Move - issues with grouping and playback

  • 10 January 2020
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Hello.  I’ve got an issue with Move -

If I commence playback when all players are grouped together, it will not playback on my Move, but will play on all non Move speakers in the group

If I commence playback on the Move, and then add all other players to that group, then all will play the source music as normal

The non Move players (three of them) are all on a Sonosnet Boost wired connection.  The Move is on 2G wi-fi (not using an extender)

Anyone else having this issue, and an/or any suggestions for a remedy?

Matt


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44 replies

Userlevel 7

Hi MjjW

I have two Moves but have not tested the explanation I’m about to give. So until someone disputes this here’s what I think is occurring…

The Move does not interact with the SonosNet (wired connection). So when you start the music on a speaker that is on the SonosNet the Move can’t see it. No joy.:frowning2:

When you start music on the Move the Sonos that are on the SonosNet can see the Move. Party time! :hugging:

You can call Sonos Tech Support for a definitive answer. Sorry I can’t be of more assistance.

Cheers!

I am not really convinced by the explanation  given by @AjTrek1 - my apologies to him if I am mistaken. But SonosNet vs WiFi is just about the paths data takes around the LAN. Everything is on the LAN and I  would have expected everything to be able to 'see' everything else.  

I would be interested to know how things behave if you set the Move up on 5GHz. Also if there is any difference depending on where you place the Move.

I am experiencing the exact same issue as described and I have all units setup on my wifi.  I can pause the music from the (paired) moves even though they aren’t playing sound but can’t restart the playback.

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Not sure if this is the same thing - but I’m having weird behaviour from my new Move (installed for about a week). Besides the “powering back up automatically” issue documented in another thread, when Move is grouped with other Sonos speakers/rooms and I mute Move from the controller (so “x” showing next to Move in the group), Move is still playing.

I then tried to deselect Move from the grouping and even though the checkbox disappears from the list of speakers, Move still plays as if it is grouped and the controller still shows Move as grouped.

I had to power down (hold the power button for 5 seconds) on Move for it to be dropped from the group.

Seems like some software issues for Move, but anybody else finding this thing flaky?

Not sure if this is the same thing - but I’m having weird behaviour from my new Move (installed for about a week). Besides the “powering back up automatically” issue documented in another thread, when Move is grouped with other Sonos speakers/rooms and I mute Move from the controller (so “x” showing next to Move in the group), Move is still playing.

I then tried to deselect Move from the grouping and even though the checkbox disappears from the list of speakers, Move still plays as if it is grouped and the controller still shows Move as grouped.

I had to power down (hold the power button for 5 seconds) on Move for it to be dropped from the group.

Seems like some software issues for Move, but anybody else finding this thing flaky?

I’m not seeing this issue. Are you using a WiFi Mesh System for your home LAN, or do you have ‘other’ access points, repeaters, WiFi extenders? If so, just ensure they are all operating on the same WiFi channel as the main router. Check too that there is no 'isolation’ on any access point and that the mobile controller device is not temporarily switching away to other WiFi networks, like a guest network, perhaps?

Hope that assists.

Userlevel 2
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For what it’s worth, I’m seeing a similar problem as the OP with my Move using airplay and other non-Sonos speakers - see here

I’d assumed it was another airplay glitch, but this makes me wonder if it’s a Move thing.  

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Thanks Ken for the suggestion, but no mesh, no repeaters, etc. I’ve had Sonos products for many years and Move appears to be the most unstable/problematic.

Thanks Ken for the suggestion, but no mesh, no repeaters, etc. I’ve had Sonos products for many years and Move appears to be the most unstable/problematic.

If you have the Move on your 2.4ghz wifi band then switch it to the 5ghz band or vice versa ...and just see if that helps. Then go onto consider a different non-overlapping 2.4ghz channel (1, 6 or 11), but if using SonosNet for your other Sonos products then ensure that the SonosNet channel is set at least 5 channels away from your chosen router channel… 

 

Note, if using SonosNet for your main system and you do move the “Move” onto the 5ghz band, remove the previous 2.4ghz network from “Settings/System/Networks”...that will prevent your main System from falling back into ‘mixed mode’ where signals could potentially hop between SonosNet and your routers WiFi signal.

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Thank you Ken. I was not aware that Sonos could operate on the 5 Mhz band; all the documentation says 2.4 only. My setup is wireless, nothing wired.

At this point I just turned the volume down to zero on the Move. I’ll wait and try ungrouping again and see if the problem persists. But I shouldn’t have to rely on workarounds.

Thank you Ken. I was not aware that Sonos could operate on the 5 Mhz band; all the documentation says 2.4 only. My setup is wireless, nothing wired.

At this point I just turned the volume down to zero on the Move. I’ll wait and try ungrouping again and see if the problem persists. But I shouldn’t have to rely on workarounds.

Yes, the Move in my case ‘defaulted’ to the 5ghz band on first setup, in fact.

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I’m having terrible drop out issues with my Sonos Move, Start music on the Move then join other speakers (2 x play 1’s/ Sub, 2 x Play 3’s) most times the Move will stop but the music starts playing on the joined speakers (running off my Sonos Boost - Sonos Net) then other times it plays but takes 15-30 seconds for the joined speakers group. Phoned support a while back and they said that my WiFi booster was probably interfering and to turn it off and try that, It helped but still got dropouts and I need the WiFi booster in the house.

I resorted to bringing a Play One from another room when we have a party as the Move is to unreliable, really annoying for a £399 Speaker and not a good advert!

Move runs off WiFi and all others speakers run off Sonos Net (Boost), the two don’t seem to work well together I would of thought that Sonos could have the option for the Move to use the Sonos Net (Boost) instead of WiFi for large home systems to keep reliability. (Long time Sonos user with 15 Sonos Speakers in and around the house costing nearly £4k)

Be nice to see a reply and a fix from Sonos on this issue and thread, it looks like a common issue with the Move. 

Suppose I will have to take a day off work again to ring Sonos Support (Mon-Fri 9-5) :frowning2: 

Bythebeach

A couple of questions ...

Which WiFi band is the ‘Move’ using and what channels are in use by the Router and SonosNet?

Do you have the WiFi credentials stored in the Sonos App “Networks/Wireless Satup” 

Does your local network have any other Hubs/Wireless Access Points and if so, are they operating with the same (SSID/Password) credentials and channels as your main router?

I purchased a Move recently and I’m having the same issue.  I can join the Move to a group and even pause the entire group using the move controls but no music will play.  It works fine if I start music from the move and add other Sonos speakers.  Has anyone found a resolution?  I have a case open but it’s not progressing.  

I purchased a Move recently and I’m having the same issue.  I can join the Move to a group and even pause the entire group using the move controls but no music will play.  It works fine if I start music from the move and add other Sonos speakers.  Has anyone found a resolution?  I have a case open but it’s not progressing.  

Sounds like a network issue .. what are the details of your network setup?

Which WiFi band is your move using and does your Sonos system run on your WiFi, or do you have any devices wired and hence running the system on SonosNet?

Any wireless access points, repeaters or satellite hubs etc?

I purchased a Move recently and I’m having the same issue.  I can join the Move to a group and even pause the entire group using the move controls but no music will play.  It works fine if I start music from the move and add other Sonos speakers.  Has anyone found a resolution?  I have a case open but it’s not progressing.  

Sounds like a network issue .. what are the details of your network setup?

Which WiFi band is your move using and does your Sonos system run on your WiFi, or do you have any devices wired and hence running the system on SonosNet?

Any wireless access points, repeaters or satellite hubs etc?

Sonos Boost is using Channel 11 for SonosNet..  I have an SSID for Sonos that operates in both the 2.4Ghz and 5 Ghz band…. 4 AP’s but only 3 adversities that SSID to avoid channel overlap..  Channels 1,6,11 are used by the 3 AP’s.. my user SSID is 5Ghz only but shares a VLAN with the SONOS SSID because the controller has to be in the same VLAN

Ensure your Sonos Boost is wired to the primary hub and that the primary hub 2.4ghz WiFi is set at least 5 channels away from your chosen SonosNet channel 11 ...so set it to fixed channel 6 or 1,

 

Set the satellites/access points to not only use the same SSID’s as the main hub, but to use the exact same fixed wifi channels as the primary hub, so that’s either channel 6 or 1. Do not put them on different channels. Hopefully your 2.4ghz and 5ghz SSID’s do not have the same name for each band, it’s best if they have different names.

 

I would also try this ... have your 'Move’ connect to the 5ghz band (I suggest you set that band to use fixed channel 48 on all your access points) and 'if relevant',  goto the Sonos App and remove/reset any stored 2.4ghz WiFi credentials in “Settings/System/Network/Wireless Setup’ these are not needed when using SonosNet and also remove and previously used 2.4ghz network in the slightly different area of  “Settings/System/Network/Other Networks” … (long press on SSID Name to remove it).

Then see if that resolves your grouping playback issues.

Ensure your Sonos Boost is wired to the primary hub and that the primary hub 2.4ghz WiFi is set at least 5 channels away from your chosen SonosNet channel 11 ...so set it to fixed channel 6 or 1,

 

Set the satellites/access points to not only use the same SSID’s as the main hub, but to use the exact same fixed wifi channels as the primary hub, so that’s either channel 6 or 1. Do not put them on different channels. Hopefully your 2.4ghz and 5ghz SSID’s do not have the same name for each band, it’s best if they have different names.

 

I would also try this ... have your 'Move’ connect to the 5ghz band (I suggest you set that band to use fixed channel 48 on all your access points) and 'if relevant',  goto the Sonos App and remove/reset any stored 2.4ghz WiFi credentials in “Settings/System/Network/Wireless Setup’ these are not needed when using SonosNet and also remove and previously used 2.4ghz network in the slightly different area of  “Settings/System/Network/Other Networks” … (long press on SSID Name to remove it).

Then see if that resolves your grouping playback issues.

Hi Ken, 

I have the same issue as MjjW and just tried to do everything you wrote, except setting two separate names for the WiFi 2.4 and 5GHz. I was not able to group and ungroup Move. I don’t have sonos boost, but I have other 8 speakers besides Move, which is the last one I bought.  

In fac, (seems that...) I solved the issue just reinitializing the Sonos Network from the Android app. When I first configured Move, I did not “refresh” the installation for all the speakers, so maybe it took a different network or something like that… Maybe the solution is just to reinstall the Network once you install a Move speaker. 

Anyway, I will keep the thread updated if there is any other issue.

Thank you

Best,

Maurizio

Grouping Move with Playbar has the Move frequently dropping the sound for a split second every couple of minutes.  Very annoying.

Grouping Move with Playbar has the Move frequently dropping the sound for a split second every couple of minutes.  Very annoying.

There’s a couple of things you can try here.. 

  1. If referring to the TV audio, then change the Home Theatre Group Audio buffer size in the Playbar ‘room’ settings. It defaults to 75ms but there are three other options for you to choose from. See which setting work best.
  2. If referring to music (not line-in) audio, then maybe try a different ‘fixed’ WiFi channel (1, 6, or 11), or perhaps try switching the Move to a completely different WiFi band if your router supports both 2.4ghz and 5ghz.

Hope those things help to resolve your intermittent audio dropout issues.

 

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Yep, I'm experiencing a mixture of the above, existing speakers on SonosNet (Boost) added move this weekend, on S2, grouping music sometimes they all play, sometimes just the move, if I skip tracks sometimes the move continues to play the previous track and then catches up, sometimes move apears offline but continues to play music, never had any issues until I introduced the move (had a sonos system since 2013), its almost as if It doesnt know whether to use SonosNet with the original speakers or wifi and jumps between them

Yep, I'm experiencing a mixture of the above, existing speakers on SonosNet (Boost) added move this weekend, on S2, grouping music sometimes they all play, sometimes just the move, if I skip tracks sometimes the move continues to play the previous track and then catches up, sometimes move apears offline but continues to play music, never had any issues until I introduced the move (had a sonos system since 2013), its almost as if It doesnt know whether to use SonosNet with the original speakers or wifi and jumps between them

The Move definitely does not use a SonosNet connection. If you check "Settings/System/About My System” in the Sonos App, it should show the Sonos Move as Wireless Mode (WM: 1) which is a connection to the local WiFi network and that can be either the 2.4ghz or 5ghz band. I suspect what your experiencing here is Wireless Interference and I would suggest identifying the WiFi band the Move is using and perhaps either change the WiFi channel, or maybe try the ‘other’ WiFi band if you have both available to you and see if that helps. 
 

Don’t forget to set the SonosNet channel at least 5 channels away from the routers 2.4ghz channel and I would certainly fix that channel and try to use the ‘least-used’ non-overlapping channel. 
 

If you have any other Wifi access points, or WiFi extenders etc;  then set those to use the same SSID’s, credentials and channels as your main router. I think it’s also worthwhile setting the width of the 2.4ghz channel on your network devices to 20MHz ... and if using .. also limit the 5ghz channel width to 40MHz and then see if that improves the connectivity with your Sonos Move.


You may also find this Sonos support document helpful too…

WiFi Interference


Hope those things assist.👍

 

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Hi, 

Thanks for your reply, SonosNet is on channel 6. The 2.4ghz band is on channel 11, 5ghz band is on channel 48, Router is provided by my Broadband provider, its the latest one they produce, unfortunately you cannot seperate the 2.4ghz and 5ghz channels, there are no repeaters or extenders, there is a strong wifi signal throught the whole house.

Move is currently on the 5ghz band

I appreciate the move doesnt use SonosNet I was wondering if my other speakers are switching between the two.

Thanks

TheJarv,
 

You could maybe try the Move on your 2.4ghz band perhaps, as that signal is better for both distance and penetration through walls etc. It’s worth seeing if that proves to be any better.

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Hi,

Not sure how you would force it to use the 2.4ghz band? My house is a new build so wall thickness is not an issue!

 I have submitted a diagnostic file to Sonos, be interesting what they say

Hi,

Not sure how you would force it to use the 2.4ghz band? My house is a new build so wall thickness is not an issue!

 I have submitted a diagnostic file to Sonos, be interesting what they say

Ah okay. Well hope you get it sorted soon. 👍