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Trending Lyricist I
Sep 12, 2022 7:54 AM UTC
Answered

Pairing Beam with TV Source = Dropouts

Hello

Have not had any issues before pairing my Beam (with TV source) to Play:1’s / Roam etc.

However now when I try and do it I get constant drop outs on any of the paired speakers. I’ve tried several Play:1’s and a Roam to no avail. I contacted Sonos support, sent diags and they came back saying that TV Source is unsupported? WTF? Whats the point of a Beam if the input from TV is not supported.

Anyway, any suggestions? I’m on 14.14 and this happened sometime between the end of July and end of August.

Thanks

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craw19Answer
Trending Lyricist I
Sep 12, 2022 6:22 PM UTC

So I switched off the 5Ghz channel temporarily and allowed all Sonos to connect to 2.4Ghz. 
 

Switched 5Ghz back on and everything stayed on 2.4 and now works a treat. 
 

Thanks for your help. I will never use the word “pairing” again 😉

22 replies

Sep 12, 2022 10:00 AM UTC

So, a summary of terminology may be helpful.  I was certainly confused by the OP here, as I suspect was Sonos Support.

‘Grouping’ speakers is a temporary arrangement controlled by the System screen in the app.  Sonos ‘rooms’ retain their separate identity when grouped and play music sources in perfect sync

‘Bonding’ is reserved for the process of adding a Sub and/or surround speakers to a Home Theatre device (e.g. Arc, Beam).  The whole HT setup appears as a single ‘room’ in the app under the name of the HT device.  The surrounds and Sub play what the main HT device sends them.  All comms between the devices are by direct routing over 5GHz.

I have seen ‘pairing’ used in two different ways:

(i) Stereo pairing of two identical Sonos speakers.  This appears as a single ‘room’ in the app.

(ii) Pairing a Sub to a non-HT Sonos speaker or to a stereo pair of Sonos speakers.  The Sub never appears as a separate room.  

I am not totally sure the second use of ‘pairing’ is strictly correct, but I think it is, and have often seen it used, including by Sonos staff members.

I hope that helps.

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Ken_Griffiths
Sep 12, 2022 10:04 AM UTC

Thanks. My main issue is that it was working before… I know there was a FW upgrade on my BT Router sometime in August so I suspect the issue lies there. Last time they provided an emergency fix after much moaning on their support forums so I think I will look there. 

Router has been rebooted and factory reset to no avail. I’ll try the split bands in the interim as I know BT take forever to assume responsibility and work on fixes.

Appreciate your assistance.

Some BT routers have been the subject of much debate in the Sonos community here in the past, but I’ve not used them personally, but some say they have issues occasionally with firmware updates and device discovery, but I think in your case it might just be the router WiFi channel changing on update/reboot..

Maybe try the 2.4Ghz band on fixed channel 11 and set the channel-width to 20Mhz only, rather than 20/40Mhz, as that simple change ‘might’ perhaps quickly fix your issue.

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Sep 12, 2022 10:06 AM UTC

Thanks. My main issue is that it was working before… I know there was a FW upgrade on my BT Router sometime in August so I suspect the issue lies there. Last time they provided an emergency fix after much moaning on their support forums so I think I will look there. 

Router has been rebooted and factory reset to no avail. I’ll try the split bands in the interim as I know BT take forever to assume responsibility and work on fixes.

Appreciate your assistance.

There may be a setting in the router for ‘band steering’ which should be turned off.

Do the two bands appear under different SSIDs?  Or could they?  It might help to have only the SSID of the 2.4GHz band added to Sonos.

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Sep 12, 2022 10:08 AM UTC

Also, having factory reset the router, did you re-update to latest firmware?

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Ken_Griffiths
Sep 12, 2022 10:08 AM UTC

@craw19,

I would definitely power-cycle the Beam after you make any changes too.

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craw19Author
Trending Lyricist I
Sep 12, 2022 10:08 AM UTC

BT Hub doesn’t even allow me to split the bands - only to turn off 5Ghz. Will give it a try and get back to you.

I have Sonos devices split between the two at the moment so pretty sure that’s the issue, just as it was last time they upgraded the firmware!

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craw19Author
Trending Lyricist I
Sep 12, 2022 10:11 AM UTC

Also, having factory reset the router, did you re-update to latest firmware?

Factory reset only resets SSID etc… doesn’t revert it back to original firmware 

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craw19Author
Trending Lyricist I
Sep 12, 2022 10:15 AM UTC

Kitchen (Play:1) on 5Ghz and Beam on 2.4Ghz, bet this is the issue. Might force all onto 2.4 by switching off 5 for a bit then switch it back on and hope they all remain on 2.4

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Ken_Griffiths
Sep 12, 2022 10:58 AM UTC

Kitchen (Play:1) on 5Ghz and Beam on 2.4Ghz, bet this is the issue. Might force all onto 2.4 by switching off 5 for a bit then switch it back on and hope they all remain on 2.4

Does the router let you set the 2.4Ghz channel-width too (20Mhz)? and/or set it’s wifi channel to a non-overlapping channel (i.e. Ch 1, 6 or 11)?

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craw19Author
Trending Lyricist I
Sep 12, 2022 11:02 AM UTC

Yeah I can specify the channel… that’s about it. Only other feature is changing wireless mode

 

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