Why does my sonos system turn itself on, playing a random song!?

Called it. Just sayin'.
Internally, we called the setting to turn off the speaker touch controls "cat mode" because of the number of times a pet sitting on a warm player would trigger volume or playback changes.

@Ryan S

After nine years, my cat finally crawled into the back of the media rack (it has a locked front door) and was sleeping against the Sonos Connect units. Caught him today.

@Double-U-Dee, on both of those diagnostics the player was sent a play command from the IP address of a Synology device on your network to load and play a song. It's most likely you have an app installed on that device (likely a NAS drive) which triggered the playback to start. From the command that's trying to load a song I'd start with looking at /../webman/3rdparty/AudioStation/webUI/

Same problem. More info please.

diagnostic #: 1587053013
Looks like most of the recent playback commands your system has received are from a Spotify app, I can't say which one though. If you usually use Spotify direct control to play music on Sonos, you can disconnect a previously started session by using the Sonos app to play anything aside from Spotify on the players. This will prevent your phone from randomly starting something due to an errant button press, or maybe swapping to Bluetooth.

I would also love to know what started my Sonos which happened this morning sometime close to 6:10 AM ET.

Diagnostic conf 718617016
@Tmarin, from what I can see on the diagnostic, it looks like someone (or something) pressed the play/pause button on the Master Bedroom device, starting the playback of what was last played. If it wasn't a person, there could have been something pressed against the front of the player, touching the button, or perhaps a pet swatted the front...

This has happened to us twice, just happened! I have submitted a diagnostic 1820645923 whats causing it?!

Hi spottihamdi, I'm seeing several play commands coming from a Spotify app. If you've had any friends connected to your system playing Spotify from their app, make sure you play from another service after they leave to disconnect them. This is a good thing to do even if it was just your phone to prevent any accidental plays. Also, it could be something pressing the play button, as I see a few triggers coming from there. If possible, can you send a diagnostic within a few minutes of this happening? That way we know which time stamp to look for.

The only playback command I see came around that time came from a Samsung S10 phone. Does that timeframe link with anyone leaving the house to go to work or school at that time? I've seen mobile devices that connect to Bluetooth in a car and immediately send a play command, which could trigger the Sonos app to tell the players to play, if it's still on WiFi.

Same thing has happened to me twice today. No one else in my house. No one else who has ever used my Sonos network is playing anything. No alarms. Phone locked and not in my hands when it started. No cats or any other animal near any of my pieces. In my case, it’s Amazon. Didn’t think to look the issue up until quite awhile into the second play. Spooky.

But its a good lead. I'll keep an eye on the different issues and see if I can find the root cause. Presumably the Sonos app needs to be running for this to occur - (the Deezer app has no ability to cast to Sonos - right?)
Cheers Stuart

Okay so, this morning Sonos was not "running" on my S10. At 8:23am, again the Sonos turned on. 555753932.
Interestingly, although I didn't have the app open, the "always on" screen on the S10 did show track information on what was playing on the Sonos - maybe that has something to do with it?.

Aha. I just found it! I have a bixby routine that runs from 4:50am to 8:22am each morning (doing various things including playing music via headphones on deezer). Looks like the turning "off" of that may trigger sonos - somehow. But the timing 8:22 to 8:23 seems too precise.

Any hints on how to de-trigger the sonos auto-start? As a start I have tried turning off the deezer music.

Same problem. More info please.

diagnostic #: 1587053013Looks like most of the recent playback commands your system has received are from a Spotify app, I can't say which one though. If you usually use Spotify direct control to play music on Sonos, you can disconnect a previously started session by using the Sonos app to play anything aside from Spotify on the players. This will prevent your phone from randomly starting something due to an errant button press, or maybe swapping to Bluetooth.


I would also love to know what started my Sonos which happened this morning sometime close to 6:10 AM ET.

Diagnostic conf 718617016@Tmarin, from what I can see on the diagnostic, it looks like someone (or something) pressed the play/pause button on the Master Bedroom device, starting the playback of what was last played. If it wasn't a person, there could have been something pressed against the front of the player, touching the button, or perhaps a pet swatted the front...
@Ryan S So what is my solution if I use Spotify solely to play music?

My Sonos starts playing spontaneously when my phone (Galaxy S10) connects to my wifi as I drive into the garage while Google Play music is connected to Bluetooth in my car. This happens even when Sonos app is closed.
I've played with the settings but can't get this figured out. I think I'll have to uninstall Sonos from my phone and use another device to control Sonos.
Highly annoying!

Hey Rudy_1

The feature that is affecting you is the auto-transfer of a music stream. Same thing will happen in reverse if you are listening to a podcast on bluetooth when you get into the car. The phone seeks 'available audio services' to try and continue your audio experience.

I don't know if it can be turned off. But a quick fix may be to turn off the entertainment system in your car before you turn the engine off. That should stop the audio-stream and thus the transfer to the Sonos.