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Sonos Amp disappears

  • 18 February 2024
  • 14 replies
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The Ninth
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

Hi,

I just setup a new system in our holiday home, with a Sonos Amp in the living room and two Sonos Ones in the bedroom.

Originally the Amp was connected via cable and the Ones via WiFi, but it seems that is making issues with our Unifi switch/access point. Initially I could not even add the Amp to the system, but after I switched it to WiFi that worked.

But now the Amp disappears from the network after 30-60 minutes of it coming online. So initially when I start the Amp I see it in the Sonos app, but at some point it disappears and is also not reachable anymore on network level (ping). I tried to switch it back to cable instead of WiFi but the problem is exactly the same.

Could that be again an issue with Unifi? Unifi recommends having all Sonos devices either wired or wireless, but in my case this issue also occurs with all devices being wireless.

Any ideas on how to debug/solve this?

Regards, Robert

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Best answer by The Ninth 19 February 2024, 20:23

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14 replies

buzz

Does rebooting AMP bring it back online?

A

Following. I’ve got similar issues occasionally with Unify Dream Router and Sonos AMP. All other Sonos equipment including AMP is connected wireless. Recently I had to reboot (pull the plug) on the AMP to get it responsive again (still played music but did not respond to changes to songs or volume). 

 

Since the hard reboot it has worked ok again for a few days, but clearly disturbing and annoying.

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

Something important to keep in mind is that most Sonos will connect to SonosNet, not your WiFi when any Sonos device is wired to your Ethernet. Note that it is important to not wire only a Sub or Surround to Ethernet as that often leads to frustrations.

There is a good Ubiquity Settings topic here in the forums.

 

 

The Ninth
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

Good morning, thanks for your help!

 

Does rebooting AMP bring it back online?

Yes, it does. What does that fact indicate to you?

 

Something important to keep in mind is that most Sonos will connect to SonosNet, not your WiFi when any Sonos device is wired to your Ethernet.

The issue also occurs when all my Sonos devices are connected wirelessly. That is why I am unsure if the issue is even related to Unifi, I read the Sonos/Unifi issues happen mostly when mixing wired and wirelessly.

When I had the initial setup issues I tried a lot of the recommendations, but none helped. The only thing that helped back then was switching the AMP from wired to wireless. Only then I switched the AMP back to wired to try if it helps.

But anyway, I‘ll try some of those recommended settings again. 

buzz

We can’t rule out a hardware fault with AMP. Have you reserved IP addresses? Are the PING times to AMP and other clients relatively constant?

The Ninth
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

It may really be related to Unifi again. I made some changes today in the morning, and at least so far the AMP did not disappear anymore.

I followed the documentation on GitHub, which was linked by @Stanley_4. That documentation is for Unifi network application version 7, while I am already on 8. Some of the settings from version 7 seem to be not available anymore on version 8, and others already default to what is recommended.

In the end, I changed only two settings, the first being for the Wireless network:

Wireless Network -> Set configuration mode from Auto to Manual
Wireless Network -> Multicast Enhancement - enabled

And the second for the port of the switch that the AMP is connected to, in the Port Manager:

Affected Switch Port -> Set configuration mode from Auto to Manual
Affected Switch Port -> Spanning Tree Protocol - disabled

My network setup is relatively straight forward, one USW 24 PoE switch, to which both the AMP and a single U6 LR access point are wired. The two Sonos ONEs connect wirelessly via the access point. For Internet access, the switch is connected to a UDM Pro router/firewall.

I’ll monitor the situation for a few days, but for now I am positive that it is resolved. At least till this morning, it took usually not more than an hour for the AMP to disappear after a reboot.

Interestingly, I already followed the same steps based on the same documentation when I had trouble adding the AMP to my system. Back then it did not help, for adding the AMP only switching it to wireless worked.

buzz

If more than one SONOS unit is wired to the switch, make sure it is set to STP not RSTP (the default). Also I don’t recommend wiring any SONOS units to the UDM PRO. I once had a couple PLAY:3’s wired through a UDM PRO. Immediately after a network reset I was getting 900+Mbps. About 20min later I was getting about 19Kbps and PING times were terrible, if the packets were not dropped. Classic storm,

The Ninth
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

If more than one SONOS unit is wired to the switch, make sure it is set to STP not RSTP (the default). Also I don’t recommend wiring any SONOS units to the UDM PRO.

Thanks! I do have a network outlet next to one of the SONOS ONEs, and I’d like to try to run it wired. Regarding the UDM PRO, it is only connected to the switch and all clients are connected to the switch, so that is not an issue.

So far it is still looking good with my setup, the AMP survived the night. :-)

Btw, because you mention 900 Mbps, it seems the AMP only has 100 Mbit interfaces?

 

buzz

All SONOS units are 10/100. Back in 2005 you could use SONOS units as wireless mesh points and switches by wiring to or between SONOS and other products. At that time there were no other consumer products that could mesh. Under very favorable conditions speeds in the 10-20Mbps range could be achieved. This was great when our Internet connections were in the 2 Mbps (or less) class and we had a couple computers and a printer on the network. At this point, speeds in this class are lame and there are many very capable mesh systems on the consumer market. I’m not convinced that the current consumer mesh systems are quite as painless to setup and maintain as the original SonosNet mesh, but a modern mesh system is considered “broken” if it runs at 10 Mbps. Each new generation noticeably improves.

In your case I think that you’ll find that WiFi6 will significantly improve wireless connectivity. 

buzz

Personally, I’m waiting to give WiFi7 more time to “bake” before I update. I’m partially WiFi6 in my home. In spite of all the hype, the WiFi7 standard was formally adopted earlier this year and we are just beginning to see a flood of WiFi6 products entering the market. WiFi7 products are still in the pre first generation, early adoption stage.

The Ninth
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

Hi,

How does the SONOS devices decide whether to use WiFi or SonosNet, now that I have my AMP wired?

Regarding WiFi version, in my Unifi network application the 5 GHz band is shown as WiFi 6, but the 2.4 GHz band only at WiFi 4, for whatever reason. The two SONOS ONEs are shown as connected to the 2.4 GHz band. 
 

 

buzz

Ubiquiti must use use the standard supported by the client. WiFi6 access points are backwards compatible with older units that cannot make sense out of WiFi6 advanced details. Full WiFi6 support requires a client hardware upgrade. WiFi6 reaches its full potential when all clients support WiFi6. Regardless, I find that WiFi6 access points are more capable than older assess points. Networks that are struggling, will often improve considerably if the access points are upgraded to WiFi6.

In my opinion, if current performance is satisfactory, I think that waiting for WiFi7 to mature will be the most cost effective approach. This will require a few years. But don’t hesitate to install WiFi6 access points if you need a performance boost.

The Ninth
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

Thanks - for now we are happy with our wireless performance anyway. But I will look into why our 2.4 GHz seems to be setup as WiFi4 in general. The info on the screenshot seems to apply to the access point in general, not individual devices. Or do all devices need to support WiFi6 for the access point to be able to use the newer version?

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

I’d send you a picture of my client list but the Ubiquity MFA access system is hosed and nobody using it can access their own equipment, support or even the web forum to complain.

I’m pretty sure I have multiple types of clients listed there but I can’t see them tonight.

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