S2 the worse move - truly awful.

  • 21 September 2020
  • 19 replies
  • 778 views

I have two play one’s, play 3, beam and an Ikea speaker. I’m Sonos from the begging and thought it was great until S2.

I had a bridge (as that came packaged with Sonos early days) and when I migrated to S2 and completed the compatibility test the bridge was the only thing not compatible. Not wanting to spend another £99 and having a £200 dual band router i removed the old bridge. I had lots of problems with the S2 app not see the devices, read the support articles and setup a dedicated “sonos” network on my router on 2.4 and connected the units through that. I’m so frustrated with the whole inconsistency of my setup now Ive had enough of it. The app will randomly show me all my system then the next time it will be minus the Beam. The two play ones I use for surround rears disconnect themselves. I have re-added more then twice now and i got up today and the left speaker had reverted to its old standalone config before i paired them up?

I understand the need to move forward but i pretty much have an expensive load of rubbish now! By chance a friend contacted me who i recommended Sonos too and has twice as many speakers as me asking for help. “Since i upgraded the App nothing seems to be working properly and i’ve lost devices” he said.

I don’t generally complain but i’m really fed up with this now.

 

M


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19 replies

Sorry - i have put this in the feedback for the community not the product - can a mod move it for me? Thanks

 

So are you now in wired or wireless mode?  After removing your Bridge, did you wire one or more of you Sonos speakers into the network?  Or did you setup your Sonos speakers with your WiFi password?

So are you now in wired or wireless mode?  After removing your Bridge, did you wire one or more of you Sonos speakers into the network?  Or did you setup your Sonos speakers with your WiFi password?


wireless mode - yes - added wired and followed the instructions. I spent three hours trying to add the Ikea speaker in both wired and wireless mode. As i said i created a separate 2.4Ghz Sonos network.

M

So are you now in wired or wireless mode?  After removing your Bridge, did you wire one or more of you Sonos speakers into the network?  Or did you setup your Sonos speakers with your WiFi password?


wireless mode - yes - added wired and followed the instructions. I spent three hours trying to add the Ikea speaker in both wired and wireless mode. As i said i created a separate 2.4Ghz Sonos network.

M

 

That’s not clear at all.  Are you saying you tried both modes?  What mode are you currently in?  When you say you created a separate 2.4GHZ Sonos network, are you saying your WiFi router is generating this separate network?  If so, not sure why you did that.

  If so, not sure why you did that.

Because its the only way i can get it working (sort of)

Its in wireless mode now. When i couldn’t get the speakers connected i followed the instructions and plugged it into my router.

As I have a smart dual band router and after reading about 2.4 preference i created a dedicated Sonos network (from Router) which seems better but not perfect as i still loose devices or reverted to a previous config.

 

  If so, not sure why you did that.

Because its the only way i can get it working (sort of)

Its in wireless mode now. When i couldn’t get the speakers connected i followed the instructions and plugged it into my router.

 

Plugged what into the router?  And if you have any of your speakers plugged into the router right now, you are in wired mode, not wireless.  Honestly, it’s very difficult to know what you’ve done, as your statements are contradicting each other.

 

As I have a smart dual band router and after reading about 2.4 preference i created a dedicated Sonos network (from Router) which seems better but not perfect as i still loose devices or reverted to a previous config.

 

I would not recommend creating a dedicated network in your router specific for Sonos.  It’s unlikely to help anything, and would require your phone/tablet to be on that same network in order to control Sonos.

 

If it were me, I would remove the network created on the router for Sonos, then turn off/unplug the router and speakers.  Wire one of the speakers to the router.   Power on the router, than your speakers.  This usually resolves IP address conflicts, which is usually the reason speakers are not appearing in the Sonos app.  If your still having issues, then perhaps give Sonos a call.

Thanks for the replies  - i’m wireless and if you have problems adding a speaker the app tells you to plug it into the router to set it up then unplug - that's all i was saying - nothing now plugged in, all wireless. Still have persistent problems. I have just spoken to a work colleague who also has Sonos who i mentioned my issues to, he said “don’t talk to me about Sonos as mines all over the place now”

So we all must be doing something wrong or there is something fundamentally wrong !

In 99% of the cases like this, the ‘fundamentally wrong’ aspect is the local network, and not Sonos at all. 

I would go with melvimbe’s last paragraph as an excellent way to fix things. 

Setting up a dedicated 2.4GHz network for Sonos on your router sounds like a recipe for disaster (although  I am not entirely sure what that means) and if you think this is recommended practice then I am afraid you have misunderstood something. I think you should follow @Airgetlam 's advice to follow @melvimbe 's advice!

This is unreal.  My sonos play3 is having the same problems as you describe.  The new software seems fragile and behaves like there is a bad wireless connection.  The troubleshooting instructions are not able to fix it.  It’ll work if I move the sonos over to the router and plug it in, but that's not what I bought it for.  This thing worked fine for years, but has been terrible lately.  Was changing to S2 and removing the Bridge the nail in the coffin for this thing?

It doesn’t seem productive to dismiss your attempts at troubleshooting.  Also hard to believe the instructions around turning other network components on and off in a certain order.  My assumption is you have other devices connected to your network that are able to function without such nonsense.  I think I know where the problem is.  I only wish it weren’t so because for maybe five years it worked fine and for the last year software updates turned it to a frustrating paperweight.

What I’d like to hear about is somebody with the same problem that fixed it.

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

 

What I’d like to hear about is somebody with the same problem that fixed it.

 

Surely someone needs to follow the suggestions, in order to confirm whether or not they work?

Refreshing the IP addresses by restarting things in sequence does often fix problems, according to other posts on the forums. It did it for me, too, many years ago. Then I set fixed IP addresses for all of my  Sonos kit, and all has been good for me for several years, including through the change to S2.

@Hanta - I understand the frustration you feel at the problems you are having, which are obviously considerable.  But Sonos has millions of users worldwide.  Most of them will now be using S2.  The proportion having difficulties must be vanishingly small or this forum would have thousands of complaints about it.  Of course I am aware that not everyone having problems will come onto the forum, but I have seen what happens on here when a genuine bug slips through - mayhem.

The S2 software is not buggy.  It is barely different from S1 at the moment.  You problems ARE network related.  That does not mean that there is anything faulty with your network, but Sonos DOES make more demands on a network than other devices, because of the need for constant communication between multiple devices.  Something is not gelling between Sonos and your network, but what is needed are local changes to your Sonos setup or your network.  There is nothing generic to fix.

if you want help sorting it out then give us more info about your Sonos and network setups.  if you don’t, that is your right, obviously.

This is unreal.  My sonos play3 is having the same problems as you describe.  The new software seems fragile and behaves like there is a bad wireless connection.  The troubleshooting instructions are not able to fix it.  It’ll work if I move the sonos over to the router and plug it in, but that's not what I bought it for.  This thing worked fine for years, but has been terrible lately.  Was changing to S2 and removing the Bridge the nail in the coffin for this thing?

 

 

When your Bridge was connected to your router, you were what is now called ‘wired mode’.  The Bridge accessed the internet and your phone/tablet for control via the router it was connected to.  It then talked to your play:3 via Sonos own wireless network often called Sonosnet.  So when you removed the Bridge, you’re no longer able to use ‘wired mode’, and need to start using ‘wireless mode’.  In wireless mode, none of your Sonos equipment is physically connected to the router, and your play:3 needs to be setup with the WiFi password for your router in order to connect.  Have you gone through that setup yet?

 

It doesn’t seem productive to dismiss your attempts at troubleshooting.  Also hard to believe the instructions around turning other network components on and off in a certain order.  My assumption is you have other devices connected to your network that are able to function without such nonsense.  I think I know where the problem is.  I only wish it weren’t so because for maybe five years it worked fine and for the last year software updates turned it to a frustrating paperweight.

What I’d like to hear about is somebody with the same problem that fixed it.

 

Assuming OP came here to get advice to fix his issues, it would be rather unproductive to stay quite on troubleshooting attempts that have never resolved issues for other people reporting simiilar issues, and does not make logical sense as a solution.  On the other hand, whether you believe it or not, turning the router and Sonos gear on and off does off fix issues as it forces the router to assign new IP addresses to Sonos gear, thus resolving IP address conflicts.  Other devices work fine on the network as the work they do is not hindered by IP address conflicts the way Sonos is, since they are not built to sync audio across multiple speakers.  I realize you only have one speaker and don’t care about this ability, but it is still what your speaker is built to do.

 

Userlevel 6
Badge +14

 But Sonos has millions of users worldwide

 

Where do you get this figure from?

Not going to look it up, but I remember a figure like that in the annual stockholders report, which should be findable by a quick Google search.

 But Sonos has millions of users worldwide

 

Where do you get this figure from?

Can’t remember where originally.  I am afraid the link below is a bit out of date.  It would, I imagine, be a few million more now, but 6.9 million will do to be going on with.

https://www.statista.com/chart/14610/sonos-unit-sales-and-household-penetration/#:~:text=As%20of%20March%2031%2C%202018,2.7%20speakers%20in%20its%20home.

It is pretty clear from Sonos’ public revenue data and any sensible assumptions about average cost of products and products per household that the number of customers is in the millions.  it isn’t rocket science.

S2 is fine.  It’s as robust as S1.  Millions are using it without problems, me and everyone i know with a Sonos system included.  That isn’t to dismiss the genuine problems and frustrations of some users on this thread.  But the answer doesn’t lie in Sonos fixing S2 because it ain’t broke, and that needs to be said.

Edit: sorry, for clarification - that is 6.9 million households, not users.  Households is of course the relevant measure.

Edit 2 - because @castalla did not attribute the ‘millions of users’ quote to me in his post, it isn’t in my requote either.

Userlevel 6
Badge +14

Thanks for the info.

feeling your pain. had my setup working perfectly on the S1 app. upgraded to S2 my android phone sees all the sonos speakers but my windows controllers show no speakers. WTF.

 

feeling your pain. had my setup working perfectly on the S1 app. upgraded to S2 my android phone sees all the sonos speakers but my windows controllers show no speakers. WTF.

 

A local networking issue. As a troubleshooting experiment connect one of your Windows devices by Ethernet to your network. Whether or not this helps, it will tell us something useful.

There is notbing wrong with the S2 Windows app. I am using it without a problem.