Simple problem but reams of internet about it without a clear answer. So let’s make more…

Most the time when I open the Sonos app, it says cannot connect to Sonos. If I leave it for about a minute it connects of its own accord. Same if trying to connect through Sonos. The internet suggests it’s WiFi not Sonos, yet nothing else struggles to connect.

Anyone had the same and found an answer? Since I’ve realised it eventually connects after a minute or so I’m not so bothered, but I’d just like to know why.

Mine does the same but not only a few seconds of lag. There’s a trouble shooting tool on the app you could use.

Where’s the troubleshooting app? Can’t find that

I have 2 Sonos 5’s and 3 Sonos 1’s and the connection to them from the phone app is crap.

Ive tried connecting them using powerlines and cat5 to try and improve things but to no avail.

I’ve also had the ethernet port on one of the 5’s die when it just went out of warranty.

I don’t think I’ll ever buy another Sonos product again due to the poor experiences I’ve had with them.

Using the Spotify app it frequently says I can’t connect to the Sonos speakers

Is it an iPhone? Check you haven’t got WiFi assist switched on. Especially if your WiFi is slightly flakey.

(If it’s Android it might have a similar option).

Where’s the troubleshooting app? Can’t find that

Sorry I meant under support you can use the diagnostics and sent to sonos under a new ticket.
I’ve heard that you may have to reset the channel Sonos runs on to avoid interference with your router.

S1 or S2?

Because Sonos app is crap. It rarely works when I need it to. That’s the reason, it’s just rubbish.

@s2 it says under System. It’s an 8ish year old Play 1.

Unfortunately the app is crap and Sonos have known about this for years but done nothing about it. I used to own 3 different Sonos speakers and eventually got fed up with them and replaced them with Audio Pro speakers (which don’t use a stupid app).

And it seemingly has got worse recently. Drives me mad.

I occasionally have something similar. It usually connects within 10 / 20 seconds.

Looking at my phone I can see it’s disconnected from the Wifi. Waking up / unlocking the phone it reconnects then I can see Sonos on the network.

A couple of things made it better. I separated my 2.6 and 5Ghz networks on the router. The phone seems less likely to disconnect / jump between the networks.

Sonos seems slower to start up these days. Don’t know if it’s the phone (Motorola G6) or whether they’ve slowed down the app startup to give a mobile device chance to connect to the network?

I also have the windows controller and that never fails to connect which suggests it is something related to the App or Wifi.

Disappearing playlists from the My Sonos screen anyone? Don’t even get me started on that one…

Mine works perfectly, both S1 and now S2. I don’t have any of the issues others complain about. The app could be slightly more intuitive.

What phone are you using Jimmy?

Sounds like MUSO. App can be a proper pain in the hoop as well.

Usually these type of problems are due to your WiFi set up.
If you have multiple networks (2.4 & 5 GHz, extenders etc), then your phone will be constantly switching between them as you move around the house, which causes issues with the device discovery.
If you don’t have the Sonos wired to ethernet, that will usually help if it’s an option for you.

Most the time when I open the Sonos app, it says cannot connect to Sonos. If I leave it for about a minute it connects of its own accord. Same if trying to connect through Sonos.

My first thought is the Sonos speakers’ addresses on the network may be changing. So when you start the Sonos app, it looks at the last address it had for the main Sonos speaker* (192.168.0.5, say), and can’t find it there. The delay is it then working out where that Sonos speaker is, and from there connecting to all the others.

A while ago I gave all my Sonos speakers fixed addresses on the network (most – one just refuses to stick to it) and generally haven’t had issues since then.

But as above, this has been a long-running issue with the Sonos app, most annoying when the app is open and playing something and *then* goes “where… uh… oh, can’t connect to the speakers”. And Sonos’s response is classic tech victim-blaming ‘it’s your wifi mate’, as if you have some particularly obscure setup with one router from Russia, one from 1993 and another running backwards, rather than just an average network in an average house.
They do seem at least to have stopped “updating” it with new bugs quite so frequently though.

*my understanding is that the Sonos ‘network’ operates through your wifi, but that one Sonos speaker tends to coordinate the others. You can generally work out which one it is by unplugging one Sonos and seeing if the rest still work; if you unplug one and the Sonos is suddenly unable to find any other Sonos on the network, that was the one it was using to connect to the others.

my understanding is that the Sonos ‘network’ operates through your wifi, but that one Sonos speaker tends to coordinate the others. You can generally work out which one it is by unplugging one Sonos and seeing if the rest still work; if you unplug one and the Sonos is suddenly unable to find any other Sonos on the network, that was the one it was using to connect to the others.

The OP is only using one speaker though.

Looking at my phone I can see it’s disconnected from the Wifi.

I’m connected to Spotify, so not this.

A couple of things made it better. I separated my 2.6 and 5Ghz networks on the router.

How would I do this?

I just realised / remembered that I have a wifi extender, which – as I understand – creates a shadow WiFi network. It could be this, but pretty sure it happened before I put that in.

I found the Sonos was slow to respond when it was connected directly to my wifi. I now have two of the speakers connected to the router directly on Ethernet.

The speakers form their own mesh network, so to my router and the Sonos app it looks like they are all Ethernet and not using the wifi at all. As long as you make sure that the Sonos channel doesn’t conflict with your own or any nearby wifi networks it all seems to work fairly well.

If you only have one speaker and aren’t anywhere near ethernet, I have an old Bridge that you could have for postage. You’d have to revert to S1, but might solve the problem?

My tips:

– Turn data off on the phone
– Separate the wifi network into bands – and connect the phone to 5Ghz if you do fast things or 2.4Ghz if you don’t
– connect as many of the Sonos devices as possible to ethernet. Remember to turn the device wifi off and if you’re using a mesh network with its own SSID remember the Sonos hard wired device needs to be connected to that, not the ISP / Router Wifi SSID.

From my experience the Sonos app is very stable and any issues you have with it connecting to your system will be caused by poor wifi signal strength. Since changing to a decent mesh Wi-Fi I never have problems. Are all of your speakers S2 compatible??

I’ve had the same issues, have a play 1 and a play 3 (over S2) and have connected them both with ethernet now instead of wifi – problem disappears so it must be something to do with the wifi. Every other device in the house is fine with wifi and doesn’t experience any issues. The only exception to this is the Sky Q boxes which I have also hardwired as they used to lose the network altogether for no apparent reason.

After lots of frustration and wasted time troubleshooting I’ve concluded that Sonos and Sky have crappy wifi stacks – I have had zero problems since wiring them in.

What with that and the app being a bit crap I don’t think we’ll buy another Sonos device.

@jimmy have you checked WiFi assist is switched off yet?

Wifi extender = issues with Sonos from my experience. Mesh is OK but gives a host of different set of problems. If you had multiple speaker, I’d say it is the problem mentioned above with the “controlling speaker”. There is something very weird with them that it does seem to be one speaker causing problems elsewhere. I’m unfortunately completely up to my eyes with Sonos being an early and extensive adopter. Now there are alternative networked speakers out there and I would probably go with one of them rather than Sonos if I had my time again.

@phil5556 don’t see any such thing on Android unless it’s invisibly built in.

How do I separate bands ?

Smart network switch or adaptive WiFi on android apparently.

@jimmy – you need to login to your router and there will be some kind of setting to separate bands. What ISP / Router do you have then we can probably advise in more detail.

Checked my router (BT Smart Hub 2 ) and it appears the bands are already split and the Sonos is the only device connected to 2.4Ghz.

Another one who used to have problems connecting when the house wifi was extended with powerlines – been good since swapped for a mesh set up.

Sonos app still takes a few seconds to connect first time of asking and starting music from the spotify app and selecting one of the sonos speaker rooms often doesn’t work 1st time but at second press of that option so another couple of seconds which is a bit odd but not really a major issue.

If you possibly can, have one speaker on Ethernet and make sure that the Sonos has no access at all to your home wifi. That way it’ll use its own mesh network between the speakers and will connect to the wider world on Ethernet only. Far more stable.

That’s what I love about Sonos, the wireless speakers system you have to plug in to get satisfactory use out of, because it’s always the users’ wifi that is dodgy.

Same here. Two Play Ones (the Alexa version) and two of the IKEA ones.

Whenever it says I can’t connect my partner always can (both using iPhone 11 Pro’s) haven’t bothered trying to figure out why. Usually swiping the app away and restarting does the trick.

I have more issues using AirPlay to connect to the IKEA speakers than using the app however. Airplay seems pretty solid when connecting the the Ones though.