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BuckeyeTheDog
Contributor I
December 5, 2022
Answered

New Google Wifi mesh- Now I am unable to find the system

I have

  • Playbar
  • Sub
  • Six Sonos One SLs in three rooms- including two acting as rear speakers for the play bar).

I was on Google Fiber hooked to a Netgear Nighthawk router.  It worked well.

I have unplugged that and am on Google’s mesh point routers.  I have created a Guest Network, which I believe is 2.4 GHZ.

Nightmare.  I have gone through a dozen or so different attempts to get the system working again.

  • Over and over, I will get the message “Unable to find your Sonos system.”  And “Let’s fix it.” 
  • I will go through the on-screen process, which includes going to every device and connecting it to the new network.  Then I see nothing in the Sonos app.  It will say “Unable to find your Sonos system” again.  Or the Account, System, and Services & Voice will just be grayed out.
  • At other times, it says “unplug them all and replug them.”  Tried that several times.  Didn’t work.
  • Other times, I used the Settings function to reconnect the speakers.
  • Other times, according to the Sonos app, I even restarted the router.  I have even restarted the fiber jack.

I have tried everything I can think of- perhaps except setting everything back to factory settings and starting over again.  I would do that if it would work.  I am just frustrated, worn out, and not sure what to do.

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Ken_Griffiths
Ken_GriffithsAnswer
December 7, 2022

So just to clarify, you now have an ISP provided router (make/model?) then a switch and then a Nighthawk router, is that correct …and you’ve set aside the Google Nest Hubs completely? At least I would suggest setting them aside for now (temporarily).

If so, you are best to change the network setup here first…

My suggestion is to put the ISP provided ‘main’ router into bridge mode, or even ‘modem’ mode, if the latter is supported. Definitely switch off its WiFi adapters.

Next, wire the Nighthawk router WAN port to a LAN port on your ISP router …and then wire the switch to a LAN port on the Nighthawk router.

The Nighthawk will then provide both your wired and wireless network to your Home

Just broadcast the main 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands from this router and disable any guest networks for now.

Set the 2.4Ghz band to WiFi channel 6 and set the channel-width to 20Mhz only and use WPA2 AES security mode for compatibility.

Ensure that router also does not have ‘Airtime Fairness’ or ‘QoS’ enabled. Disable those features if they are enabled.

Assuming no devices have been factory reset, simply wire one Sonos device to the Nighthawk router and then power off/on all your other non-wired Sonos products and let them settle.

Ensure your mobile controller device is connected wirelessly to the Nighthawk WiFi - I recommend you connect using its 2.4Ghz band SSID/credentials and open the Sonos App.

All being well, you should hopefully now see all devices/speakers appear in the App

If all are present, check and set the SonosNet channel to either channel 1 or 11. I would also check for Sonos updates at this point, as a new update was released today for S2 if you are using that App.

After the update-check, goto ‘Settings/System/Network/Manage Networks’ and choose the option to ‘Update Networks’ and follow the instructions to add your Nighthawk 2.4Ghz band only ‘trusted’ wireless network to all your Sonos devices.

When that’s completed, remove any other networks that are showing in the App apart from that one trusted network.

You should now be able to uncable the wired speaker from the nighthawk router and all will switch and run on its WiFi signal.

Hope those steps/suggestions assist you to sort your system and get all back up and running.

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BuckeyeTheDogAuthor
Contributor I
December 7, 2022

I know right.  It’s confusing and I’m not explaining it well.  Sorry for the confusion and thanks so much for trying to help.  Let me try it like this.

Problem summary….

  • Previously, my Sonos equipment worked great over a standard non-mesh wireless router. Google Fiber is my service provider.
  • For various reasons, I moved to a Google wifi mesh network- still with Google Fiber.
  • I had no luck running my Sonos system off the Google wifi mesh network, including a 2.4 GHZ guest wifi channel.
  • So I reinstalled my non-mesh wireless router.  Like before, it runs off a hardline from the main router, fed directly from the Fiber Jack.
    • Fiber jack —> ethernet cable—> Google router —> ethernet cable —> unmanaged switch (behind TV/ acts as a splitter) —> ethernet cable —> previous non-mesh router that broadcasts a 2.4 GHZ wifi signal for the Sonos products.
      • I have renamed and re-passworded the wifi network from what Sonos previously used.
    • So there are two wifi networks in the house
      • Special 2.4 GHZ wifi network for Sonos equipment
      • Google Fiber mesh wifi network (nothing to do with Sonos)

On the good side, I now have my Playbar playing wirelessly from my Sonos app!  That’s great and a step forward.  My current endeavor is to get the sub, surrounds, and three other rooms to light up again. Current challenges…

  • My sub goes through the setup process, then I don’t see it anywhere in the app.  It hooks to the network and says all is well.  Then never shows up in the app.  I unplug/ replug with no luck.
  • I have one of the surround Speakers showing up, but not yet the second one.
  • When one of my eight Sonos Play 1s show up in my Sonos app’s System list, I can’t tell which one is actually present.  (I solved this by looking in System/ About My System)
  • When I go into Network/ Manage Networks/ Update Networks, I see all the Sonos equipment.  Getting it to show up on my Systems list in their rooms, etc. has been challenging.

I hope that makes sense and I appreciate any guidance/ advice you all have.

Ken_Griffiths
Ken_GriffithsAnswer
December 7, 2022

So just to clarify, you now have an ISP provided router (make/model?) then a switch and then a Nighthawk router, is that correct …and you’ve set aside the Google Nest Hubs completely? At least I would suggest setting them aside for now (temporarily).

If so, you are best to change the network setup here first…

My suggestion is to put the ISP provided ‘main’ router into bridge mode, or even ‘modem’ mode, if the latter is supported. Definitely switch off its WiFi adapters.

Next, wire the Nighthawk router WAN port to a LAN port on your ISP router …and then wire the switch to a LAN port on the Nighthawk router.

The Nighthawk will then provide both your wired and wireless network to your Home

Just broadcast the main 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands from this router and disable any guest networks for now.

Set the 2.4Ghz band to WiFi channel 6 and set the channel-width to 20Mhz only and use WPA2 AES security mode for compatibility.

Ensure that router also does not have ‘Airtime Fairness’ or ‘QoS’ enabled. Disable those features if they are enabled.

Assuming no devices have been factory reset, simply wire one Sonos device to the Nighthawk router and then power off/on all your other non-wired Sonos products and let them settle.

Ensure your mobile controller device is connected wirelessly to the Nighthawk WiFi - I recommend you connect using its 2.4Ghz band SSID/credentials and open the Sonos App.

All being well, you should hopefully now see all devices/speakers appear in the App

If all are present, check and set the SonosNet channel to either channel 1 or 11. I would also check for Sonos updates at this point, as a new update was released today for S2 if you are using that App.

After the update-check, goto ‘Settings/System/Network/Manage Networks’ and choose the option to ‘Update Networks’ and follow the instructions to add your Nighthawk 2.4Ghz band only ‘trusted’ wireless network to all your Sonos devices.

When that’s completed, remove any other networks that are showing in the App apart from that one trusted network.

You should now be able to uncable the wired speaker from the nighthawk router and all will switch and run on its WiFi signal.

Hope those steps/suggestions assist you to sort your system and get all back up and running.

Ken_Griffiths
Ken_Griffiths
December 7, 2022

@BuckeyeTheDog,
If you want your Google WiFi to use around the Home too, then you could set that up afterwards using double NAT, so just wire the primary nest hub/router to your nighthawk router (LAN port) (or the connected switch, I suppose) and run both the Google hub/router and the Nest ‘satellite’ hubs as another ‘entirely separate’ WiFi network, but please note this will need to have a completely different WiFi SSID and that separate network setup will auto-select its own WiFi channels, which may interfere with Sonos and/or your Nighthawk wireless network - but this is a matter for yourself.

Just do not wire any Sonos devices to any of the Google Nest devices and don’t let the Sonos mobile controller device connect to the Google WiFi signal either, as you will lose sight of your Sonos system if you allow that to happen, which might be what has been causing you the problems here in the first instance, perhaps 🤔?

Anyhow, you can then use the Google mesh setup for anything else, I guess, but it’s not a setup I would choose personally, as I can envisage it may cause you problems (perhaps) further down the line as Google Nest hubs may/will switch their channels automatically and bring about some interference that may hinder, rather than help, things on your nighthawk network.

BuckeyeTheDogAuthor
Contributor I
December 7, 2022

Ken and others, thanks so much for your help.

I am now up and running.  The thing that hooked up all the remaining equipment was going to Support/ Find Missing Products and following their flow.  Essentially, the devices that were not seen were re-set to factory settings.  They got on my new Nighthawk non-mesh wifi network and did fine.

I seemed to experience a problem that may have been one of my root cause problems.  It seems that occasionally, I would seem somehow my Google wifi would drop the signal for a moment.  I could see at times my wifi network would just change inexplicably on my phone.  Perhaps one of my problems is that my wifi would drop mid speaker set-up.

I know this.  I am taking out the Google wifi equipment.  All of it.  I will keep Google Fiber as a service provider.  Numerous people tell me that the experience zero problems with Sonos and more with Eero.  I think I will try that- even attempting to make Sonos work over Eero mesh, with this old Nighthawk wifi router as a “if all else fails, go back to it” solution.

I have this Youtube video that I watched about standard troubleshooting with Eero and Sonos.. 

Ken_Griffiths
Ken_Griffiths
December 7, 2022

@BuckeyeTheDog,

At least your Sonos setup is now working, that’s the main thing. I’m not a fan of Google Nest WiFi either, as many seem to complain about it and it seems their Hubs cannot be used in bridge/AP mode (except when using one hub only) and that by itself would put me off buying the mesh system. It’s not very configurable, but all such things seem to be heading that way, where the user has no option, but to accept things at their default/auto-optimised settings and those things don’t always work for some situations.

Theres just no perfect answer to these things, at least not that I’ve come across so far. A central based configurable router is as good as any, as long as that can reach to the far corners of the Home and provide a decent connection to all.

Kenton
Lyricist I
January 12, 2023

FYI, I have a similar set up, Google Wifi and Sonos equipment and I am getting the same issue. Just really tired after spending money to upgrade only to have to rebuild/rework my network to get any type of utility out of 1000 bucks of new product.  Poor

 

“Nightmare.  I have gone through a dozen or so different attempts to get the system working again.

  • Over and over, I will get the message “Unable to find your Sonos system.”  And “Let’s fix it.” 
  • I will go through the on-screen process, which includes going to every device and connecting it to the new network.  Then I see nothing in the Sonos app.  It will say “Unable to find your Sonos system” again.  Or the Account, System, and Services & Voice will just be grayed out.
  • At other times, it says “unplug them all and replug them.”  Tried that several times.  Didn’t work.
  • Other times, I used the Settings function to reconnect the speakers.
  • Other times, according to the Sonos app, I even restarted the router.  I have even restarted the fiber jack.”
Ken_Griffiths
Ken_Griffiths
January 12, 2023

FYI, I have a similar set up, Google Wifi and Sonos equipment and I am getting the same issue. Just really tired after spending money to upgrade only to have to rebuild/rework my network to get any type of utility out of 1000 bucks of new product.  Poor

 

“Nightmare.  I have gone through a dozen or so different attempts to get the system working again.

  • Over and over, I will get the message “Unable to find your Sonos system.”  And “Let’s fix it.” 
  • I will go through the on-screen process, which includes going to every device and connecting it to the new network.  Then I see nothing in the Sonos app.  It will say “Unable to find your Sonos system” again.  Or the Account, System, and Services & Voice will just be grayed out.
  • At other times, it says “unplug them all and replug them.”  Tried that several times.  Didn’t work.
  • Other times, I used the Settings function to reconnect the speakers.
  • Other times, according to the Sonos app, I even restarted the router.  I have even restarted the fiber jack.”

Perhaps follow the suggestions mentioned in this link:

Sonos on WiFi Mesh

    Kenton
    Lyricist I
    January 12, 2023

    Just removed Google Wifi from the equation and it all works as promised.

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