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Hello,

I’m having a weird issues with my Sonos setup.

Let me first give some information about my setup.

I have a dozen Sonos devices (Play:1, One, One SL and Roam). All these devices are connected through WiFi to my Wireless network (UDM-Pro with UAP’s). So I do not use SonosNet, nor wired Sonos devices.

I have a separate IoT subnet for my Sonos devices, and my controllers are on another subnet. My UAP SSID’s are also split up into different WiFi networks.

Although my Sonos devices are on another network, for now I have allowed them through the firewall with restrictions only based on their static IP (no port restrictions). I have also enabled mDNS, IGMP snooping, Multicast enhancement.

My controllers are installed on 4 devices: Windows PC, Surface Pro 2017, Samsung Android phone, Huawei Android phone.

Below is a per controller device issue description:

1. Windows PC (Wired) - No issue, connects and works, sometimes with limited delay.

2. Surface Pro 2017 (Wired) - No issue, connects and works, sometimes with limited delay.

3. Samsung Android phone (WiFi):

  • 5GHz band on the controller network turned off, so phone connects to 2.4Ghz: It works.
  • 5GHz band on the controller network turned on, so phone connects to 5Ghz: It doesn’t work (Sonos system not found)

4. Surface Pro 2017 (WiFi) - Does not work, neither on 2.4GHz as 5GHz network (Sonos system not found)

5. Huawei Android phone (WiFi) - Works on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz band

The Sonos devices are a connected to the IoT SSID on the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band depending on Sonos device.

Has anyone encountered this somewhat strange (to me) issue?

It seems to me that this is any issue on the controller device side and not on the network side. I can live with using only the 2.4GHz band on my controller network. The biggest issue for me is that the SP2017 cannot connect through WiFi, because when I work on that (undocked) I do not want to go to my phone everytime to change/add songs/volume.

Thanks in advance.

Steven

Hi @stevenbe, welcome to the community.

 

I’ll try to address a couple of points since you provided a lot of information in your post :slight_smile:

 

We don’t recommend the use of Sonos devices and controllers across multiple subnets, but if you have the skills to be able to configure this and get it working then that’s great, but just be aware that our customer care team will be unable to help with any unsupported configurations.

 

I believe the issue with your Samsung device not connecting to the devices while on 5GHz is not based solely on that controller, rather a misconfiguration on the network. Does the 5GHz band of that controller subnet have additional rules to be configured that don’t directly reflect those set on the 2.4? I ask this as you’ve mentioned you’re allowing cross-subnet operation between the Sonos devices and the controllers and some routers will require you to make these changes for both wireless bands, as well as any guest networks (if applicable).

 

As for the Surface Pro on WiFi - a simple check to make would be whether the network profile is set to Public or Private. You can find this by clicking the WiFi icon in the system tray and selecting Properties under the connected network. Then, check the Network Profile is set to Private, if it’s not, please change it to private, then restart the Sonos controller app. To pre-empt a question - even though they’re the same network it’s completely possible that your Ethernet connection is set to private but the WiFi connection is not, since your PC technically sees these as separate connections from each other.

 

Once you’ve checked these couple of things, let me know how you get on!

Hey James,

Thanks.

I have checked and tested some things.

The only difference between using only 2.4GHz band and both 2.4GHz/5GHz bands is that in the mixed setup there is an option to force high performance users to the 5GHz band (this is not enabled).

I do not have specific rules for 2.4GHz vs 5GHz band. I also have tried disabling the WPA3 mixed support, country roaming enhancements, BBS transition with WNM with no succes.

Additionally, I borrowed and tested some other tablets (Samsung Tab6Lite, Surface Go and Surface Pro 2) and these give the same issues as with the Surface Pro 2017 (so no connection on neither 2.4GHhz as 5GHz, wired works fine). Basically all tablets have the same issues and for the phones, Huawei works on both WiFi bands, Samsung only on 2.4GHz.

All Network profiles are set to Private.

I also tested all devices connected directly on the IoT network and there it works. So it is possibly a (WiFi) network issue, but I still find it strange that it treats the 4 wireless controllers differently when on a different subnet. And also differences between wired and wireless controllers since all the controllers are on the same network.

Does Sonos have a specific connection requirements for controllers that could be unavailable on specific Controller hardware (wired vs wireless)?

I also tested all devices connected directly on the IoT network and there it works. So it is possibly a (WiFi) network issue, but I still find it strange that it treats the 4 wireless controllers differently when on a different subnet. And also differences between wired and wireless controllers since all the controllers are on the same network.

This pretty much confirms to me that there’s something going on preventing connections across subnets, which is to be expected.

 As I mentioned in my previous post, one of the system requirements is that all Sonos players and controllers are connected to the same subnet - mainly to improve the security of the system and prevent connections from unwanted parties. Unfortunately I can’t provide any direct guidance on getting around this restriction and I can only advise running all of the devices across the same subnet.

 

Does Sonos have a specific connection requirements for controllers that could be unavailable on specific Controller hardware (wired vs wireless)?

No. The system requirements page lists the various criteria to be met when trying to connect a Sonos system to a network or a controller device to a Sonos household. The only differences between a wired and wireless setup would be settings specific to that connection type (i.e. you wouldn’t need to worry about Spanning Tree Protocol support on a system running 100% wirelessly).

Try disabling Multicast Enhancement on the Ubiquiti kit. Another user found this helped. 

Disabling Mulitcast Enhancement did not help.

Thank you both for trying to help.

Hi @stevenbe 

Please try the following:

  1. Log into the UniFi controller
  2. Click the Settings tab on the left sidebar
  3. If you are using the "New User Interface" (new UI), you will have to switch first to the "Classic View" in order to see more settings. Your are using the new UI, when the banner "Not seeing everything? Go to Classic Settings" is offered on the top of the page. Click on the link "Classic Settings" to switch to the Classic Settings, otherwise continue with Step 4.
  4. Click Wireless Networks under the Settings page
  5. Click Edit next to the network SSID
  6. Verify Guest Policy and disable it if enabled. Click on the Save button at the bottom of the page.
  7. Verify and disable the options Block LAN to WLAN Multicast and Broadcast Data and Auto-Optimize Network.
  8. Once completed, allow up to a minute for the AP to provision (apply the settings) and restore online connection.

However, as @James L. mentioned, having your system on split subnets is not supported, so resolving that may be the only solution.

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