Sonos and Tidal continually get out of sync!

  • 29 November 2021
  • 11 replies
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Every time I use the tidal application to synchronize with my Sonos system it constantly gets out of sync after some music. I then hear the music playing in the speaker of my smart phone. It is not a problem of wifi since all my sonos devices are connected with ethernet wires. In addition all my devices are 3rd generation Sonos. I never have a connection problem on any of my devices in the house, I never have an internet cut, I have an ultra-fast connection (400 mbps / s), I have a recent smart phone ( galaxy s20), I never have a synchronization problem with Tidal with any other device except with sonos. It started from day 1 (be since the purchase of sound systems in summer 2020). The Tidal app is up to date, my android phone is up to date, the sonos app is up to date. I contacted Tidal Tier 2 technical support and they told me that there is absolutely no problem on their side and that I should contact the Sonos team.

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11 replies

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I have the same exact issue. I start Tidal on my Samsung Note20 Ultra phone. Pick music. Cast to SONOS. After a slight buffering delay, the stream plays on ALL of my SONOS speakers and everything is great.

After about 4 songs, SONOS keeps playing throughout my house. My PHONE starts playing the same track that is currently playing throughout my house on the SONOS speakers, but it is BEHIND…

Why does it EVEN start playing on my phone if I’ve told it to cast to my SONOS system? SO, yes...Some sort of sync issues / sync to cast / SONOS takes over from CAST issues definitely...

If I STOP / Quit Tidal on my phone, the SONOS speakers keep playing with no interruption.

JUST FYI - I *think* it might have something to do with the “Artist Radio”? Starting an ad hock playlist from Tidal where it’s using the initial track to find other similar songs….And the reason I say this - but I MIGHT be Wrong of course - because this issue seems to happen when I do the Artist Radio thing and USUALLY not when I’m just doing one of my Collection Playlists…

Hope we can figure something out. I’ve JUST jumped to Tidal from Spotify which had ZERO ISSUES with SONOS...

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For those monitoring this issue, the battery management settings above DEFINITELY fixed my sync issues.

Computer nerds Rule..!  :)

Battery management settings have fixed my sync issue as well. No problems since I  changed the setting. Woohoo!

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So far, so good...I’m up to 10 songs in a row without the sync issue now...WooHooo!

Apparently the Battery management system on newer Samsung / adroid phones is RATHER aggressive and when a phone goes into sleep mode, to conserve AS MUCH battery as possible, it will throw an interrupt code to apps running in the background and Tidal sees JUST enough of that as a full interrupt to Wifi / SONOS / casting and As soon as it figures itself out, it TRIES to be good and keep going, but...TOO late…

ANYWAY...Hope it helps others…!

I don't quite understand. Are you expecting a stream to your phone to stay in sync with a separate stream playing directly on your Sonos system? That's never going to happen. 

I have the same exact issue as Achristocat. Start Tidal on my S21 Ultra and stream to Sonos. After a few songs the locked phone starts playing the same track in a different spot. It is maddening. Also trying to move from Spotify which never had this issue for me. 

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Just FYI, I went to the reddit / tidal community to see if anyone else was having issues and...YUP! Lots of posts on this issue.


This one caught my eye-


“Just in case anyone else finds this thread while trying to solve the same problem, u/brucylefleur saved the day for me (thanks again for the help!).

Long press the TIDAL app
Click the "i" (info)
Click Battery
Select Unrestricted

That's it. The bizarre behavior of music starting on my phone while casting to my Sonos speakers no longer happens. Joy!”

I’ve done the thing and I will report back to see if it’s still an issue. Good luck out there!

Thanks Achristocrat. Gonna try this!

Sadly changing the battery setting hasn't fixed it for me

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Forget that ratty

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UPDATE : After continuing to experiment, I’ve worked out that it’s every type of playlist, not just Artist Radio.

ANY selected playlist from the Tidal mobile app on my Android / Note20 Ultra, cast to SONOS will STOP Playing on my Note20 and start playing on my SONOS system - usually after a hiccup or two on SONOS - and everything will be Just Fine for about 3 songs, then suddenly, my phone starts playing the song that is being cast to the SONOS system, and it is about 3 seconds behind on my phone. If I go to my phone and KILL the Tidal mobile app, SONOS will keep playing the playlist.

Can someone at SONOS PLEASE look at this? It is a BASIC functionality that most other services have and in the three years I had SPOTIFY, It NEVER did this….From ANY type or app - Desktop / Mobile / other OS…

...and YES. I AM on the Tidal community boards asking the same exact question. HOPEFULLY, someone from BOTH sides of the wall will come together and FIX THIS…!