Drop Outs Discussion

I read it as… once the coordinator is chosen, it distributes the audio file received from the source (such as Spotify etc.) to each of the players in the group and coordinates the synchronised playback of the distributed audio, so all play in perfect sync. Clearly with that sort of method, a user can then go onto remove the coordinator from the group (just as an example) at which point another device in the group takes up the GC role and playback can continue because the track has been distributed to each one of the players - if that maybe answers the question you were asking in your earlier post. At least that’s what I gathered from quickly glancing through that patent, but perhaps take your time to read through it in greater detail.

@benn600,

Admittedly I’m still surprised, particularly as you have all of your Orbi devices operating in AP bridge mode, that just wiring your Sonos Boost only to your Synology router hasn’t worked for you. That’s with all other Sonos devices uncabled & their wireless adapters enabled and using a SonosNet channel not in use by any of your Orbi Hubs. 

That sort of setup usually works well with Sonos for most people using WiFi mesh systems in AP mode.

Or similarly, if you were to bridge the synology router instead and put that into what I usually call ‘modem mode’ and use the Orbi primary device as the main router, then wiring the Sonos Boost to that primary Orbi Hub usually works well too for many Sonos users. Although it’s worthwhile remembering to not wire anything Sonos to the Orbi Satellite Hubs in that situation, or if for any reason you have to, then switch off it’s WiFi (but do not ever do that with a Sonos HT device).

Anyhow, I’m just baffled why neither ‘wired’ setup will work in your case.

As mentioned much earlier though, I don’t use either of those two methods for my own Sonos system, as I just choose to run all on my WiFi mesh signal instead.

Somewhat like you, I use several (Plume) WiFi mesh hubs bridged in AP mode. Each hub is attached to its own 16 port switch (unmanaged) located front/back/middle of the Home across two floors.

The three switches are wired directly back to the main router (with its own WiFi adapters disabled). So I choose to not have any wired Sonos devices at all and just connect all Sonos products to the plume combined 2.4Ghz/5Ghz signal and that has always worked really well for me. 

However I’ve not used an Orbi mesh system to comment on how well it might work with Sonos/other products like Hue lighting etc. Most users though seem to prefer a wired Sonos Boost setup (as described earlier) that’s from reading through the various threads here in the community and elsewhere online.

If I need to just get other hardware to see if that fixes it, I’m willing to do that.  Boost really just seems to have an inferior antenna in it vs my Beam, I just tested it again and instead of 0 or 1 nodes turning yellow, 5 did.  Kinda disappointing.

I end up being unable to ping certain Sonos nodes as I walk around.  They vanish and cannot be connected to, the zone disappears from my app and trying to load the status page fails.  But Orbi sees the devices and lists them in the connected devices.  There must be some kind of hop occurring over the Sonos mesh as well and some loop backs are getting blocked, thus dropping those packets.

The simple one wired device with SonosNet works fine up to about 6 zones, and then tips over.  Interestingly enough it’s the 7th and 8th zones that are stereo pairs which happen to be adjacent to Orbi satellites with Ethernet already ran.  I just keep unplugging it to try different configurations.

I think my next options could be trying new network hardware or switching back to a different networked audio system that I used to use before Sonos.  Just seems like these issues have to be happening for other people and why more sophisticated configurations aren’t natively supported boggles my mind.  Unless I truly have something unique and specific that is wreaking havoc.

I’m trying plugging everything into Orbi, with wifi off on everything, and using my Orbi wifi for all wireless nodes, so no SonosNet.  Will see how that works.

Okay!  I switched back to Home WiFi mode.  Every device that can plug into Orbi is plugged in with wifi off.  Everything else is connected to my Orbi home wifi network.  NO SonosNet.  Yes!  It works perfectly!  Very fast starts, no drop outs once started.

Is there no supported or valid scenario to run an Ethernet cable between a stereo pair or surrounds/rear sub?  I noticed with SonosNet that I was able to connect devices and have one handle communication as a proxy for the others.  With home wifi, this just doesn’t work.  Each speaker is itself one and only one connected node.  It seems like that should be a very well supported mode.  I still have the Ethernet cable running between each stereo pair and surrounds/sub that are able to have it, but wifi has to be on, so I expect that nothing is actually going over the Ethernet cable.

Can I just reiterate my first forum post here?  My instincts were spot on -- SonosNet is basically useless in my setup.  I tried and pushed and retried over and over and after spending 80+ hours (these past couple of months), all along I just needed to surgically remove this “feature” from my system.  I mean I spent years refining and expanding my beautiful Mesh wifi system so I have spectacular connectivity in my entire 1200 SF place, plus my 2 outdoor patios, courtyard, and even my garage.  All of which, including outdoor space, probably adds up to 3-4K SF total.  Hence why 4 total Orbi’s isn’t completely and utterly overkill.  But the precious backhaul is what saves the day.

I will admit that I abandoned Home WiFi mode early on in my huge amount of time spent on this problem because I saw that I couldn’t run stereo pairs as a single node.  That was a disappointment, but likely is because SonosNet operates more in a bridge sense for each device, while clients to home wifi are simply individual clients, not bridges.  Although this seems like a software issue that could be revised, because I know hardware bridges can connect to my Orbi and give me Ethernet ports.  I like reducing total number of talking clients and pushing more data over fewer clients.  But my Orbi network is strong enough to gracefully handle ~9 fully wireless nodes, with ~6 hardwired to Orbi.

I wish I could blend the two network styles.  I’d like my surrounds/sub to be able to operate with a single connection to Amp.  But no, since my whole network is in non-SonosNet mode, nothing, even ad-hoc devices, can be grouped/bundled over one connection.  Evidenced by surrounds/sub do not show unless wifi is on for each.  They can’t jump over Ethernet to another Sonos to get data.

BUT at least my network seems to be functioning now.  Audio is fantastic, 99%+, and I don’t get spin spin spin loaders on everything...omg that was awful.  It’s great when you’re curated, carefully crafted network with fairly decent equipment (now old but still robust) just isn’t stable.

Using home wifi sadly only works flawlessly with streaming music.  Not with grouping to a live audio source (HDMI or analog input).  While SonosNet worked great with live audio sources but not streaming music.  So neither works fully for everything always.  Makes sense because using home wifi means there are at least 2 hops to get audio to any other nodes while SonosNet can hop only once to get live audio sources to other zones.

The only way that my sized system works is to use a hybrid approach with some connected to Orbi and some using SonosNet, which works great, except breaks my network.  So I guess it’s just not possible for me to use Sonos reliably for all use cases.