Multiple Sonos Boosts - Broadcast Storms / Network Loops

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We’ve had problems for quite a long time now with our home network suffering from periodic broadcast storms (usually after an interruption to our main router), requiring powering off/on of multiple devices to resolve. With the help of my good wife we finally narrowed it down (with a packet capture) to our network setup and SonosNet causing a network / bridging loop.

We have a house that has been extended and modified over time, so WiFi (and SonosNet) reception across the entire house is poor in places (we previously suffered multiple drop-outs until we invested in 2 x Boost). We have a WiFi network (ASUS RT-AX88U and RT-AX92U routers, linked with AIMesh) which covers most of the core of the house, and use cables and unmanaged Netgear switches for our main home/office and our TV entertainment system, etc.

Our Sonos system is hard wired at five locations (2 x Sonos Boost, 1 x Play:1, 1 x Amp, 1 x Five), the rest connect via SonosNet (on Channel 11 which isn’t used on our home WiFi setup).

Following our discovery, I have disabled the WiFi on the Amp, Play:1, and Five that are also hard wired (which has improved things), but I can’t do the same for our 2 x Boost which are needed to reach speakers at the edges of our house that don’t have wired connections, nor great WiFi signals. The Sonos Boosts will almost certainly be able to reach each other as they are nearer the centre of the house. See attached diagram (blue is SonosNet on 2.4GHz Channel 11, red is disabled WiFi on device, green are cat 6/8 cables). One of the Boosts is connected by Powerline adaptors, but this seems to work ok except for the broadcast storms.

Our routers, ASUS RT-AX92U and RT-AX88U (linked with AI Mesh) don’t appear to have Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) enabled (I used SSH to log on and check), and I can’t find a way to permanently enable it via the GUI (only manually via SSH and command line which resets when the router reboots, which is usually when we get a broadcast storm).

I think we still have a potential loop via our LAN/WiFi and SonosNet because of the 2 x Boost which are needed to reach the east and west ends of our house respectively. I did think about connecting all of the Sonos back to a single unmanaged switch rather than via the routers, but can’t easily put in another cable to do this.

Have I missed something obvious? Does anyone have any suggestions on how we might easily change/improve our setup to prevent loops and broadcast storms without masses of cabling works or spending a lot of money replacing all of our network equipment.

Thank you

FYI: Sonos Support Network Matrix in case it helps:

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press250Answer

Prodigy III

Hi @tcp1p, Ken’s suggestion above is solid. Asus Wi-Fi routers are great and AI mesh is better than SonosNet in every way. Adding another Asus Wi-Fi router will give you far more stable coverage than SonosNet. Re-stating for clarity: beef-up your AI mesh with one additional Asus Wi-Fi router and connect all Sonos devices via “regular Wi-Fi,” removing SonosNet from the equation.

I recognize that doing away with your two Boosts would be disappointing, but SonosNet is reasonably outdated in any case. Once all of your Sonos devices are on regular Wi-Fi, furthermore, you can experiment with moving all of them onto the 5GHz band to mitigate interference.

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tcp1pAuthor

Contributor I

Ah, something else. My speakers are all on 5Ghz. Even my Play:1. In may case, they worked better on 5Ghz than 2.4Ghz.

I found the same here, much better performance on 5GHz than on 2.4GHz WiFi, even though we don’t have interference from neighbours.

After various testing/playing around, I found my Play:1s, Play:3s and Fives do optimise themselves from my 2.4GHz to my 5GHz WiFi when left alone for 24-48 hours (SSID of all my APs are the same).

What I have also done is apply blocking filters for each Sonos device to the more distant APs for that Sonos device to prevent the Sonos devices attaching to the sub-optimal APs. That has given me much better performance and stability, even when I’ve rebooted APs/routers - the older devices don’t seem very good at picking the best WiFi AP when they first boot up, or after a router/AP reboot. I do still allow them to connect to the 2.4GHz band as an initial connection (at the moment), but they switch themselves to 5GHz within 24-48 hours and this seems to work ok so far (been working well set up like this for a month or two now).

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