Sonos & UniFi - Instructions for how I get them to play nice

Hi ​@gdgib 

Thanks for sharing your findings, and I am glad to hear that you did get things working!

Incidentally, this is the first time I have heard of someone needing to SSH into the Unifi router to do so, though certainly the IGMP settings are needed - I am not sure why you needed to go so “deep”.

Wow. So glad my Uni system configuration doesn’t put my Sonos gear on its own VLAN (I use my VLAN solely for my IoT 2.4GHz devices). I’ve occasionally used SSH on my Uni but just to capture network data, never to config it.

The usual info for setting this up is https://github.com/IngmarStein/unifi-sonos-doc but it doesn’t try to deal with VLANs.

I’m aware of those instructions ​@controlav , but thanks for posting them.  I couldn’t put external links on the UniFi forum and forgot to add that here.

I don’t believe this issue has anything to do with VLANs, except that some of the IGMP settings are per-VLAN.  At that level EVERYTHING is a VLAN.

The main (novel) issue I faced was the IGMP config.  I may only have faced that because I have one the larger UniFi rack mount switches capable of being the IGMP querier.  Smaller installs might not face this since they don’t have that switch.

And if it helps anyone’s sanity: all the hassle on this is almost certainly temporary.  UniFi is upgrading their GUI to help configure IGMP better.  The older versions had reasonable defaults for Sonos.  The future versions will almost certainly allow you to configure it all through GUI.  I think this is a temporary hassle while they roll out the new GUI features.

For those wondering why they don’t face this complexity, you can read https://community.ui.com/questions/IGMP-querier-configuration/7462fbe7-0513-4c7f-b607-49803e56dcd1 about how the larger USW Pro switches are (until a future update) a little annoying to configure properly with IGMP.

To add on, the older HT primaries like the Beam REALLY don't like DHCP reservations. The newer Arc seems to properly relay DHCP for the surrounds and sub, but the older Beam doesn't seem to relay things quite right, or at least not in a way that UniFi likes. Solution is simple: feel free to use DHCP reservations for everything EXCEPT a Beam, surround connected to a Beam, or sub connected to a Beam.  Standalone speakers can have DHCP reservations or not.  Arcs can have DHCP reservations or not.  Surrounds and subs on Arcs can have reservations or not.  Heck a beam without surrounds can have a reservation or not.

Interesting… When the May sh-show-app showed up I used a few DHCP reservations to try and improve my connectivity: I used it on some surrounds and a sub, and it did appear to improve things. At that same time the Uni app often did not list those surrounds, likely for the reasons you list above. I wonder if I should undo my reservations now, as the app seems better and they do all show up in the Uni app these days? On the other hand, if it ain’t broke...