Contributor I

Question

Music/zones dropping

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
November 21, 2016
29 replies
814 views

So, I spent an hour and 40m on Saturday morning on the phone to Sonos customer service and nothing was resolved before he hung up on me. I have just about calmed down 48 hours later but and extremely unhappy with this. I wonder if this is an easier and less unpleasant way to try to fix my system. I have had Sonos for 8 years now, have 4 old ZP100s, 2 ZP80s, 4 Play 1s and 1 Play 5. One of my ZP100s is wired into my router. I did have 2 bridges as well but the only thing that the hour and 40m did do on Saturday was remove these from my system as they seemed to be causing problems. However, my system is still dropping music (and not only music off the internet but music stored locally) and zones. I have had virtually no trouble until 4 or 5 months ago when my system has basically not been working at all. The one sensible thing the rude Sonos customer service man did tell me was that I may have an issue because the wireless signal in my house is distributed via a Powerline system of 4 plugs and apparently Sonos and Powerline don't get on well. Is this right? Please can someone help me as I am extremely unhappy?

thanks

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

J

John B

Hi. Powerlines can cause problems, and are unsupported by Sonos. Having said that, many people use them without problems. Are these Powerline wifi extenders rather than just Ethernet powerline adapters? Or do you have wireless access points running off the powerline units?

Please would you check in your Sonos controller under "about my sonos system" - do all components have WM:0 next to them or do any have WM:1?.

ratty

Presumably the ZP100 is the only wired node. Which channels are SonosNet, the router and all these EoP WiFi points using? What make are they? Do any use a 40MHz width channel?

@Calvin995, get the IP of the wired ZP100 and go to http://ZP100_IP:1400/support/review. Click 'Network Matrix' and snapshot what you see. Post it here and we'll take a look.

C

Calvin995Author

Contributor I

Thanks so much. John B - the base power line unit is plugged into the main and into the router. There are then 4 power line units plugged in around the house to extend the wifi network. The wifi network direct from the router is disabled to ensure there is only 1 network in the house. Make of the powerline units is Solwise (http://www.solwise.co.uk/net-powerline-intro.htm).

Yes, ZP100 is the only wired node and during my call on Saturday, we checked that the system is only running on SonosNet not over wireless as well.

As to the questions on the system, i'll answer these when i get home tonight as not in front of the system now

ratty

Did the onset of the problems 4 or 5 months ago correlate with any changes, such as introducing the Solwise EoP devices?

C

Calvin995Author

Contributor I

No - my wifi has been powerline for the past 8 years as well and has worked fine. I can only think of 2 options: (1) there is an issue with the internet coming into the house (wifi not great but still works most of the time) but that shouldn't affect playback of hardwired music (ZP linked to router by wire, router linked to NAS drive by wire, music stored on NAS). Or (2) recent Sonos software updates have made the old ZPs run slowly (much like IoS software updates mess up older iPads and iPhones) and that's affecting my system. The latter seems much more likely to me.

Will post answers to technical stuff in a couple of hours. Pretty sure the wifi is on channel 1 and Sonos on channel 6

J

John B

OK. You are right that internet would not have any impact on playing locally stored music. The answer lies in the router or the LAN side of things if you are having problems playing from NAS. I would, however, pretty much rule out the update as a direct cause and I don't think the age of the ZPs is relevant.

When you were working with Sonos Support (or at any other time), did you try a complete reboot of your router and all the network clients? I mean everything that connects to your network - phones, Smart TV etc, not just Sonos?

Do you have an Android device? If so it would be useful to download "Wifi analyzer" app from the Play Store. There may be an Apple equivalent, I don't know.

To eliminate the powerline extenders as a culprit you could, as an experiment, re-enable wireless on the router, unplug the extenders and see how Sonos runs. Incidentally, why so many extenders? Are you living in Buckingham Palace? 🙂

J

John B

Additional thought - is your wired ZP at least a couple of feet from the router? It shouldn't be too close.

But it would be great if you could follow @ratty's suggestion re posting the network matrix as the next step.

ratty

It would be helpful to get to a simple configuration which does work reliably and then add complexity one factor at a time until something breaks.

Eliminate the router for test purposes. Wire the NAS directly to the wired ZP100. If you have an Android, configure it for SonosNet attachment, stand next to the wired ZP and select that SSID. It should home to the nearest Sonos node. Test the wired ZP playing from the NAS.

Ryan S

Retired Sonos Staff

Great troubleshooting suggestions to start with guys. I'll be following along and can help if needed too.

I just wanted to say I'm sorry to hear about what happened over the phone. Rudeness isn't acceptable and powerline adapters, though they could cause trouble, aren't an excuse to hang up in any way. I've reached out to someone on the team to look into what happened and they will likely be in touch with you as well.

Hopefully we can get this sorted out quickly.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

C

Calvin995Author

Contributor I

Thanks for all the advice - really appreciated. I am home now and can confirm that all components are WM:0. All components have been rebooted several times and i have also hard rebooted all iPhones and iPads and Macs that control the systems (no Android users here).

Sonnet channel is 6, wifi channel is 11. Will take the powerline wifi down and see if it then works, but may get a false positive as the system doesn't always fail, so it could run fine on that for 2 days (while i have no internet anywhere in the house apart from my study) but then fail on day 3. It's unpredictable. Will hardwire the NAS into the first wired ZP (which is at least 3 feet away from the router) to see if that helps too.

In the meantime, here is the network matrix below. I notice 2 'undefined' items on the top row - no idea what they are:

Show more replies

Sign up

Login to the community