Mixed sync group: Sonos volume control not working or extremely delayed, while playback sync still works

[BastiSebas]

Hi all,

I’m looking for help debugging a Music Assistant issue that started after a Music Assistant update.

Setup:

• Music Assistant running as an app in Home Assistant
• Sync group with:
  • 3 pCP players via AirPlay
  • 2 Sonos Devices (Sonos Five & Sonos Move)

What still works:

• The group starts playback in sync
• The group stops playback in sync
• Volume control works normally for the pCP players

Problem:
The Sonos devices have become extremely delayed or unresponsive for volume control.
This affects both:

• Volume changes from Music Assistant / Home Assistant
• Physical volume buttons on the Sonos Five and Move
  The physical buttons either do not work anymore or behave with the same huge delay/unresponsiveness as volume control from the UI.

Things I already tried:

• Updated Music Assistant to the latest/stable version available to me
• Restarted Music Assistant
• Restarted Home Assistant
• Rebooted the host
• Restarted Router
• Power-cycled the Sonos devices
• Deleted and recreated the sync group
• Tested/rebuilt the group
• Checked basic network/mDNS/multicast assumptions

None of this fixed the issue.

Why I’m confused:
Playback control itself seems fine. The players start and stop together, and audio sync is not the main issue. The problem seems specifically related to Sonos control/state/volume responsiveness after the update.

Has anyone seen this with mixed Music Assistant sync groups involving Sonos + AirPlay/pCP players? Is there a known regression, setting, or workaround for Sonos volume/button handling in Music Assistant groups?
I think the problem is not within connectivity itself, but how the devices are communicating.
A test with a dedicated Sonos sync group (only Sonos Move & Five) showed the same behaviour.

Any suggestions for logs to check, settings to compare, or tests to isolate whether this is the Sonos provider, AirPlay bridge, or group handling would be appreciated.

[OzGav]

I have a pair of Sonos Era 100 and they work fine, grouping, ungrouping, volume controls, pause and resume are all super snappy.

You seem to have tried everything I can think of. No one is reporting this but maybe some firmware update has created a problem. You can enable debug logging on SETTINGS >> SYSTEM>> PLAYERS and make the volume changes while looking at the log and see if you can see anything there, errors or obvious lagging?

[BastiSebas]

Thank you for that nudge: We are getting closer. There is a significant amount of lag between the cmd_volume_set and the player reporting its updated volume level.

2026-04-28 22:13:11.923 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.players] Handling command cmd_volume_set for player Sonos Move (by user sebastian) 2026-04-28 22:13:20.517 VERBOSE (MainThread) [music_assistant.players] Player state updated for Sonos Move: changed fields: volume_level

And to be honest, I think that was not the command it reacted to, but to one about 1 minute before that.

I'm surprised that I didn't try this already, but the problem still occured when I only used a single Sonos Speaker.
Then I tried resetting/removing everything again and this time I did one more thing:

• I deleted the Airplay Receiver Plugin
• I deleted the Spotify Connect Plugin for the Sync Group
• then created the group again.

That solved it. I don't know which one of these Plugins did the trick
Maybe some internal reference was causing problems.

Anyways, in case anybody comes across this problem, I hope this helps.

@OzGav thanks for this amazing piece of software and your input.