Avid Contributor I

Can't bring up WiFi (ath0) on CONNECT:AMP

13 replies
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Some time ago, I turned off WiFi on one of my CONECT:AMP players by doing:

code:


http://192.168.7.248:1400/wifictrl?wifi=persist-off

This worked, and had the side effect of this player having empty rows and columns in the Network Matrix view. Today I wanted to turn on WiFi in that player again, so I did:

code:


http://192.168.7.248:1400/wifictrl?wifi=on

got the radio buttons, selected On and pressed Submit. I then refreshed the status page, and saw that this player's entries in the Network Matrix view were still blank (but the player itself was listed as before). Looking at ifconfig, I saw that ath0 was not listed:

code:


running /sbin/ifconfig
br0       Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 5C:AA:FD:E3:EF:06  
          inet addr:192.168.7.248  Bcast:192.168.7.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1975 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1810 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:448792 (438.2 KiB)  TX bytes:857453 (837.3 KiB)

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 5C:AA:FD:E3:EF:06  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:900 (900.0 B)
          Base address:0x8400 

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 5C:AA:FD:E3:EF:06  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2124 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1810 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 
          RX bytes:506800 (494.9 KiB)  TX bytes:855863 (835.8 KiB)
          Base address:0x8500 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:50 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:50 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:24092 (23.5 KiB)  TX bytes:24092 (23.5 KiB)

so I did a soft reboot via the web browser, but no change, and then did a hard reboot (power cycle) and still no change. The WiFi interface won't come back up. I'm wondering if the issue is that the wifi=persist-off command causes the persistent state to be saved that is never overwritten when you try to turn the WiFi back on again.

Diagnostic submitted: 1076140348

Thanks for any help.
Mike

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M

Michael BenderAuthor

Avid Contributor I

I received a reply from a Sonos engineer who told me that when the CONNECT:AMP is used for surrounds, both the WiFi and the Line In features of the device are disabled. I asked him why the WiFi is disabled (I imagine that it's hard to guarantee latency if you're not wired to the PLAYBAR).

A couple of things on this:

With WiFI disabled, why doesn't the player still show the wired path info in the Network Matrix?
Why is Line In disabled when the CONNECT:AMP is being used for surrounds? Sonos has never provided a satisfactory explanation for this. I can understand that if you're listening to audio from the PLAYBAR and get audio on the Line In port, you may be surprised that the surround audio is replaced by the Line In audio, but let the customer decide the behavior of this, not Sonos. Related to this is why the players don't automatically switch back to whatever stream they were playing and automatically regroup (if grouped) when the Line In audio is silent for some period of time.

Smilja

I received a reply from a Sonos engineer who told me that when the CONNECT:AMP is used for surrounds, both the WiFi and the Line In features of the device are disabled. I asked him why the WiFi is disabled (I imagine that it's hard to guarantee latency if you're not wired to the PLAYBAR).

A couple of things on this:

With WiFI disabled, why doesn't the player still show the wired path info in the Network Matrix?
Why is Line In disabled when the CONNECT:AMP is being used for surrounds? Sonos has never provided a satisfactory explanation for this. I can understand that if you're listening to audio from the PLAYBAR and get audio on the Line In port, you may be surprised that the surround audio is replaced by the Line In audio, but let the customer decide the behavior of this, not Sonos. Related to this is why the players don't automatically switch back to whatever stream they were playing and automatically regroup (if grouped) when the Line In audio is silent for some period of time.

A surround setup operates via 5 GHz, a LineIn connection works only via 2.4 GHz (for music purposes), hence the LineIn is disabled when ConnectAmp / Play:5 are being used as surrounds.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)

J

John B

When speakers are bonded as surrounds things work a bit differently. The Playbar / base runs the show and uses direct peer to peer communication to send the rear channel streams. With the Play speakers that is over 5 GHz for its low latency. The C:A has no 5 GHz radio hence the wires.

But the surround system is something of a self contained unit. My assumption is that the different nature of the connection makes it technically difficult to get line in audio out.

Note that when P5 speakers are used as surrounds the line in is disabled.

J

John B

I received a reply from a Sonos engineer who told me that when the CONNECT:AMP is used for surrounds, both the WiFi and the Line In features of the device are disabled. I asked him why the WiFi is disabled (I imagine that it's hard to guarantee latency if you're not wired to the PLAYBAR).

A couple of things on this:

With WiFI disabled, why doesn't the player still show the wired path info in the Network Matrix?
Why is Line In disabled when the CONNECT:AMP is being used for surrounds? Sonos has never provided a satisfactory explanation for this. I can understand that if you're listening to audio from the PLAYBAR and get audio on the Line In port, you may be surprised that the surround audio is replaced by the Line In audio, but let the customer decide the behavior of this, not Sonos. Related to this is why the players don't automatically switch back to whatever stream they were playing and automatically regroup (if grouped) when the Line In audio is silent for some period of time.

A surround setup operates via 5 GHz, a LineIn connection works only via 2.4 GHz (for music purposes), hence the LineIn is disabled when ConnectAmp / Play:5 are being used as surrounds.I am unclear why a line in source should be limited to 2.4 GHz wireless??? Once it has been converted from analog it is just digital data.

M

Michael BenderAuthor

Avid Contributor I

A surround setup operates via 5 GHz, a LineIn connection works only via 2.4 GHz (for music purposes), hence the LineIn is disabled when ConnectAmp / Play:5 are being used as surrounds.

A surround setup also works exclusively wired - I have a PLYABAR, a SUB and a CONNECT:AMP that are all wired and all of which are using the wired connection, not SonosNet.

I don't see the relevance of the frequency of the wireless transport being used as to whether or not analog audio input can be supported. Certainly I have many devices on my LAN that connect to my WiFi system at 2.4GHz and have no problem streaming 4K UHD video and Dolby Digital 7.1 audio, so transporting two channels of 48kHz audio (even uncompressed) should not be an issue.

I think there is some other reason that Sonos disables Line In on a CONNECT:AMP being used as a surround player. I'm not so sure it's a technical reason either, it might be a "user experience" issue.

J

John B

I think it is extremely unlikely that it is anything other than technical, but only Sonos can tell us for sure. I suspect, as I have said, that it is something to do with the nature of bonding in a surround setup, and not the wireless or wired technology itself. But I don't know.

Smilja

Anyway, that's what they said to me on the German board. Perhaps can a mod elaborate on the technical reasons.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)

Ryan S

Retired Sonos Staff

With the CONNECT:AMP it's entirely technical reasons why it doesn't work. The Amp was never designed to operate as surrounds for home theater and it was added later per request, that's why the experience for setting it up involves hidden pages. Basically, everything the CONNECT:AMP has processing and memory wise has to go into operating as surrounds when it's in that configuration. It doesn't have the juice to handle anything else. That's also why it needs to be wired in, the 2.4GHz doesn't have the bandwidth to handle transferring the data needed for surround behavior.

Line-In is disabled on all surrounds for similar reasons. For the Play:5 gen2, it's to keep things simple as well, in addition to saving the processing for what's needed. Imagine trying to play TV audio, and also send the line-in connection from a surround speaker over to another room? If it were possible, it'd be a recipe for disaster.

When Sonos is set up in a surround configuration, the main player is always the Playbar, Playbase, or now the Beam. That player runs the show and determines just about everything, the others are all set up as secondary points, following the orders from the main device.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

Smilja

Thanks, Ryan, for the clarification. 🙂

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)

J

John B

Yes thanks Ryan.

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