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gadgetnut
Trending Lyricist I
April 29, 2018
Answered

Music cutting out, skipping songs, unable to stream with 12 Sonos devices

Using Sonosnet and ethernet connected players. I added my WiFi credentials, that didn't help, so I reset and removed my WiFi credentials. I am using an ethernet connected Boost, a Playbar, and a few Connects connected by ethernet around the house, the rest of the players are wirelessly connected and in About My Sonos, each device indicates WM: 0. Have given each Sonos device a DHCP reservation on the router. Restarting the router sometimes helps for awhile. Toggling the Sonosnet channel from 1 to 6 to 11 sometimes helps for awhile but not for long. Streaming from TIDAL performs the worst, streaming from my own music library performs better. I'm using Xfinity gigabit internet service and have two wireless access points in a small house and moving around the house I get 400Mbps WiFi download speeds. Sonos Diagnostics code 1281242672 . Thanks for any assistance.
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Keith N
Keith NAnswer
Sonos Staff
May 15, 2018
If there isn't a way to wire these players without using the managed switches, we will have to just make the best out of the wireless environment. How many AP's do you have? The more AP's you have (and the closer they are to Sonos devices) the more impact they will have on Sonos' own separate SonosNet.

Regarding your earlier suggestion- sorry if I misunderstood you. The USG has one LAN jack. To make that one jack available for the Boost, I would have to disconnect the 24 port UniFI managed switch which is connects and powers everything (PoE) else including every AP, etc. Given what I've described, what do you suggest?

The Boost has two Ethernet ports on the back. One can be used to connect to your USG, the other to your Unifi AP. 🆒

Lemme know if this helps! I'm happy to help in any way I can.
Building community is like building a garden. You build the frame, till the ground, plant the seeds, feed the plants & sometimes you gotta pull the weeds.

25 replies

gadgetnut
gadgetnutAuthor
Trending Lyricist I
May 11, 2018
Hi, Keith. Thank you for your help. The next steps you have asked me to do are possible and I'm willing to do it. You gave me an idea though and I wanted to try an interim step first. I eliminated the two ethernet connections to the Players (PlaybarBedroom and ConnectCJKOffice), restarted those Players and rebooted the Sonos Boost. Now, only the Boost has an ethernet connection and all the Players are wireless. The Sonos apps on iOS and macOS seem faster and responsive. I played four different music sources across the house for fifteen minutes- things seem to be working better- and I just submitted new Diagnostics. Today's confirmation number is: 17589762. Would you please take a look and let me know the next step you recommend? And I'll continue testing over the weekend to see if I experience any lasting improvement with the changes so far. Thanks!
Keith N
Sonos Staff
May 11, 2018
Looking better! Most everything is now directly talking to Boost and the Boost is talking to the network for Sonos. One thing I did notice is that your Bedroom L+R Play:1's are stuck on a 2.4 GHz channel when they should be on 5GHz talking to the Playbar. Give those a quick reboot (unplug and replug into power) and they should be good to go.

Test the audio over the weekend and let us know how it works. Fingers crossed!
Building community is like building a garden. You build the frame, till the ground, plant the seeds, feed the plants & sometimes you gotta pull the weeds.
gadgetnut
gadgetnutAuthor
Trending Lyricist I
May 14, 2018
Hello, Keith. The Group most frequently used is Bathtub, Shower, Bedroom, Living Room, Pantry playing together. Since the last changes, playback is a bit more reliable but still stops, cuts, and skips.

What I experience is: you start playback of a playlist to the Group. To begin you hear playback in some rooms but not others, within about ten seconds all rooms come online. It may play a song or two OK then skip a song. If you manually change playback order, some rooms will drop out then they might come back.

Based on a new support thread about Sonos at Ubiquiti, it was suggested to enable Multicast DNS in the USG-3 router. I turned on mDNS and sent new diagnostics to Sonos. Today's confirmation number is: 712881562. Any thoughts about next steps?
Avid Contributor I
May 15, 2018
The drop-out dialogue has been going on since the dawn of Sonos. "Ideally, we want Sonos to have full control of the data being sent through SonosNet." doesn't seem to work where there are solid walls and/or bigger distances. My solution has been to throw ethernet-over-power at the problem, but that has run into problems recently. Buildings, wifi and data networks are always changing, mine and my neighbours. Some sort of incremental network management tool might help. The Google wifi one is ok-ish. The http://:1400/support/review tool may have the data, but is opaque.
Apologies if Im launching into the middle of a conversation, I'm struggling with a playback issue just now.
gadgetnut
gadgetnutAuthor
Trending Lyricist I
May 15, 2018
Hello, fdotr, thanks for your feedback. I, also, have relied on powerline ethernet network extenders, but find that they are also somewhat hit and miss. Over the last two weeks I've been trying different setups- most recently *removing* all ethernet connections and allowing all players to connect via Sonosnet, etc. But even now, my system is not working acceptably.
gadgetnut
gadgetnutAuthor
Trending Lyricist I
May 15, 2018
Followup to Keith or Sonos Staff- After a few more days experimenting, I find the recent infrastructure changes have not helped. My Sonos system is dropping rooms, skipping and stopping. As of now, there's no joy, it is intolerable and unusable.

Keith's suggestion had been to remove my UniFi managed ethernet switch from the equation by connecting the Sonos Boost directly to the UniFi USG-3 (router.) This could be tested but is almost too broad of a stroke because in disconnecting EVERYTHING else, including all WiFi access points, my home would have zero network/zero wireless and while Sonos might be expected to work flawlessly in a vacuum that doesn't seem to be a practical help because I can't live that way.

My goal is to determine whether the network architecture can be revised such that Sonos players can function acceptably within my home life.
Keith N
Sonos Staff
May 15, 2018
Thanks for the update and fresh diagnostic report, gadgetnut. Since enabling mDNS, have the dropouts reduced? Looking closer at the recent diagnostic report shows that the Bedroom, Bathtub, Living Room are the rooms with the best connection to the BOOST, but they cannot seem to reach places like the Screen Room or Chirs' Office with the same strength. Is it possible to plug any other devices to the network through a wireless extender (in Bridge mode) or unmanaged switch?

fdotr: Sonos is not supported in networks using Ethernet over power. Might I suggest, creating a new topic with more information regarding the dropouts you are experiencing? Typically, problems like dropouts are due to latency on the network or interference. If you submit a diagnostic report and post your confirmation number in the new topic, I'll be happy to take a look and see what advice I can give.
Building community is like building a garden. You build the frame, till the ground, plant the seeds, feed the plants & sometimes you gotta pull the weeds.
Keith N
Sonos Staff
May 15, 2018
gadgetnut: My suggestion was to plug the Boost into the USG, not remove your Unifi AP completely.

Understood. Whenever Sonos is routed through managed switches, things get a little odd. Ideally, we want Sonos to have full control of the data being sent through SonosNet. Is there any way to plug the Boost directly into the Ubiquiti UniFi USG-3? If you unplug the other Sonos devices from the network leaving just the Boost hardwired into the USG-3, we should be able to get things in a better position. At that point, we will need to take a closer look at the wireless interference. This is because the AP's will likely be adding interference to the wireless environment Sonos will be using to talk from player-to-player.

If this is possible, please test the audio for about 20 minutes and then submit another diagnostic report. Be sure to reply here with the confirmation number, and I'll be happy to take a look and see where we stand.
Building community is like building a garden. You build the frame, till the ground, plant the seeds, feed the plants & sometimes you gotta pull the weeds.
gadgetnut
gadgetnutAuthor
Trending Lyricist I
May 15, 2018
Thanks for the feedback, Keith. You're right, although it's not far away (less than 40 feet with one wall), the Screen Room and Chris Office are the rooms furthest away from the Boost. I will connect the Chris Office Connect by ethernet again- but its ethernet derives from hard wires from the same managed switch, not a wireless extender or unmanaged switch. In any case, I'll connect this way, try it out and submit diagnostics again.

To answer your question: no, since enabling mDNS the dropouts have not reduced.

Regarding your earlier suggestion- sorry if I misunderstood you. The USG has one LAN jack. To make that one jack available for the Boost, I would have to disconnect the 24 port UniFI managed switch which is connects and powers everything (PoE) else including every AP, etc. Given what I've described, what do you suggest?

Thanks again.
Keith N
Keith NAnswer
Sonos Staff
May 15, 2018
If there isn't a way to wire these players without using the managed switches, we will have to just make the best out of the wireless environment. How many AP's do you have? The more AP's you have (and the closer they are to Sonos devices) the more impact they will have on Sonos' own separate SonosNet.

Regarding your earlier suggestion- sorry if I misunderstood you. The USG has one LAN jack. To make that one jack available for the Boost, I would have to disconnect the 24 port UniFI managed switch which is connects and powers everything (PoE) else including every AP, etc. Given what I've described, what do you suggest?

The Boost has two Ethernet ports on the back. One can be used to connect to your USG, the other to your Unifi AP. 🆒

Lemme know if this helps! I'm happy to help in any way I can.
Building community is like building a garden. You build the frame, till the ground, plant the seeds, feed the plants & sometimes you gotta pull the weeds.