Contributor I

Answered

SONOS, Onkyo Works with SONOS, Unifi, pfSense

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
May 21, 2021
25 replies
1313 views

I've been working with Onkyo support off and on over the past few months on the following issue and am hoping someone else with a similar issue will find this post and help me (and hopefully Onkyo) troubleshoot.

I purchased the Onkyo around a year ago, setup my Port connected to an Onkyo that supports Works with SONOS (NR686) following some youtube video... Onkyo: Settings>Hardware>Works with SONOS>Connected device - choose my Port and all works great. I turn receiver off when done using, later on I start playing something on the Port zone using my Sonos app and it turns the receiver on, sets volume correctly so it can be controlled from my sonos app. Life is good.

Sometime last fall it all stops working. I can't point my finger on the root cause, but my thoughts were: sonos S2 or other update, onkyo firmware, I swapped in a new POE switch... lots of variables around the same time.

Now if I go to Onkyo: Settings>Hardware>Works with SONOS>Connected Device it either says "SONOS CONNECT was not found" or it just spins there on searching (sometimes locking up the Onkyo all together so I to yank the power before it'll work again).

Onkyo support couldn't replicate and suggested messing with Airtime Fairness settings in the Unifi environment. no dice.

I finally found some time to bang my head against the wall on this with many combinations of:

-consumer grade netgear router instead of pfsense

-netgear unmanged switch instead of unifi

-reboot equipment in every order under the sun

-sonosNet/wifi enabled on all devices except for 1 that is both wired and wifi enabled

-wifi disabled on every device and wired only

After a few false "I got it!" celebrations, here's where I am and wonder if others can replicate.... router doesn't matter at all - pfsense isn't the issue. Switch may or may not matter. Sonos relies heavily on Spanning Tree Protocol (STP). wifi enabled/disable probably doesn't matter. The issue is how many Sonos devices you have and maybe a timeout (?) on the Onkyo/STP side.

If I unplug my unifi switch/all sonos/onkyo, then first plug in my switch, then the onkyo, then my first 5 Sonos devices... things work. I can see a list of sonos devices/IP addresses when I go to Hardware>Works with SONOS>Connected Device. When I choose my Port, I can turn off my receiver, start playing something on that zone, and it will turn on the receiver and start playing. Life is good again.

That is until I plug in the rest of my SONOS devices (combo of Amps/Plays/Soundbars/etc). Then Hardware>Works with SONOS>Connected Device goes back to SONOS CONNECT was not found, selecting that zone does not turn on receiver and set it to the correct volume.

I did also add more Sonos devices last fall too - so maybe has nothing to do with firmware (onkyo or Sonos), a new switch or anything else, and it just number of Sonos devices

My working theory is that Onkyo uses STP as well when it's trying to talk to Sonos devices. When there's 5 or less devices, it can find everything before a timeout happens (??), but more than 5 devices a timeout happens first (??). Probably why Onkyo couldn't replicate... unlikely they have more than 5 Sonos devices in their lab.

Anyone else experiencing the same or similar problem? Other ideas?

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Best answer by James L.

Hi @brandilton,

We’re aware of an issue that can cause certain “Works with Sonos” compatible receivers to become unable to discover Sonos players. We have reached out to the manufacturers of the affected receivers to address issues caused with recent firmware updates that have broken the "Works with Sonos" link and believe a root cause has been discovered. A future firmware update on the receiver is expected to resolve this issue, but unfortunately we do not have an ETA on when it will be available. I’ve noted and passed your thread on to our Escalation Engineering team for review, and we will follow up with you if we need any additional information.

James L.Answer

Retired Community Staff

Hi @brandilton,

We’re aware of an issue that can cause certain “Works with Sonos” compatible receivers to become unable to discover Sonos players. We have reached out to the manufacturers of the affected receivers to address issues caused with recent firmware updates that have broken the "Works with Sonos" link and believe a root cause has been discovered. A future firmware update on the receiver is expected to resolve this issue, but unfortunately we do not have an ETA on when it will be available. I’ve noted and passed your thread on to our Escalation Engineering team for review, and we will follow up with you if we need any additional information.

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

B

brandiltonAuthor

Contributor I

This makes sense to me… what’s really strange is the issue goes away when there’s only a few devices. I’m pretty sure 5 is the magic number of when it works/doesn’t work.

James L.

Retired Community Staff

This makes sense to me… what’s really strange is the issue goes away when there’s only a few devices. I’m pretty sure 5 is the magic number of when it works/doesn’t work.

The issue can be triggered by a number of different things on different models of receiver. I’ve seen reports of it not affecting systems until a 9th player is added, so what you’re reporting here seems familiar.

Your receiver is an Onkyo TX-NR686 yes? For issue tracking purposes, could you please also provide the firmware that it’s currently on?

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

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brandiltonAuthor

Contributor I

Correct, it is a TX-NR686 fw version: R122-0808-1140-0029

James L.

Retired Community Staff

Correct, it is a TX-NR686 fw version: R122-0808-1140-0029

Perfect, thank you for providing that information :slight_smile:

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

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brandiltonAuthor

Contributor I

I’m happy to be a firmware guinea pig or have an engineer remote into my system to check things out, just let me know if I can help.

controlav

Lead Maestro

Interesting, are they doing more than a simple SSDP search for devices? I can’t think of how STP might cause an SSDP query to fail to find anything.

If anyone has the same problem could you try one of my apps (see profile, wont cost you anything) and see if they have a similar problem in finding devices?

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.

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brandiltonAuthor

Contributor I

Got a call from someone at 11Trading (who does support for Onkyo). I had reached out to them as well. They said the magic number they are seeing trouble with is 7 or more devices. Very possible it has nothing to do with STP and is something completely different. 11Trading couldn’t give an ETA for the firmware update either, but did suggest that their programmers are actively working on it in conjunction with the Sonos team.

J

josha

Contributor I

Glad to hear you got someone and Onkyo working on this. I reported this back in January with no resolution. It in fact has something to do with 7 or 8 devices before it stops working. I went around and around thinking it was a spanning tree issue but moved Onkyo and Sonos to a completely dumb isolated network and could still replicate the issue.

See this as well: https://en.community.sonos.com/components-228996/onkyo-receiver-can-t-find-sonos-6853543

R

Reggie_1

Trending Lyricist I

I reported this issue last December to both Sonos and Onkyo and got nowhere. Sonos tech support was focused on my use of a pfSense router, despite explaining to them that “Works with Sonos” worked fine for a couple years until I added an ARC, and then still worked if I took most of my other speakers offline.

I have an Onkyo TXNR787 running firmware 1091-2000-1070-0011.

I provided a bunch of packet captures to Sonos support. Among these, I noticed that my Sonos Port was sending an HTTP 412 error code in response to the UPnP subscribe message that seemed to get sent from the Onkyo when trying to set up Works with Sonos. Other UPnP implementations appear to send this message when there are too many subscriptions to keep track of. So, having a lot of Sonos speakers, as well as a lot of UPnP devices trying to subscribe (including Windows computers) might be what triggers this.

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