May 16, 2024

From Gerald R. Lucas

Sonos Struggles

Two days of my time has been spent trying to get my Sonos Playbar and Sub working again. I’m pretty sure it started because I had the audacity to move my Play:5 to another room. Moving it alone wasn’t the issue; my Playbar and Sub disappeared because I unplugged the ethernet cable from the Play:5. I think. All the other speakers, including the Play:5 still worked, but the Playbar just disappeared. So, instead of just moving the Play:5 back to where it was and seeing if that solved the problem, I had to reset the Playbar and spend the next 24 hours trying to get it hooked up again. What a waste of time.

I thought maybe it had to do with the recent app update debacle. I have to admit, I thought it might have been Sonos attempting to obsolete my old Playbar that was working just fine. I even tried to get through to Sonos support, and encountered lengthy wait times. Today, I even waiting an hour while I created my ENGL 2111 syllabus for this summer. When I was finished with the syllabus, I decided to give it another go while I continued to hold—this time with my iPad. And guess what? It worked! After another hour of struggling to get the Apple TV remote working again, I can say I finally got my system back, including the sub.

Moral of the story: if you have older Sonos hardware, be sure you have at least one speaker connected to the network via the included Sonos ethernet cable. For some reason, when I tried to use a lengthier cable to connect the Playbar itself, it Brough down my whole router. Twice.

While it was a pain, I’m glad I was able to get my Playbar working again. I almost bought an Arc to replace it, but since I have another project to spend money on, I didn’t really want to lay out $900.

Anyway. I should have more audio news tomorrow. Now, I’m going to watch some TV.