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Group wifi settings - problems with streaming hi-res music

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Corry P
Userlevel 7
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I noticed that when leaving the 2 rooms playing over an evening (living room group with the wired Playbase and Kitchen Play:3), at some point the problem recurred and sound was only coming from the Playbase in the living room and the Play:3 in the kitchen.

Well, that makes a bit more sense (assuming there’s a “not” missing in that sentence, as I suspect).

Assuming it is the connection to the extender (the Magic 2) that is the issue, how can it be resolved? I use the Magic 2 because the internet comes into our house on another floor, and I have no connection points on the floor where my Sonos set-up is. What would a Boost do and how would I connect it? Does that get connected to the Magic 2 on the floor with my set-up, or on the other floor where the router and internet source is?

As with a speaker, we would prefer it if you wired a Boost directly to the router - it simplifies the connection, and reduces the number of “hops” incoming traffic makes (or at least keeps as many hops on Sonos as possible). When you wish to extend the reach of your WiFi signal, we recommend the use of a WiFi Mesh system as they back-haul on a separate connection and thus don’t half the available bandwidth. I don’t think powerline products half the bandwidth, but they are subject to external influences that other networking products aren’t. 

Seems strange that it is not receiving enough data, as the diagnostics for the Magic 2 shows a fairly strong data stream.

I can’t really comment on this - I only see Sonos performance statistics in the diagnostics, and they blame the source data path.

In terms of the technical team - is that online or phone support that is best?

I recommend a call - it’s much quicker for a troubleshooting session. Once a chat’s troubleshooting gets really involved the agent is expected to pass you on to the phone lines, so you may as well start there.

 

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
Smilja

In terms of the technical team - is that online or phone support that is best?

 

By phone in your case.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)
D
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Thanks @Corry P , impressed by the service. As an update from my side, I noticed that when leaving the 2 rooms playing over an evening (living room group with the wired Playbase and Kitchen Play:3), at some point the problem recurred and sound was only coming from the Playbase in the living room and the Play:3 in the kitchen. 

Assuming it is the connection to the extender (the Magic 2) that is the issue, how can it be resolved? I use the Magic 2 because the internet comes into our house on another floor, and I have no connection points on the floor where my Sonos set-up is. What would a Boost do and how would I connect it? Does that get connected to the Magic 2 on the floor with my set-up, or on the other floor where the router and internet source is? 

Seems strange that it is not receiving enough data, as the diagnostics for the Magic 2 shows a fairly strong data stream. 

In terms of the technical team - is that online or phone support that is best?

 

Thanks again

Corry P
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @DerkleineEnglaender 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Sorry for the delay. I’ve looked at the diagnostics and the Playbase is reporting issues with getting the stream from the source fast enough. As the Playbase is ethernet-wired, I would put this down to the extender it’s connected to. It doesn’t explain why grouping-in the Play:3 resolves it, however.

As the others have suggested, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team, who will be able to do some real-time troubleshooting with you.

Something easy to try first, however, would be to remove the ethernet connection to the Playbase and wire the Play:3 directly to the router instead. Put the Play:3 in charge of the group (select it first) and test. If that fixes the issue, you may want to keep the Play:3 there, have a new speaker there, or have a Boost permanently wired there instead. Having said that, I definitely recommend you get in touch with technical support before spending any money.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
D
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Thanks again for your assistance on this (both of you). Overall really pleased with Sonos and the Quobuz stream is very impressive (in case anyone hasnt tried it yet). Missing a couple of my favourite groups, but listening to music through it is impressive. I will keep everyone update on this and hope that this thread may be of use to others. Kudos to @ratty and @Smilja  for investing their time on helping me. Thumbs up to Community life. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Smilja

You’d be better off getting in touch with German Support by phone, since the staff there have experience with Vodafone and the routers provided by them. In case you’re a native speaker, there is English speaking staff too.

https://support.sonos.com/s/contact?language=de

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)
ratty

Someone should pick it up anyway but I’ll flag the post for official attention.

 

By the way, the reason the audio gets interrupted as a track is ending is that the next track is trying to download into the player buffer. The bandwidth required for a CD quality track is clearly much greater than for Apple/Spotify. For some reason this traffic burst is causing grief somewhere. Hopefully a look at the system internals may shed some light.

D
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Thanks - did that and it has given me a number 1226270626. How do I associate that to the problem I am experiencing? What happens next?

ratty

How do I submit/generate a diagnostic?

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/141

D
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How do I submit/generate a diagnostic?

ratty

To be honest, from here I can’t see anything immediately obvious which would explain the behaviour you report. Something is choking somewhere, causing packets to be dropped. 

I suggest you do in fact submit a diagnostic after a dropout incident. Note the number and post it here.

D
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Right - just established that :sweat_smile:

 

ratty

That was a somewhat strange post.

No, if you disable the wireless on the Playbase your surrounds/Sub won’t have anything to talk to.

D
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@ratty @Smilja  - I just found the following post on here: SONOS Compatibility with Devolo Magic 2 WIFI | Sonos Community

 

Does this help? I read that “To make sure that the system uses normal Wifi and not SonosNet, especially if you are in a spectrum crowded area, you must disable Wifi on all the sonos unit(s) wired to network (done in the mobile app). You know the system uses Wifi when all wireless sonos units gets an IP-adress from your DHCP. You can use the mobile app to update the wifi-network info with the sonos units, if there are issues to get the sonos to connect to the wifi.”

 

Does that mean I need to turn off wifi on the Playbase as it is wired? Might be going down entirely wrong path...

ratty

FWIW those powerline figures look okay, although a little modest for Magic 2.

D
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@Smilja  hi - thanks for the question. We dont have a Horizon Box. I will check the name of the router that we got from Vodafone (I live in Germany BTW). It is a TouchStone TG3442DE Telefonie-Gateway from Arris. 

D
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Smilja

@DerkleineEnglaender, Your ISP is Vodafone, is the router a “Connect Box”? Do you have a media player called “Horizon Box” also?

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)
ratty

By the way, seeing that the Devolo broadcasts on Channel 6, does that mean I should put the SonosNet  on Channel 6 too, or are there other settings here to consider?

You should separate SonosNet and WiFi by at least 5 channel numbers. Also the 2.4GHz WiFi should only be 20MHz width. I seem to recall that Devolo may default to 40MHz. You’d need to go into the Devolo WiFi adapter settings to check/change.

ratty

You need to open the menu, pick Settings, then enable Diagnostic mode. You can then hit a double-arrow icon top right on the main screen to display data rates.

D
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By the way, seeing that the Devolo broadcasts on Channel 6, does that mean I should put the SonosNet  on Channel 6 too, or are there other settings here to consider?

D
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D
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D
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Cheers ratty - downloaded the app. Seems full of information, just need to understand it :grin: . What should I look for? Devolo is the only system. 

 

ratty

All are showing WM:0 apart from the Move that is showing WM:1

Okay. That’s as it should be. 

If you want to check the Devolo data rate you can install their ‘Home Network’ app for iOS, but in my experience it only works fully if you have a Devolo WiFi present. Is the WiFi on the first floor coming from a Devolo adapter too? I just wanted to check there isn’t any other make of adapter present. The mention of TP-Link earlier has me concerned...

Something is obviously causing packet loss somewhere. It could be on the incoming powerline feed, but the fact that the Play:3 works okay, and the surrounds/Sub give up early is a bit strange unless there was 5GHz interference.

 

The Sonos internal diagnostics would shed more light on why things are breaking, but I dare say that if you contacted Sonos Support with the diagnostic number their first reaction could be, as @Smilja suggests, to blame the powerline connection.

 

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