Sonos App Incredibly Unstable Lately- Anyone Else?


Userlevel 1

Over the past few weeks my Sonos system has gone from a reliable and highly valued medium of listening to music to podcasts to now an unstable system that has a new issue everyday.  I’m not sure if this is due to a recent app update or update in the system itself but every day I am grappling with a new challenge.

 

The past 2 weeks, most days are filled with an unwelcome banner at the top saying cannot connect to Sonos- Fix It.  None of the troubleshooting steps offered work at all.  I have not changed a single thing in my enviornment (same router, same ISP, no manipulation or additional IP addresses on the network, no new speakers, etc.).  The only fix is to literally unplug every speaker and then go into settings and click add a device as if I just purchased another speaker.

 

The past 3 days, I’m now running into an issue where I cannot play a song from either Apple Music or Spotify, then out of nowehere, a song will start playing a few minutes later.  When I go into the sonos app to stop or pick a new song, the room in question isn’t even selectable yet is playing music.

 

Outside of my frustrations detailed above, I’ve got a pressing question to Sonos- wtf happened to the quality of your company and product?  I am building out a new home entertainment system and originally was thinking of the playbar, play1s, and sub but constant struggles with your app and system has me looking to other options.  Options, mind you, that are much less and are compatible with so many more mediums of entertainment.  there is zero support offered within the app and I find it mind boggling that the only fix seems to be completely unplugging everything and resetting up my system on a daily basis (talk about a user friendly concept, kudos to you Sonos sarcasm)

 

Sonos- I would really appreciate a response here.  My app is up to date, all software on my speakers are up to date- why in the hell cannot I simply open the app and play music immediately without having to jump through all of these hoops just to make my $1500 system work.

 

Sincerely-

Once a Sonos lover and now a disappointed customer.


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12 replies

Not experiencing any issues whatsoever. But what you’re describing is a clear indication of either wifi interference, or even duplicate IP address issues, a problem that can be exposed especially after a Sonos software update, due to the fact that each Sonos speaker does a soft reboot after installing the new software. This forces each speaker to ask for a new IP address from your router, and if the router is ‘confused’ about the DHCP table, it can hand out errant IP addresses.

I would recommend two actions for you, one as a short term and immediate relief of your situation, and the second a long term solution to prevent this from recurring. It is important to note, however, that this is not a failure by Sonos’ software, but by your particular router. It took me a while to wrap my head around that, and process exactly what was occurring, but I finally learned enough from my own failures to possibly help others, who appear to be in a similar situation. 

First, the immediate relief would be to unplug all Sonos devices from power. While they are unplugged, reboot your router. Give the router a minute or two to come back up, and then plug back in the Sonos devices. This will force each device to get a new IP address from the refreshed router, and should resolve the issue for now.

But any router that has gotten into this state once can do so again. So the second recommendation would be to read the manual for the router and figure out how to set up reserved IP addresses for all your network devices. It took me about 20 minutes to read and go through the process for the first one, but after learning how it was done, new ones take about a minute each, as for my router, it ends up being an easy process. 

I’m 98% certain this will resolve your issues, however, that FAQ I linked has a lot of good data in it, and you need to remember that a WiFi LAN doesn’t exist in isolation, but is impacted by all sorts of outside influences. There have been several occasions where I’ve needed to change the WiFi channel in use due to neighbors changing their setup, and once when I had to replace a microwave that was causing RF interference when it was running. In all of those cases, I had made no changes to my actual system, all of these issues came from outside.

Finally, if none of that helps, I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this issue, and contact Sonos Support to discuss it. 

I usually suggest the phone folks, they have more tools available, but are available Monday through Friday during business hours. Twitter support folks are available 24/7.

There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution. 

Userlevel 1

Thanks for the response, Bruce.  I will look for the FAQ.  For additional context, about 3ish months ago I switched to the Google+Nest mesh wifi and had to go through many of these steps you outlined to fix.  I eventually got everything corrected as it seemed like my Comcast Xfinity router was creating interference with the Google mesh.  What has me puzzled is that once I disable Xfinity and resetup the system with the Google mesh it was perfectly fine up until I updated my sonos App on my iphone last week.  I’ll look into my google setting again to see if something was reset causing me to be back at this step.

 

I did not consider neighbors/nearby signals causing the issue here.  

 

The ironic part is that my day job revolves around networking/back end IT systems and for whatever reason, this Sonos issue seems to be the most troublesome issue I’ve ran into in years lol.

 

 

Given that you’re already running a mesh network on Google, that adds to the complexity. One of the reasons I’ve avoided buying one ;)

My own comprehension of what I read here is that the best thing to do in a Google setup is to run the Sonos separately, in a ‘wired’ network situation, where one Sonos device (speaker, BOOST, what have you) is wired directly to the ‘root’ Google puck. There’s a couple of reasons, I think. The Google system doesn’t allow you to lock down to a single channel, so Sonos will drop as it chases the google signal from channel to channel. Additionally, there is cross talk between each Sonos device used to keep the system in ‘sync’, and I’m not sure that Google is always capable of being transparent to those signals.

Please note I am in no way an expert in networking, these are assumptions on my part as to what is going on behind the scenes. I do know that people report more success when operating in ‘wired’ mode when using Google WiFi. 

But my advice about contacting Sonos directly is a solid one. Giving them hard data to look at would be helpful, as I’m sure it is to you in your profession. 
 

Good luck!

Userlevel 1

I’ll most likely engage directly with support if I cant figure this out.

 

I did try the hardwire my sonos connect and also a Play 1 directly into the main Google puck but it ended up creating more issues as only that speaker would be visible.  The setup I did have was to connect each of my Sonos 1 directly to google mesh via wifi and that worked flawlessly for a couple months until this point.  

If only technological advances made life easier and not more complex :)

If wiring a Sonos component, the WiFi credentionals should be removed from the system in order to avoid mixed mode where the Sonos units may jump back and forth between SonosNet and WiFi signal.

On iOS or Android: From the Settings tab, tap System > Network > Networks. Select the WiFi network you'd like to remove, and tap Remove.

Userlevel 1

If wiring a Sonos component, the WiFi credentionals should be removed from the system in order to avoid mixed mode where the Sonos units may jump back and forth between SonosNet and WiFi signal.

On iOS or Android: From the Settings tab, tap System > Network > Networks. Select the WiFi network you'd like to remove, and tap Remove.

I’m not hardwired at all at this point.  I was when I originally got google mesh and it was causing issues.  I then reistalled all the speakers, with no hardwire connection, and setup over wifi. It had been fine for 3.5 months until this week. 

Hi.What modem or router  does your primary Google puck connect to?

Userlevel 1

I’ll have to check exact modem/router type but its the Xfinity Comcast unit that acts as both modem and router (wifi now disabled)

Wifi disabled is good. Is the Google puck the only device wired to the router?

Just to elaborate further.  Google mesh WiFi and Sonos can exist happily together but it has to be set up right to have a chance.  The ‘features’ of Google mesh WiFi that don’t help Sonos include:

  1. It has no ‘Bridge’ or ‘access point’ mode, so you have to use it as your DHCP server, and make sure nothing on your network can pick up an IP address from anywhere else.
  2. You cannot set the wireless channels - these are done automatically.  And what is worse, they can differ between pucks.  This means that in Sonos ‘WiFi’ mode different Sonos speakers potentially connect on different channels, and this can compromise the constant communication needed between Sonos units, especially when grouped. (I know your system worked OK like this for a good while, but it is problematic.)

So it is better to run Sonos in SonosNet mode so they don’t connect using the Google mesh.  There is a risk of interference, but generally it is better.

So I would recommend the following setup:

  1. On your router, have wireless turned off (already done)
  2. Leave DHCP on on the router, but make the main Google puck the only device wired to the router.  (It can then get an IP address from the router, but nothing else can.)
  3. Wire a Sonos device to the main Google puck.  Keep it at least 3 feet from the puck.
  4. Play around with the Sonos wireless channel to see if it helps

See how that goes.  I cannot promise but this setup has worked well for many.

As Bruce says, there may be some wireless interference contributing to this as well. 

Userlevel 1

Just to elaborate further.  Google mesh WiFi and Sonos can exist happily together but it has to be set up right to have a chance.  The ‘features’ of Google mesh WiFi that don’t help Sonos include:

  1. It has no ‘Bridge’ or ‘access point’ mode, so you have to use it as your DHCP server, and make sure nothing on your network can pick up an IP address from anywhere else.
  2. You cannot set the wireless channels - these are done automatically.  And what is worse, they can differ between pucks.  This means that in Sonos ‘WiFi’ mode different Sonos speakers potentially connect on different channels, and this can compromise the constant communication needed between Sonos units, especially when grouped. (I know your system worked OK like this for a good while, but it is problematic.)

So it is better to run Sonos in SonosNet mode so they don’t connect using the Google mesh.  There is a risk of interference, but generally it is better.

So I would recommend the following setup:

  1. On your router, have wireless turned off (already done)
  2. Leave DHCP on on the router, but make the main Google puck the only device wired to the router.  (It can then get an IP address from the router, but nothing else can.)
  3. Wire a Sonos device to the main Google puck.  Keep it at least 3 feet from the puck.
  4. Play around with the Sonos wireless channel to see if it helps

See how that goes.  I cannot promise but this setup has worked well for many.

As Bruce says, there may be some wireless interference contributing to this as well. 

Hi John-

Thanks for the responses and walk through.  The Google mesh is the only thing plugged into the main Comcast modem/router; at times there is a PS4 plugged into the Comcast router but historically, I’ve never ran into any issues when the PS4 is plugged in.  

 

I’ll try and setup via SonosNet.  Previously I had the Sonos Connect plugged into the router (have had these units for awhile), do you recommend I try the Sonos Connect again or plug in a speaker directly?

 

Bit disappointed to read other forums and see other issues associated with Sonos/Mesh systems.  I would have just assumed that no interference would exist and speakers would still connect to the wifi signal as a standard wifi setup would.  Did not occur to me that the different Google pucks may differ on the wireless channels within the system themselves.

 

Still need to figure out though why the sonos wifi setup and mesh seemed to work fine the past few months and now its giving me fits.  Will try your guidance above and let you know

I don’t see any reason not to use the Connect again, but it must NOT be plugged into the Comcast router.  It needs to be plugged into the primary Google puck.