experiment - that it can’t be related to the disk drives; they are physically distinct volumes and now have completely different I/O yet Sonos creates the same issue. This also means it had nothing to do with selective suspend (USB) etc when the 4TB volume was a USB device. Oh, another thing, just to be on the safe side before moving the 4TB volume into the host machine I tried two different vendors’ USB enclosures (thinking maybe it was a marginal chipset etc). That made no difference.

 

Again, all of the scheduled stuff (malware etc) are set up for hours that I know I will be asleep, so it can’t be those.

 

The event log is not very populated (maybe 50 events over a 48-hour period) and shows no warnings or errors...just normal Windows type events.

 

Both the 4TB (now) internal drive and the WD Mybook (backup of library) have been checked for errors with none found, so it’s not either volume.

 

Going to a NAS seems to be the only option if I want to stick with Sonos. However, it would be the ultimate burn for me to a) verify full compatibility (NAS enclosure), b) verify drive compatibility (and REPLACE any incompatible drives at additional expense), c) spend the time setting up the NAS and moving / mirroring the library. If it would work (i.e. 100% GUARANTEED) to fix the issue I might consider it, however as a gamble it feels so much like throwing good money after bad.

 

I can’t even recall all of the things that I have done / tried / swapped / reset/ reinstalled/ rebuilt etc...and all because Sonos started doing this with the passage of time. It used to work brilliantly but now I have zero confidence that the problem can ever be solved, and this includes using a different machine as the host.

 

I can’t dedicate the Connect units direct to the gateway without having to completely rewire the network (the same network by the way that supports many other wired devices, all of which operate without any glitches) and cascade switches etc, and possibly have to buy yet another (because of the port count that one loses by cascading switches. But honestly … considering that the device was MARKETED as being able to access music from networked machines (with said drives shared) as well as local drives seems wholly disingenuous.

 

The hours...I must have at least 100 hours of my time trying to fix this. Every time that I THINK that it may have just worked “this time” I find out that once again the system glitches.

 

I guess I will circle back to a Sonos person and speak with yet another assistant, possibly senior level (again) who might be able to help (although at this point what are they REALLY likely to come up with?). After that...it’s time to put both of the CONNECT units under the rear wheels of my car, get inside, turn the key and put the transmission into reverse and crush that which has been giving me nothing but frustration for several months now.

 

Were Sonos Management willing to buy me a NAS and drives I’d make the swap for the library. In that way even if the NAS wasn’t the solution I would get a drive that could be used with a networked player available from another vendor. Sure, they would be more expensive, but if the functioned *AS ADVERTISED* then wouldn’t that be a worthwhile investment?

 

I recall seeing once or so a “write the C.E.O.” button somewhere...not that eh or she would actually read my email but maybe it’s worth a shot. Probably not, though.

 

So disappointing.

 

J

I just don't understand why this is so complicated.  There are loads of us out here with a basic  NAS wired by Ethernet to our routers, and a bunch of Sonos devices, one of which is also wired to router. That is how Sonos was originally designed to be used. You seem  to have tried everything except that. 

I
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I just don't understand why this is so complicated.  There are loads of us out here with a basic  NAS wired by Ethernet to our routers, and a bunch of Sonos devices, one of which is also wired to router. That is how Sonos was originally designed to be used. You seem  to have tried everything except that. 

As I have stated...when I bought the Sonos they stated that a NAS was not a necessity (indeed it was not designed to work exclusively with a NAS as you seem to be suggesting) and that one could play music from ANY connected drive, it’s even in the system setup (NAS, another drive on this computer, mymusic folder), thus I chose not to buy a NAS. Simple as that. Sure, a NAS would likely be a more stable solution but if so just tell the consumer what may lie ahead without an NAS, but I have no guarantee of this, and why should I now have to buy a NAS to fix a system that was once stable?

 

Had Sonos said “music interruptions may occur if non-NAS storage is utilized” that would have swayed my decision, but to advertise the system as being able to play music from any valid share. The only Sonos devices I won are the Connect units and believe me I’ve no plans to buy any more Sonos products. We’re talking about streaming AUDIO content on a local network that’s been validated; VIDEO gets streamed to TVs on the same network which requires much greater bandwidth than do audio signals. Everything else on the network - printers, TVs, other computers, none of them suffer any loss of connectivity, but somehow that should be OK with a CONNECT unit? Streaming songs? Are you kidding me?

 

IF in fact the performance (avoiding interruptions) was marginal WITHOUT an NAS then they should have said as much, but you see, it worked fine for years, and lest we forget they advertised the product as capable of accessing remote music; it’s even in the setup still (NAS, another drive on this computer, mymusic are ALL listed as valid choices (and with no disclaimers next to any of them))

 

Thus, were I to switch to a NAS it would be at my expense and there is no guarantee that it will work. It MIGHT work, it PROBABLY would work, but again, Sonos never said anything about shares (or even local drives as being problematic.Were Sonos to say “We’d like to make this right for you and end the struggle, so here’s a NAS and drives for you - no charge” but that’s about as likely as me jetting off to Ibiza with Salma Hayek (at her request).

 

It sounds as though you’re suggesting that this is somehow my fault for “not getting on board with a NAS”, but frankly I would be willing to do that IF I didn’t have to spend any money on it with zero guarantee from Sonos or anyone that the problem would be solved - just conjecture.

 

So in summary IF Sonos had said “hey...your music may get interrupted a lot if you choose not to use a NAS that would have either swayed my decision NOT to buy any CONNECT units, but as I said even the setup says each is equally valid (no disclaimers) and once worked flawlessly no longer does.

 

Maybe I should start a gofundme page citing Sonos Connect issues in a non-NAS environment.

buzz

 

So in summary IF Sonos had said “hey...your music may get interrupted a lot if you choose not to use a NAS that would have either swayed my decision NOT to buy any CONNECT units, but as I said even the setup says each is equally valid (no disclaimers) and once worked flawlessly no longer does.

 

A more correct claim would be that millions of units are working very well, but the system will not work for you.

You have not convinced me that there are no hardware issues with one or both of your CONNECT’s. I suggest that you power up only one CONNECT and test the system, then do the same with the other CONNECT. If only one of the units misbehaves, that is a strong indication of hardware issues with that unit. If both units misbehave when only one is powered up, we can’t be certain that they are problem free.

I
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So in summary IF Sonos had said “hey...your music may get interrupted a lot if you choose not to use a NAS that would have either swayed my decision NOT to buy any CONNECT units, but as I said even the setup says each is equally valid (no disclaimers) and once worked flawlessly no longer does.

 

A more correct claim would be that millions of units are working very well, but the system will not work for you.

You have not convinced me that there are no hardware issues with one or both of your CONNECT’s. I suggest that you power up only one CONNECT and test the system, then do the same with the other CONNECT. If only one of the units misbehaves, that is a strong indication of hardware issues with that unit. If both units misbehave when only one is powered up, we can’t be certain that they are problem free.

Mmmm...You have to remember that this issue wasn’t always there which is what makes this so frustrating.

 

To paraphrase your words a better still claim would be that I once counted myself among the millions for whom the system worked flawlessly. For years. That’s what makes it so frustrating because ostensibly nothing in my hardware or network has changed. If anything it would seem to point to software - whether the S1 / S2 controllers or something within the O.S.. However, keep in mind that I have a) swapped drives on the regular host, b) moved the drive to another host, c) moved the copy drive to another host and none of these conditions make the system immune.

 

In terms of a Connect failing (or both) that would be most disappointing. I had six Turtle Beach Audiotrons at one point (many years ago) and not one of them ever encountered a hardware fault that cause any playback issues. Ever. In those I could fully configure the network parameters for each unit (including setting static IPs) which made things very configurable albeit beyond the reach of many consumers who didn’t want to deal with such things.

 

See...I come from the perspective of having had a different but outdated system before in which everything just worked right up until the day that I decided to replace them (because my music library had outgrown the 32768 song limit AND .flac was not supported). Yes, it was clunky in terms of the webpage control and song limit, which is why I bought the first Connect all of those years ago, but the Audiotron worked. Always. No matter if one, two or six units were streaming files - and they were streaming .wav files (the audiotrons were pre-.flac), so as far as music goes save for high res formats the host and network were streaming the largest-format files possible. In the audiotrons the only way to update the firmware was manually (as is normal) just like the web app that ran the whole show.

 

I’ll cop to not knowing enough about how the firmware updates are handled in the Connect but were it the case that the update was globally problematic then there would have been an outcry from the community, so it seems highly unlikely that a firmware update has caused the issue in one or both units. The problem is that the diagnostic file is not accessible to the end user (the file that you submit to Support) and there are things in there that would be helpful (certainly to me) as I learned during a chat session with one of the “Senior” diagnosticians, however, I can’t try this / that, then force a write to diagnostics and then look at the diagnostic file to see if what I tried had any effect etc. I understand that Sonos wanted to make this as plug and play as possible, which I appreciate, but it seems access to the diagnostics file would be at least a happy medium as a means by which those willing to try and fix an issue (that’s clearly me) could use said information as a means to try and put things right..

 

The fact that the issue persists irrespective of which host is used to share the .flac files makes me wonder if there is something that happened in a Windows update that’s effectively transparent to me, because this would be a common factor across those three machines. This would also explain why both of them were right as rain for years and then suddenly this problem occurred. I don’t make it a habit to sit up nights reading change logs etc so maybe I have not dug deeply enough; this could very well indeed be THE reason for all of this - some background process that was once on-demand or dormant that was changed as part of an O.S. update that would likely be innocuous to nearly all users, but perhaps the controller / Connect are sensitive to. The problem would be identifying them. I’ve looked at the event viewers and things seem normal to me - no warnings etc.

 

If one or both of the Connect units have failed / are failing well I guess I can just chalk that up to a short lifespan. It’s sad - I have lots of audio gear from the 1970s and 80s that I use every day - gear that has lasted close to 50 years with little to no need for repair / replacement. If they are indeed failing from a hardware perspective then it’s time to move on.

 

In the meantime I will try what you suggest, because I honestly don’t know what’s left to try at this point, so thanks for the suggestion.

 

 

 

buzz

 

When in diagnostic mode if one assumes that the issue must be [...] or cannot be [...] one is likely to be blindsided. I’m suspicious of both your network and your computers. And, we haven’t ruled out hardware failure.

 

Maybe I should amend this to include “shouldn’t be [...]”.

Mother nature is never fair, units do not usually pick a convenient time or mode when they fail. As units age the probability of failure rises. In the case of CONNECT, we don’t know the statistics. You mentioned 50 year old traditional audio units that are still working. I’m sure that this is the case for isolated units, but this is a very low probability case.

At each stage in a unit’s life there will be typical failure modes for the units that do fail and these modes will change with age. After a while the service shops catch on to what happens to model XYZ at a certain age. I’m not saying that all XYZ’s will fail, but those that do have a likely signature. In some cases the problem is too intermittent and bizarre for the owner to fully describe, but the shop has been through this and knows exactly how to proceed -- likely before attempting to power up the unit.

I can’t give you a probability, but it is possible that both of your CONNECT’s have failed in the same way. Or, that something on your network that “couldn’t”, “shouldn’t”, or “never happened before” is frustrating the CONNECT’s.

In my case I had an ancient NAS device that was intermittently bugging my SONOS system and I assumed that the NAS was finally ready for the recycle farm. However, there were some aspects of the issue that suggested a duplicate IP address. But ... I’m too smart for that ... right? Finally, I swallowed my pride and checked addresses in detail … darn! … . A couple months prior I had replaced my router and shuffled reserved addresses slightly. I had forgotten about a seldom used. palm sized device hidden away in a cupboard. It now had the same IP address as that NAS.

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