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benn600
Avid Contributor I
August 20, 2022

SonosNet is a Mystery

SonosNet does not activate when it absolutely should.  I have talked to Tech support several times and followed that “converting to a wired setup” instructions procedure a dozen times.  I’ve audio recorded the “click” that I hear when I plug my Ethernet cable into my one plugged in device more times than I can count, just to ask a friend and ensure that I did in fact hear the magical “click” sound.

When I check my setup, a half dozen speakers are in, hooray, “WM: 1”!  If I remove my WiFi network from the app, all those speakers VANISH forever.  It’s like they’ve given up on life and have no will to live.  Even though supposedly there is a magical SonosNet blasting around everywhere.  The only fix is to plug my physical Boost back in, and they magically re-appear!  This Boost must have the magical key that gets them to connect.

The fix for this?  RESETTING my entire system one-by-one.  Tech support told me not to, their forums as well.  But the moment I finished spending 30 hours trying to diagnose the issue, and switched to 2.5 hours resetting my 20 Sonos nodes, BAM it worked!  My Beam became the node that every other speaker connected to.  It’s the most central, newest, and most cable device that I own.  Over SonosNet!  All WM: 0

After a few weeks of fiddling with stuff, I’m back to where I was before.  Half my speakers are green in the status panel and labeled WM: 1.  Sure, my Orbi provides a lot cleaner signal than SonosNet, but I’m really just trying to get my 20 Sonos nodes to not cut. out. every. 10. milliseconds.

Can someone tell me why there is not a more forceful way to disable using home wifi?  I want this prevented and never allowed.  But then when I drop my WiFi, “some” of the speakers get dumb and forget how to connect to SonosNet.  Why do they lose their ability to connect?  I’ve power cycled each and all 20+ times.  Once in a while they work with no rhyme or reason.

What gives?  Why is this so complicated and confusing, even tech support was confused and thought that somehow my router wifi was interfering.  Well guess what, after a full Sonos reset (going against all advice from tech/online) it worked flawlessly right away.  Something is getting into a bad state.

Why did my Beam go from having colored boxes connecting it to every Sonos node to now having no colored boxes in the status table web page?  It was doing exactly what it needed to, being the root node (albeit labeled Secondary for some unknown reason) and connecting to every Sonos node flawlessly.  The system even performed halfway decent!  I was able to stream HDMI audio to every zone pretty much perfectly.  Until other nodes started taking over and then some hopped onto my home WiFi.  Back to total disaster again.  What gives?  Why is there no more advanced configuration when you know the auto negotiation mechanism is failing and making bad choices.

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    53 replies

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    ratty
    ratty
    August 21, 2022

    The BOOST must not have a 5GHz radio then but the BEAM does, and the BEAM happily sends realtime surround/sub data even though it’s not the master.  I had the Amp wifi turned off (which is paired to surrounds/sub) and it was happily sending data up Orbi’s backhaul to the root switch, then jumping off the BEAM to get to 1 surround, which was sharing data with the other and sub over a 5-port headless switch.

    This was a ludicrous arrangement for the Amp’s satellites. Their signal had to transit the Orbi backhaul, then go out over 2.4GHz (not 5GHz) from the Beam. The Beam’s 5GHz is reserved for its own satellites. 

     

    Most of what is talked about here makes sense, but some nodes get into a weird state where they prioritize home wifi/boost and they just refuse to connect to SonosNet unless it’s from a boost.

    The connecting to the Boost would be perfectly normal, assuming it’s closer than the wired Beam. 

    If some wireless Sonos nodes remain stuck on WiFi I’ve suggested a possible reason earlier: the SonosNet signal could be weak. That said, even when SonosNet is adequate nodes will sometimes stick on WiFi. Rebooting them often helps, as does switching the SonosNet channel to alternative frequencies and back again. The final option is to factory reset those specific nodes and re-add them.

    benn600Author
    Avid Contributor I
    August 21, 2022

    Okay how about this one: I turn my Roams/Moves off.  I remove my home wifi from Networks.  And 5 minutes later they’re back on, connected to my home wifi, and in WM: 1.  How does this make sense? I’ve done this 5 times now.

    benn600Author
    Avid Contributor I
    August 21, 2022

    Also: Beam has no sub or surrounds, it has a Sub but it’s connected over Ethernet to the exact same 8-port switch.

    benn600Author
    Avid Contributor I
    August 21, 2022

    It seems like you can’t remove home wifi when the system “thinks” SonosNet isn’t available.  6 of my speakers think SonosNet doesn’t exist while 6 others connect to it just fine.

    ratty
    ratty
    August 21, 2022

    What I wanted was my BEAM to be the central SonosNet node, connect directly to every wireless speaker (it’s very much central, gets a great connection with every wireless node) and then every speaker near Orbi would be plugged in via Ethernet with WiFi disabled so there is no chance of it forming the hop back to the router. 

    I’ve just explained why this approach won’t work for HT master devices. The satellites are left high and dry without a direct connection to the HT master.

     

    they latch onto BOOST when plugged in, even when it gives a yellow connection in the status panel but to beam gave a green latency. 

    Do you mean the left column colours? You can’t be looking at the connection strengths. A wireless device can’t connect to both the Boost and Beam at the same time. You’d better post a screenshot of the matrix once all the devices are set up as advised.

     

    In the Status Network Matrix, the WM: 1 speakers have an empty box between them and the Beam.  Why is this empty? 

    Of course it is. There isn’t a SonosNet connection between them.

     

    How can I tell a speaker to connect to Beam’s SonosNet?  Just go back to how it was before, it was working great.

    We’ve already set out how.

    1. Enable the radios (“WiFi”) on all your devices.
    2. Wire to the Synology router or the Orbi primary node. Do not wire to any Orbi satellite. 
      Ken_Griffiths
      Ken_Griffiths
      August 21, 2022

      Okay how about this one: I turn my Roams/Moves off.  I remove my home wifi from Networks.  And 5 minutes later they’re back on, connected to my home wifi, and in WM: 1.  How does this make sense? I’ve done this 5 times now.

      It’s because their network settings are not stored in the Sonos App, they are actually stored on the speakers/hardware - switching the Move/Roam off before removing the wireless credentials was your mistake here - the Sonos App is a ‘remote’ and the settings you see are actually on each of your speakers/devices.

      ratty
      ratty
      August 21, 2022

      Okay how about this one: I turn my Roams/Moves off.  I remove my home wifi from Networks.  And 5 minutes later they’re back on, connected to my home wifi, and in WM: 1.  How does this make sense? I’ve done this 5 times now.

      If they were off when you removed the WiFi of course the Roams/Moves were unaware of the removal.

        Ken_Griffiths
        Ken_Griffiths
        August 21, 2022

        @benn600,
        As mentioned in my earlier post, wire the Boost direct to your router - ensure the WiFi is enabled on all  your Sonos devices, uncable all ‘other’ Sonos devices (Beam etc.) and restart anything that does not switchover to SonosNet, except for your portable devices (Roam/Move) as those devices do not (ever) use SonosNet. So all should show WM:0 in the ‘about box’. The Roam and Move will show as WM:1 and will simply continue to use your Orbi WiFi (The Orbi credentials will be viewable in the Sonos App network settings - do not remove them, there’s no need).

        benn600Author
        Avid Contributor I
        August 21, 2022

        Okay, no I’m talking about the latency box (middle) not the headers.  I don’t even look at the noise values because they’re useless and not shown on new devices.  The latency from Beam to every speaker was green, until Boost took over and now some are yellow.  I’m messing with some things and while the totally as expected configuration doesn’t work very well either, I’m going to test out switching to my amp being the primary node because that’s the only device that has wireless speakers.  But yes having separate 2.4 Ghz and 5 ghz networks would be helpful.  Or I can use my Synology router wifi just temporarily and then turn it off.  All of these discussions are helping and I think pushing me in a direction of understanding the limitations and working within the capabilities of Sonos.

        benn600Author
        Avid Contributor I
        August 21, 2022

        “There’s no need” -- well better put, Sonos doesn’t reveal anything regarding specific speakers so you cannot remove them.  Unless Move/Roams are turned off.  Just really “user friendly first” I guess to conceal anything technical.  My individual speakers shouldn’t connect to my wifi.  Yes it would be nice if they had the option in case they lost sonosnet briefly but still I like to be more intentional and specific with configurations (if that isn’t evident).  I’m learning more about what is supported and not.

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