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Question

Only 2 of 4 Era 100 speakers will play when grouped. App shows all grouped and playing.

  • June 29, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 7 views
C

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone has seen this before because we've reached the point where we've exhausted most of the obvious troubleshooting.

This is a commercial installation at a shop.

System:

  • 4 x Era 100
  • Sonos S2
  • All speakers on the latest firmware
  • All on the same WiFi network
  • Cisco Meraki enterprise WiFi
  • Same VLAN
  • Same subnet
  • Same AP

The issue:

Every speaker works perfectly on its own.

Any combination of 2 speakers will group and play correctly.

As soon as I add a third speaker to the group, the Sonos app shows all speakers grouped and playing, but only the first two actually output audio. The speaker added last is always silent.

I've now installed a fourth speaker and the behaviour is identical. I can only ever get audio from two grouped speakers, regardless of which speakers I choose.

Another symptom is that when the system is in this failed state, the two speakers that are playing will occasionally stutter or briefly stop and start.

Things we've already checked:

  • Factory reset all speakers.
  • Set the system up from scratch.
  • Confirmed all speakers are on the latest firmware.
  • Tried multiple music sources (Spotify and internet radio).
  • All speakers are connected to the same AP, VLAN and subnet.
  • All speakers are discovered correctly and respond immediately in the app.

Our network engineer has also spent a considerable amount of time investigating the network.

He has confirmed:

  • Bridge Mode.
  • Bonjour.
  • No client isolation.
  • IGMP snooping enabled.
  • Added an IGMP querier as a test.
  • Multiple packet captures showing clean multicast behaviour.
  • No multicast drops.
  • No missing SSDP responses.
  • No stale multicast memberships.
  • Speakers are discovering each other correctly.

He also confirmed that we have multiple other branches running Sonos on the same Meraki configuration, including sites with three or more speakers, without this issue.

At this stage we're unsure whether this is a Sonos software issue or whether there's something unique about this installation.

Has anyone seen behaviour like this before?

    3 replies

    Airgetlam
    • Airgetlam
    • June 29, 2026

    What does Bonjour have to do with anything? Are you using AirPlay 2, by chance? When you say ‘internet radio’, which services have you tried?

    Why did you factory reset? 

    As a guess, this is either simple wifi interference , or possibly multiple vlans, but I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it. Don’t post the resulting diagnostic number here. They’re likely more familiar with Meraki installs than I am. But Sonos is designed for home networks, not Enterprise networks. 

    There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

    When you speak directly to the Support staff, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your network and Sonos system.

    Bruce
    C
    • Chrisso92
    • Author
    • Contributor I
    • June 29, 2026

    No AirPlay is being used, everything is controlled directly through the Sonos app.

    I've reproduced the issue with Spotify as well as internet radio, so it doesn't appear to be specific to one music source.

    The factory reset was simply one of the troubleshooting steps after the issue first appeared.

    The speakers are all on the same VLAN, same subnet and the same AP. Our network engineer has spent quite a bit of time investigating this and has also taken multiple packet captures. Multicast, SSDP and speaker discovery all appear normal, and he hasn't found any obvious network issues.

    I'll submit a diagnostic while the issue is occurring and contact Sonos Support. Hopefully the diagnostics provide a clue.

    Stanley_4
    • Stanley_4
    • Grand Maestro
    • June 29, 2026

    That really sounds like a security feature on your LAN blocking the necessary speaker to speaker communication needed for the Group to function.

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