Which channel is the WiFi using, and is it set to 20MHz width? Is it at least 5 channels away from SonosNet?

You might do better with SonosNet on ch 1 or 6, moving the WiFi as required. Your channel 11 may appear clear but microwave ovens tend to affect it more than the others. I wonder whether that has any bearing on the fact that it’s the kitchen player that sometimes struggles.

For grouped play, see if it helps to start the group from Drawing Room and add the others.

Note that the matrix is just a snapshot and RF conditions can change. For instance a strong Bluetooth signal could affect things.

Hi Ratty.

Thanks for the response.

The wifi is a Velop mesh so running on multiple channels with many hidden - channels 1, 5, & 8.

Various channel widths which it configures automatically. Channel 1 is 40Mhz and the rest 20.

The microwave certainly gives problems when in use but I can live with that.

I’ll definitely give the Drawing room idea a go and take a look at whether I can move the mesh system - it does seem to have a mind (somewhat demented) of it’s own.

I’ve tried to switch off mice & keyboards using bluetooth but not the phones and macs yet. I’ll give that a go too.

Thanks again!

Some of these WiFi mesh systems can be unruly beasts. Your Velop’s channel choices are a little odd: ch1/40MHz puts the secondary on ch5, and that overlaps with ch8.

Ch8 overlaps with your current choice of ch11 for SonosNet and won’t be doing it much good.

Apropos the Drawing Room suggestion, the first room in a group contains the ‘Group Coordinator’ node. This does the heavy lifting, fetching the stream and distributing it to the group peers. Choosing the room with the best wireless connection (or ideally a wired one) helps optimise the use of SonosNet wireless bandwidth.

Oh - I assumed that the boost would become Group Coordinator. 

I’ll have a go at dominating the mesh - each node has to be configured separately as changing the master node just then allows one of the slave nodes to switch to channel 1.

Cheers!

The Boost is a pure networking device. 

So - the the wifi mesh is now on channels 1, 4, and 7. All 20MHz as I read that using 40 can cause issues. Sonosnet is configured to be 11.

Even making the drawing room the first unit selected in the party mode the Kitchen still loses packets and dropped out.

So I moved the Kitchen unit to be about 3 feet away from the Boost and about 10 feet from the Drawing Room unit. It now shows signal strength of 61 in and 70 out. Unfortunately the Kitchen unit still drops packets.

The Kitchen unit is the only “S2 grade” unit I have; it’s a Play1 gen 1.

I now wonder if

1. There is a compatibility issue between S1 systems and the new devices.
2. The kitchen unit needs a firmware upgrade only available via S2 (I don’t have S2 installed anywhere).
3. The kitchen play1 is faulty.
4. The new generation of sonos units are poorer quality in terms of networking reliability.

Not sure what else to try other than buy a nice cheap 2nd hand old sonos unit to replace the newer one.

Any ideas?

I actually put the Kitchen unit where the Drawing unit currently. The Drawing room unit was getting 54 in and 50 out. The Kitchen unit, in the same position, gets 38 in and 43 out. And still drops packets.

If the Kitchen unit can be moved to within 3 feet of the Boost, and the Boost is (presumably) connected to your router by EtherNet, why can’t you wire the Kitchen speaker?

No - there are loads of users with such setups and without such problems

Cannot rule that out

In fact there has been continual improvement

Buy an even newer, better one?

You could submit a system diagnostic when the speaker drops out and post the confirmation number back here.

I am curious about the proximity of speaker and Boost though, as mentioned above.

Edit - looking at the matrix i wonder if the Boost is in fact wired to the router.  Please would you confirm what it is wired to?

The Boost is wired to the router. 

Moving the Kitchen unit next to the Boost (which is by the router in another room on another floore) and in place of the Drawing Room Zoneplayer were just experiments. I think these experiments suggest that it’s nothing to do with channels, interference, or location. 

My experience to date is that newer is not equal to better :-( 

Thanks for reply.  I wuold have expected the Boost to be the Root of the SonosNet mesh rather than a Secondary.  The router must be acting as the Root.  I don’’t think this accounts for your problem.

Is the Boost at least a couple of feet away from the router - it mustn’t be too close.

I believe, from posts elsewhere, that the Boost is shown as secondary because it’s plugged into a switch which is in front of the router.

While playing some music I did a ping test to the Kitchen unit. Interesting…… not sure what the DUP! alert means. It gets significantly worse the more units I add to the group. All the units are on reserved IP addresses so unlikely to be caused by duplicate IP addresses.

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=225 ttl=64 time=20.065 ms (DUP!)

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=225 ttl=64 time=30.702 ms (DUP!)

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=226 ttl=64 time=53.061 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=227 ttl=64 time=5.369 ms

Request timeout for icmp_seq 228

Request timeout for icmp_seq 229

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=230 ttl=64 time=5.271 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=231 ttl=64 time=6.362 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=231 ttl=64 time=8.619 ms (DUP!)

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=232 ttl=64 time=4.619 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=233 ttl=64 time=7.101 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=234 ttl=64 time=4.088 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=235 ttl=64 time=9.760 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=236 ttl=64 time=6.242 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=237 ttl=64 time=6.679 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=238 ttl=64 time=27.517 ms

Request timeout for icmp_seq 239

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=240 ttl=64 time=3.710 ms

Request timeout for icmp_seq 241

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=242 ttl=64 time=6.839 ms

Request timeout for icmp_seq 243

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=244 ttl=64 time=5.064 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=245 ttl=64 time=7.130 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.11: icmp_seq=246 ttl=64 time=6.699 ms

^C

--- 192.168.1.11 ping statistics ---

248 packets transmitted, 226 packets received, +8 duplicates, 8.9% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 2.492/8.283/110.718/12.207 ms

Kevins-MacBook:~ kevin$ 

I don't know what that error means either.

Yes I suspected a switch until you said it was direct into the router!

I wouldn't expect it to make a difference,  but could you try connecting the Boost experimentally directly to the router, but not placing the Boost too close to the router?

I know it’s been a while but….

I did some more experiments. I turned off my home wifi so no interference. The hard disk with the music library was connected directly to the Boost. Same problems as before with dropouts and lost packets to the Kitchen unit (Play:1).

I also removed the switch. Same problems.

Meanwhile, my old Play:3 had it’s power supply repaired. I swapped out the play:1 in the kitchen for the old play:3. Exactly the same position as the play:1. I can now in party mode without problems and without worrying which device is the primary in the group.

Either the Play:1 is faulty or the quality with respect to n/w  ability as gone backwards.

Anybody know how long the warranty on a play:1 1st gen is and how I get support from Sonos to repair, replace, refund?

Thanks for all the help and suggestions. Much appreciated!

I’m sorry, turning off your home WiFi does not obviate potential WiFi interference. It can be created by any electrical device, and also can come from outside your home, again from either WiFi or other electrical sources, or even sunspots. 

Any PLAY:1 at this point would be out of warranty, it’s been tears since they were sold. 

Your best bet would be to call Sonos Support directly to discuss it.

When you speak directly to the phone folks, there are more options available for them to assist you.