Here we go again...

  • 19 December 2021
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67 replies

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

I would just call your router and extender access points HighChapparall_2G for their 2.4Ghz bands and set those to fixed channel 11, rather than ‘Auto’. 

Similarly, just call your router and extender access points HighChapparall_5G for their 5Ghz bands and set those to fixed channel(s) too, rather than ‘Auto’.   

Add both bands/SSID’s to your Sonos App network settings as mentioned previously - if problems persist, then it will likely be that SSDP multicast discovery/broadcast is not working correctly over the entire subnet, either between the two bands, and/or between the two different access points, which is not unheard of with a few devices …and there maybe other settings available on your router/access point that ‘may’ need to be set, such as IGMP snooping, or in some cases you may have to enable multicast and broadcast data if that is set to ‘disabled’ on the device by default ( …just as examples of some device settings).

Finally, channel 1 for SonosNet for all the non-portable Sonos devices should be fine.

I hope that information assists.

Thanks Ken, I will play around with this some more, but my wife and I also use the wifi for work and I’m hesitant to make adjustments like this sometimes, hate to mess up everything else that’s working.

So in your experience its fine to have the SSID the same for the router and the extender? (for a given frequency band I mean).

We have TVS and stuff all setup so adjusting these name is possible, it might be my best bet for now to just adjust the HighChaparral_2GEXT in the extender to be named HighChaparral the router also only supports 2.4 GHz.

That way only casita stuff might be impacted and the only 5G access anyway is via the extender so leaving that as is makes sense.

 

 

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

OK I can see that all the PLAY3 devices are connected to the SSID in the house - HighChaparral - despite the app knowing only about HighChaparral_2GEXT.

Even the PLAY3 devices in the casita (where HighChaparral is weak and HighChaparral_2GEXT is strong) are connected to HighChaparral the weaker of the two SSIDs.

Those devices were connected using the phone while I was in the casita too.

This is so so bewildering...

Ken_Griffiths

I would just call your router and extender access points HighChapparall_2G for their 2.4Ghz bands and set those to fixed channel 11, rather than ‘Auto’. 

Similarly, just call your router and extender access points HighChapparall_5G for their 5Ghz bands and set those to fixed channel(s) too, rather than ‘Auto’.   

Add both bands/SSID’s to your Sonos App network settings as mentioned previously - if problems persist, then it will likely be that SSDP multicast discovery/broadcast is not working correctly over the entire subnet, either between the two bands, and/or between the two different access points, which is not unheard of with a few devices …and there maybe other settings available on your router/access point that ‘may’ need to be set, such as IGMP snooping, or in some cases you may have to enable multicast and broadcast data if that is set to ‘disabled’ on the device by default ( …just as examples of some device settings).

Finally, channel 1 for SonosNet for all the non-portable Sonos devices should be fine.

I hope that information assists.

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

I tried setting up again but same behavior, never appears in System tab of S2 app.

Here’s a source of confusion for me, the iPhone connects to the strongest SSID so that varies as I move from house to casita.

The S2 app also has network settings and I have no idea what this mean, in my app it says under Network Settings one network - HighChaparral_2GEXT. 

What is this? the app runs on the phone so will leverage its internet services, so why does the app even care about SSID? 

If two of my PLAY3 devices are in the house near HighChaparral and the other two are in the casita near HighChaparral_2GEXT then why does the app list just a single SSID? what does the app do with that SSID? 

I can see Update Networks and when I select that I get a question about do I want to add a trusted network and so on, if I click Yes it says “Make sure all your products are powered on, this could take 1 - 2 minutes”.

I’m concerned that this might upset the entire system after all the effort it took to get the PLAY3 devices connected.

Without documentation for this all and all these options and setting, this becomes a guessing game.

 

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

The SonosNet channel in the iPhone S2 app is set to 1 and I think it has been throughout this excercise.

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

OK here’s some details:

This is the wifi settings for the main house router, I don’t care that you can see the SSID name, I’m past caring!

 

Here are the settings for the extender a Netgear WN2500RP:

 

These are the settings that have been in place for several years.

 

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

I reran the ROAM setup from the iPhone app and during that I used the spy tool to rescan the network. At no point did the ROAM appear on the network, not even after the iPhone said that device had been connected to HOUSE_2GEXT.

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

The ROAM certainly is not accessible or not responding to UPnP probe messages:

 

Every UPnP device on the network should have responded to the UDP probe requests that thos tool just sent...

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

This is a huge problem IMHO, with modern computer centric products. The user is often compelled to resort to experimentation, trial and error using a mix of judgement and experience to resolve issues.

Familiar questions like “did you try resetting” or “did you pull the power cord” or “have you tried resetting your router” and so on.

These really indicate to me that the company - Sonos - does not have a firm grip on the technology, not sufficient anyway to make customers lives much easier.

I’m a competent software engineer, decades of experience and a former hardware engineer with significant experience of radio, audio, radio, digital and analog electronics and even I get frustrated like hello with all this.

It seems Sonos just don’t care, it’s not important and can I blame them? most computer based products today are like this, designed to work easily for the simplest configurations but simply not caring when things are out of the ordinary.

The crazy thing is that if Sonos did invest more effort in these areas they’d start to reap benefits like:

  1. Customer support calls would be both fewer in number and less difficult to resolve.
  2. Their own staff would benefit in their ability to test these products as they enhance them.

For example a “debug sonos” app or mode might be hugely helpful in that it could gather lots of data about the user’s network(s) channels, attached devices etc etc etc and make it much easier to identify conflicts or poorly set configuration.

If my ROAM doesn’t appear in my S2 app then why not leverage the fact that the app was able to communicate with the ROAM because I was able to go through the ROAM setup? Why can’t the app connect to the ROAM over bluetooth and interrogate it as a an aid to understanding the problem?

There is no way at all that I can “see” inside the ROAM to see what it is doing or anything.

Perhaps its time to run the old Intel UPnP power tools...

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

I can’t find a manual, detailed documentation on the S2 app, anywhere, even this just talks about what the app is used for but not the meaning of numerous features and options.

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

The sonos app on the iPhone, under “Network” says:

Manage Networks   >

SonosNet Channel  >

Channel 1

 

Clicking the “Manage” arrow, lists the single name:

HOUSE_2GEXT

there’s an Update Networks option too, it displays:

“Do you want to add a trusted network to Sonos or make a change to an existing network?”

I really have no idea where this leads or whether any of this plays a part with the ROAM misbehaving.

 

 

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

 

   A WiFi extender wirelessly connected to “HOUSE” and generating two networks “HOUSE_2G” and “HOUSE_5G”

   Two PLAY3 units, setup without issues earlier, setup in the Casita 

   ROAM setup a few minutes ago - message in app said it was being connected to “HOUSE_2G”

   The phone itself, while in Casita, was auto connected to “HOUSE_2G” (the strongest signal when in Casita).

 

The credentials are identical for all three wifi networks.

  

So just to clarify, is your router WiFi called HOUSE_2G (2.4Ghz band) and HOUSE_5G (5Ghz band) and is this the same as your repeater SSID’s? (They should be the same). .. if you add devices to your 2.4Ghz band, I would also the 5Ghz SSID to your Sonos App network settings too and ensure each separate band on your router and repeater are on the same channels, so as an example you might have…

HOUSE_2G SSID on both router and repeater set on channel 11 (20MHz channel width)
HOUSE_5G SSID on both router and repeater set on channel 48 (20/40/80MHz channel width)

and both SSID’s listed in your Sonos App network settings. 

 

Hi Ken,

The main router - wired to the external internet is named HOUSE (not really it’s name but you get the idea). The extender - situated in our casita - exposes two networks HOUSE_2GEXT and HOUSE_5GEXT. 

Naturally these two networks provide a stronger signal to devices situated inside the casita like my desktop PC and a TV etc as well as portable devices people bring into the casita.

As for the specific RF channels used, I’ve simply never looked at these and have no idea what they are set to, I haven’t even “logged in” to either the router or extender for years!

 

Also bear in mind the ROAM was working fine most of the time until yesterday’s running around, the only difference now is that the BRIDGE has gone and one of the PLAY3 units is wired to the router (HOUSE).

I wasn’t aware about any sensitivity regarding specific RF channels, is there a doc somewhere?

Thx

 

 

 

 

Ken_Griffiths

In the above example, don’t forget when using SonosNet for your non-portable Sonos devices, to set the SonosNet channel in the Sonos App, so it’s at least 5 channels away from your chosen 2.4Ghz WiFi channel... so in this (example) case you would set SonosNet to channel 1 or 6 …and not 11.

Ken_Griffiths

 

   A WiFi extender wirelessly connected to “HOUSE” and generating two networks “HOUSE_2G” and “HOUSE_5G”

   Two PLAY3 units, setup without issues earlier, setup in the Casita 

   ROAM setup a few minutes ago - message in app said it was being connected to “HOUSE_2G”

   The phone itself, while in Casita, was auto connected to “HOUSE_2G” (the strongest signal when in Casita).

 

The credentials are identical for all three wifi networks.

  

So just to clarify, is your router WiFi called HOUSE_2G (2.4Ghz band) and HOUSE_5G (5Ghz band) and is this the same as your repeater SSID’s? (They should be the same). .. if you add devices to your 2.4Ghz band, I would also the 5Ghz SSID to your Sonos App network settings too and ensure each separate band on your router and repeater are on the same channels, so as an example you might have…

HOUSE_2G SSID on both router and repeater set on channel 11 (20MHz channel width)
HOUSE_5G SSID on both router and repeater set on channel 48 (20/40/80MHz channel width)

and both SSID’s listed in your Sonos App network settings. 

Ken_Griffiths

If you have different SSID’s for your WiFi network, at the very least you will need to add those to your Sonos App network settings (see screenshot example), but I think you’re much better off ‘mirroring’ the WiFi of your router (same SSID’s etc.) on your repeater.

1 Attachment
Ken_Griffiths

The ‘wifi repeater’ should ideally have the same SSID/Password/WiFi Channel and channel-width (20MHz preferably for 2.4Ghz band) as your main router.

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

The physical setup here is as follows:

Main house

   WiFi router wired to incoming internet, WiFi network named “HOUSE”

   PLAY3 connected to router

   Three other PLAY3 units setup earlier.

   One is the main house, two in the Casita

Casita

   A WiFi extender wirelessly connected to “HOUSE” and generating two networks “HOUSE_2G” and “HOUSE_5G”

   Two PLAY3 units, setup without issues earlier, setup in the Casita 

   ROAM setup a few minutes ago - message in app said it was being connected to “HOUSE_2G”

   The phone itself, while in Casita, was auto connected to “HOUSE_2G” (the strongest signal when in Casita).

 

The credentials are identical for all three wifi networks.

   

 

 

 

Ken_Griffiths

Maybe switch off the repeater temporarily and see if it switches/appears in your App (fully close and reopen the App).

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

That’s not how you factory rest the Roam… try this:

  1. Power off the Roam (5+ second press) on rear power button until you hear the 4 descending shutdown tones.
  2. Wait 10 seconds
  3. Hold down Play/Pause and power on with power button - keep Play/Pause pressed until you see it flash Amber. Then let go the button.
  4. Status LED will switch to flashing Green, at which point open the S2 Sonos App and setup the device on your existing system.

Well I got all this now but it just won’t play ball, after setting it up the app says something like  “it might not appear in the system” tab so hold the power switch for 5 seconds and then switch the unit back on then “in the app, continue with the rest of the setup” but the app sees nothing.

In the app searching for “nearby products” again just seems to hang endlessly.

During setup I could see it was connecting the ROAM to one of the WiFi channels generated by my repeater, not the network the PLAY3 are connected to.

 

 

Ken_Griffiths

That’s not how you factory reset the Roam… try this:

  1. Power off the Roam (5+ second press) on rear power button until you hear the 4 descending shutdown tones.
  2. Wait 10 seconds
  3. Hold down Play/Pause - and power on with rear power button - keep Play/Pause button pressed until you see LED flash Amber. Then let go the button.
  4. Status LED will switch to flashing Green, at which point open the S2 Sonos App and setup the device on your existing system.
K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

The ROAM is not acting as expected.

Here’s the instructions, (red is what I think is missing and should be included):

 

  1. Press and hold the power button on the back of your Roam for 5 seconds to power it off. You will hear an initial chime and after the five seconds another, different chime, the status LED on the front near the top, will turn off.
  2. While holding the Play/Pause button, press and release the power button on the back of your Roam, the LED will initially be a slowly flashing white.
  3. Continue holding the Play/Pause button until the light on the front flashes orange and white, this usually takes between X and Y seconds.
  4. The light will eventually flash green when the process is complete (this usually takes between J and K seconds) and your Sonos Roam is ready to be set up.

 

Mine doesn’t ever flash orange/white even after holding for like a minute, it just stays white…

My mistake - the need to hold the power switch for five seconds when switching it off was overlooked, I heard the chime and had no idea there was a second chime to wait for.

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

What I loathe about the roam is the audio cue when I switch it off, but silence when I switch it on, this is the kind of detail that is just hard to understand how nobody cared to do that.

Anyway I’m having trouble with this part, the app can’t detect it (or it doesn’t seem to even after several minutes) and I wonder if the ROAM is somehow connecting to a different WiFi network (rather than the apparently transient one created by the PLAY3 setup).

 

 

J

Of course I’ll need to setup the ROAM again I guess, I suppose I should just dig out the original setup guide for that.

I would try just powering off and on first. Btw the Roam can connect only to WiFi not SonosNet but that doesn't stop other devices connecting via SonosNet.

J

Because you factory reset the devices your system treats them as new devices and registers them to your existing Sonos account.

I believe Sonos Radio HD is a paid subscription service but none of this resetting could have triggered that.

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

Of course I’ll need to setup the ROAM again I guess, I suppose I should just dig out the original setup guide for that.

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