My Alarm is playing Sonos Chime instead of Tunein Radio Station

Hi,

I have exactly the same issue. My Play:1 has an alarm set to play Radio:X at 7am, sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t, this has been working fine for years and I have only been having issues in the past month. When the Sonos Chime plays I can go to the app, press stop, then play again to start the radio station and it works fine?!

In my case I have my Sonos system wired to the router (Play:5 G2).

Hi @dave77 

Assuming you haven’t disabled WiFi on your wired Play:5 (which you do not want to do), you will already be on SonosNet, so the issue won’t be down to unsupported WiFi extenders, as it was with above.

As you have never submitted diagnostics from your system before, I can only assume the issue is either due to:

1. Electromagnetic interference, in which case you should see what you can do to minimise it - check our Reducing wireless interference help page
2. Slow DNS resolution from your router or DNS server - reboot your router by switching it off for at least 30 seconds, or change the DNS server in your router’s settings, then reboot the router (8.8.8.8 is Google’s DNS server address, and is generally a good option)
3. Something weird and random - reboot the speaker
4. Random server glitch - try another radio station
5. Poor signal strength - move the speaker, keeping it in the same room, but getting it closer to the wired Play:5 or if clearly out of range, another non-portable Sonos device. This is less likely than the first four, as you are able to play. Perhaps the signal is worse when you happen to be in bed - bodies can absorb WiFi signals.

I hope this helps. If not, please help me help you by submitting a support diagnostic and replying here with the number given. Thanks.

I see that Radio X is also on Sonos Radio, I will try that first rather than TuneIn and see how that goes.

Hi @dave77 

I would be surprised if that made a difference, but it is technically possible. In your position, I would start with the reboots.

Hi @Corry P - I rebooted the Play:1, and also switched to Radio X on Sonos Radio. Same result, the sonos chime starts instead of the radio, I turn it off then press play immediately to start the same radio station (it was the last played one) and it plays fine.

Diagnostics: 757536972

Hi @dave77 

Thanks for the diagnostic.

I think the problem here comes, in part, due to alarms not wanting to wait for a stream to arrive - if it doesn’t do so within 3 seconds, the chime is played instead. When manually playing, the speaker will wait much longer before returning a fail code.

As to why the speaker cannot get the stream in 3 seconds, I will, for now, put it down to congestion and interference - the fact that your WiFi and SonosNet are both using the same 2.4GHz channel (6) is a bit of a red flag, and I see some transmission failures right at the time of your alarm. As one of your Sky access points (I’m guessing these are Sky Q boxes too) is on channel 11, that leaves channel 1 for Sonos. After double-checking that all your non-portable Sonos devices are online in the app, please go to Settings » System » Network » Change SonosNet Channel » 1. The change will be instant and there will be no messages after you do so.

Test again with the alarm in the bedroom - it needs to be an alarm to recreate the circumstance, but it needn’t be in the morning.

If there’s no improvement, I would perhaps look at @Mr. T‘s instructions above to disable 2.4 Ghz on the Sky Q box closest to the Bedroom speaker - be sure to test the box afterwards to ensure it can still play content. Please also make sure that neither the Kitchen speaker (which is acting as an access point for the bedroom and others), nor the Bedroom speaker are within 1m of the router, other WiFi devices (especially Sky Q boxes), or a glass or metal surface.

I hope this helps.

Thanks @Corry P I will try that. I thought I’d disabled 2.4GHz on the SkyQ boxes ages ago, it was back on though. I don’t have anything on channel 11, my Sky is on 6. I have a wifi analyzer though and do see something on ch11 with a hidden SSID, might be a neighbours.

 

Hi @dave77 

The Sky Q box closest to your Roam at the time of the diagnostic was on channel 11 (same SSID as the rest) - perhaps they are channel hopping? If so, you’d want to put an end to that. Disabling 2.4 on them will do that, of course.

Best of luck!

The Sky router was set to Auto for the 2.4GHz channel, so I’ve set that to 11 and disabled 2.4GHz on the Sky mesh boxes (I still need 2.4 on for some gadgets). I’ve set Sonos to ch1. The alarm worked this morning, i’ll see how it goes!
Thanks for your help 👍

Hi @dave77 

That is a good start, and you are very welcome!