sonos cannot connect when I listen to a lot of music

  • 31 December 2021
  • 13 replies
  • 148 views
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I have a problem when I listen to a lot of music.

I usually listen to radio 3 programme: through the night, all night, every night when I go to bed on sonos speakers.

I sometimes listen to 4 or 5 albums through the day, streamed on apple music, either through speakers wired to a tablet, or on sonos speakers.

I might watch a chess video or bbc catch up on a laptop through the day as well.

I find that if I use the internet a lot, I get the error: sonos unable to connect.

I don’t get this message, if I cut back on internet usage.

If I leave it a while, sonos comes back eventually.

I currently have fibre 65 on talktalk. If I upgrade to virgin media fibre M200, is this likely to solve the problem? I don’t want to change my provider if it is unnecessary. I don’t really need the extra speed; I just want a more reliable internet.

Thanks

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13 replies

Airgetlam

Unlikely. This doesn’t sound like you’re maxing out your internet throughput, I think that’s a red herring, although you haven’t really mentioned if you have data caps, only speed. It seems more likely that you’re running into either wifi interference , or possibly a duplicate IP address issue, with a device that connects later in the day. Beyond the information in the FAQ I linked, you may benefit from a simple network refresh.

Unplug all Sonos devices from power. While they’re unplugged, reboot your router. Once the router comes back up, plug the Sonos devices back in, which will force them to get ‘new’ IP addresses from the refreshed router, and hopefully solve the issue you’re experiencing. 

However, these are only guesses. If you prefer, you could submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it.

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 phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and network.

 

 

Bruce
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Hi Bruce

Thanks for the advice. I’ll see if I can reproduce the problem, and then phone sonos support, and see if they can help.

Unplugging the speakers and routers also usually fixes the problem, but its not very convenient to have to do that all the time.

 

Airgetlam

That certainly points to a potential duplicate IP address issue. I’d certainly try the process I suggested. 

Bruce
buzz

 

Unplugging the speakers and routers also usually fixes the problem, but its not very convenient to have to do that all the time.

 

This suggests that there is an issue on your network. I suggest that you “reserve” IP addresses for all regular network clients, such as your computers, pad/phone, SONOS components, thermostats, lights, etc. This can be done through your router. It would be best to do this immediately after rebooting everything on your network.

After shutdown, restart in the following order:

Gateway/router
Network switches, if any
WiFi mesh points, if any
Wired SONOS units, if any
Wireless SONOS units -- If you have any exclusively wireless units, such as MOVE or ROAM, make sure that they are online at this point.
Everything else.

Wait for each step to complete before moving to the next step.

If you have not already reserved addresses, reserve now. The reservation process will be a tedious, onetime task, but worth the effort. During the reservation process you should be able to see all of your regular devices.

I wish that I could guarantee that this will fix all possible issues, but it will greatly reduce the risk of common future issues.

As Airgetlam suggests, you may be running into a data cap. The data cap could be reset daily or monthly.

B
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Thanks for the advice, buzz.

I’ll do what Airgetlam suggests. But I’ll also mention reserving IP addresses, when I call support, and see what they have to say about it.

I definitely run into problems when I use the internet a lot, with the red light flashing on the router, as it resets itself, occurring more often

B
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I do often have problems losing my wifi connection on my laptops. Usually, if i click on the wifi icon, and disconnect, then reconnect it solves the problem.

Would reserving my ip addresses be likely to fix that problem?

I’m not very tech savvy, so using tools such as ipconfig is not my scene; but maybe talktalk can guide me through the process of logging onto my router, if it becomes necessary.

I only started having the problem with sonos unable to connect, when I got a second pair of sonos speakers for the bedroom. maybe I’ve just got too many damn things connected to wifi.

Anyways, I’ll keep you updated about my call to sonos support, if I can reproduce the fault on new year’s eve and they’re available, sometime after the new year if not.

Thanks

 

Airgetlam

Yes, assuming that the laptops are experiencing similar duplicate IP address issues. The method I suggested is a temporary fix, the better and longer lasting one is as @buzz suggests, going in to your router and reserving IP addresses for all your network devices, wired and unwired. Your router’s manual should be able to guide you on the process. 

It’s not really an issue of how many devices are connected, I’ve got 20 plus just Sonos devices, plus a plethora of other things….it’s more about the router getting in a bad state handing out incorrect IP addresses when they’re requested. This is something Sonos does every time the software is updated. Some routers seem to get in a bad state more easily, but it’s not consistent so that one could maintain a list of them. Makes one suspect power fluctuations more than actual software issues, but I’ve not done any serious investigation. 

Bruce
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Thanks for the advice Airgetlam,

I’ll keep you updated, when I call support

buzz

I don’t know what your router’s flashing red light means. I think that it would be a good idea to investigate that. If this flashing light means that there is a problem on the ISP’s side of the connection, there is not much you can do about that unless you discover some sort of obvious physical problem with the wiring.

At this point we cannot rule out some sort of router hardware issue.

Submit a diagnostic within 10 minutes after the next SONOS issue and keep track of the confirmation number. Over time some diagnostic detail will scroll out of view. That 10 minute window will preserve details.

B
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Okay, I didn’t get the cannot connect problem today, so I was unable to phone sonos support.

Both of you seem sure that reserving IP addresses would be a good idea. So I did some searching on the internet, to find out how to do it myself. I had a look in the router box for a manual, but couldn’t find one. So its either lost, or they didn’t give one.

I was able to log onto the router, and chose manage my devices->manage advanced settings->talktalk-wifi-hub->DHCP

There I was given the option to add reserved addresses. Luckily, it gave the MAC addresses, and IPv4 addresses of all 11 devices that connect to my router, so I didn’t have to find them myself. The router was 192.168.1.1 and an example of a device ip address would be 192.168.1.68

Before I did this, I shut everything down, and restarted them in the order buzz recommended.

For some reason it did not give me the ipv4 address for my fire tablet, so I switched it of. chose an ip address that wasn’t used; and then switched it back on. This seemed to work. I chose an address in the format 192.168.1.x

Everything seems to be working at the moment. I’ll give you an update in a months time, or sooner if something goes wrong.

The red light flashes on the hub, if for some reason there is an interruption in the internet connection. This doesn’t happen too often. It appears to happen if I use the internet heavily. Or perhaps its just my imagination, decide for yourself.

Thanks a lot for your help, both of you!

B
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Okay, I decided to reply sooner, because the problem has pretty much gone away.

I no longer have to disconnect and reconnect the wi-fi on my laptop. The connection seems stable.

I have played a lot of music on my sonos speakers, via the sonos app, without losing the connection, as well.

I sometimes get a screen that says something went wrong, on the sonos aoo. This is probably because its a cheap tablet that cost £100. Its easy to fix by just navigating back to the album screen. I have had problems with other apps, where the app closes down unexpectedly, after a while.

I also had a problem on Jan 2nd, when I was listening to BBC Sounds via alexa skill on my bedroom speakers. The music cut out, for a moment after 3 hours listening, and then started again at the beginning.

I’m not sure if this has happened again, because I’m usually half asleep after a couple of hours.

I have had mini power cuts, in the past which last for about a second. I have not noticed any recently during the day, but I can’t rule them out.

Okay, that’s probably enough. Thanks again for your help

buzz

Mini power outages can cause lots of trouble because some devices might reboot and request a new IP address while others might not. This is an easy way to accumulate duplicate IP addresses when addresses are not reserved.

With respect to BBC dropouts, this could be caused by Internet connectivity issues or simply the BBC might want to discourage you from listening forever. You might have noticed that radio streams do not start instantly. Part of the initial startup delay is used to build a small buffer that allows riding over small outages that are a normal part of streaming. If there are many outages the buffer might become exhausted and the next outage will have audible consequences.

B
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Thanks a lot for your reply.

That makes a lot of sense. For the most part though, everything is working a lot better now. Thanks for your Help.

Brian.

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