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WiFi Disabled / Enable on Amp - Do i really need to turn the WIFI to Disabled on my wired Connect:Amps?

  • 3 February 2021
  • 6 replies
  • 607 views
H

Hi,

I have 24 CONNECT:AMPs wired to a Smart Pro Cisco switch that ran fine for many years after Sonos support helped me program my cisco switch with the necessary STP (Spanning Tree) rules.  We also have several Sonos Subs scattered throughout the house that are NOT wired, hence they rely on the SonosNet.  Our 24 Amps are daisy changed to the cisco switch with a maximum of 4 units per daisy chain connected via ethernet cable to the cisco smart switch.  Again this ran fine since 2013 when I originally set this up and generally we still dont have any issues on Sonos.  

I have verified under System | Network that we DO NOT have our regular WIFI credentials registered on the Sonos app.  As such we believe we are 100% using SonosNet and not our home WIFI network to provide signal to the wired subs and communicate with our apple iPhone to control Sonos Rooms.  

We have been having issues on our wired and WIFI network and I suspect we may be having broadcast network storms so for this reason I have gone and tried to DISABLE WIFI on 23 of the 24 Connect Amps that are all hardwired as they are all in a closet together.  I am trying to leave one wired AMP enabled for WIFI so that it creates the SONOSNET to support the Subs and connections from our iPhones.  The reason I am disabling the WFI on all the other 23 Amps is so that there less chance of interference with my regular home WIFI network.   When I try to turn these connect amp WIFI to disabled, they often enable after a minute or two.  Some stay disabled and other re-enable.  it is very frustrating.  

 

Question 1.  When I disable the WIFI on each of the wired connect amps, is that turning off the amp’s ability to be part of the SonosNet or is it simply turning off the Connect Amp’s ability to connect to my home WIFI?  

Question2:.  When I try to disable WIFI on many of the wired Connect Amps, the system automatically re-enables WIFI after a few seconds or minutes.  Why?  

Question3:  Do I even need to turn off WIFI at each Connect Amp?  If I leave all 24 Connect Amps WIFI Enabled, AND I leave the WIFI credentials off the Sonos System | Network, am I 100% only using SonosNet and therefore should not have interference with my home WIFI or create potential broadcast network storms provided there is some decent wireless channel separation?  

I hope this makes sense to all that take the time to read this and respond.  Thank you so much for taking the time and any help you may be  able to provide.  stay safe and healthy!

 

 

 

 

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Best answer by John B 3 February 2021, 21:50

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6 replies

J

Hi. Q1 - it disables the wireless radio, so that the unit cannot connect wirelessly to anything.

Q2 - Slightly surprised it does that, but maybe because it would leave the unit with no other means to connect otherwise?

Q3 - you would be using only SonosNet and Ethernet.  Without WiFi credentials Sonos units cannot use WiFi.

I don't think that eliminates interference, as WiFi is still operating.

Your controllers cannot connect to SonosNet. If they connect wirelessly it's via WiFi 

Broadcast storms are unrelated to channels or interference. 

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

If the WiFi won’t turn off it is possible the Sonos device isn’t seeing a good connection to the router.

With your setup I’d think turning off the radios in all but one device in the rack would make sense, they are likely close enough together to cause issues with mutual interference.

Many folks have found setting static/reserved IP addresses for all their Sonos devices, powering them down, rebooting router and controller and powering up the wired then un-wired Sonos makes the Sonos setup more stable.

 

The more times I read your post the more I lean to issues with the Ethernet connections.

I’d be really tempted to grab a 24 port dumb switch (check the Sonos problem hardware list) and eliminate the daisy-chain setup for direct to the new switch connections for 23 of them (one port needed for uplink) and hook the 24th, with the radio enabled to your main switch. Decent switches run in the just under $100 range.

I use these with no Sonos issues:

 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0044GH27U/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

H

Thanks to all for the quick responses.  I truly appreciate your efforts!!!

I tend to agree with everything said by both John B and Stanley_4 and your responses really help explain how the WIFI radio works inside the Amps.  Except for one issue, I never have had any Sonos playback issues.  So if there is an issue on the ethernet side of the way the wired AMPs are setup, then in 7 years I should have had some Sonos operational issues?  Honestly in 7 years maybe a handful of reboots to an amp here or there or a switch reboot maybe once a year and usually timed with a power outage.  Or maybe those AMPS even thought they are wired, have been using WIFI all along since the WIFI radios have been on all this time for 7 years!  But them again when i look at hte about report in the SONOS app, every AMP has WM0 listed which i believe means it is using ETHERNET.  

Yes i understand the controller connect through traditional WIFI and not SONOSNET.  

My goal is to reduce possible interference to the normal WIFI space and I agree that 24 AMPs all with WIFI enabled when they sit in a rack next to each other is going to cause mutual interference.  I also had a Boost involved until a few days ago that I have since removed as my cisco switch was reporting STP errors on it.  With that Boost gone my logs are now clean but I just can’t get the disabled WIFI setting to stick consistently on some of the AMPs.  They are all on DHCP with non static IPs.  I am going to try and isolate the amps that wont stick to disabled WIFI and wire them directly to some remaining open ports I still have on my smart cisco switch (take them off the daisy chain).  Then if that works and those AMPS are able to better retain the disabled WIFI setting, I will expand my switching gear to hardwire each of the 24 AMPs directly  with NO daisy chain.  If that doesnt work, i will also try static IPs but for me that may not be as concerning, as in 7 years no playback issues or sudden disconnects of sonos.  

any thoughts?  

 

Thanks again!!!

J

I think the max Sonos devices you can daisy chain is 6 (for STP reasons, I think).  That might explain the failure to retain the ‘Disable WiFi’ setting. 

WM:0 means Ethernet OR SonosNet.

ratty

The radio often can’t be disabled if a unit is daisy-chained, i.e. hung off another unit.

The system does various checks between the target device and the controller, presumably in an effort to ensure that a user can’t accidentally maroon a device.

Having disabled its radio a unit will try and reconnect with the controller. If for some reason this communication gets lost the unit will reverse the change and re-enable its radio.

It appears that in a daisy-chained arrangement a check can fail. Why this happens is not obvious, but it could be a timing issue as the target device needs to do a soft restart of its network interfaces, so there’d be STP renegotiation, etc.

T
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

Except for one issue, I never have had any Sonos playback issues.  So if there is an issue on the ethernet side of the way the wired AMPs are setup, then in 7 years I should have had some Sonos operational issues?

Unless it was ignoring the ethernet for 7 years, and relying on sonosnet instead all this time.  Perhaps you’ve had a flakey ethernet connection all this time and just didn’t know it...

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