BBC sounds flaky playback - unable to connect

It sure sounds like either wifi interference , or potentially a duplicate IP address issue. Beyond applying the potential solutions in that FAQ, I would unplug all your Sonos devices from power. While they are powered off, reboot your router. Give the router a couple of minutes to come back up, then plug in your Sonos devices.

A more permanent version of this is to go into your router’s software and assign reserved IP addresses for all your Sonos…if that is possible (it isn’t always a feature you can access, check your router’s manual). 

Note that this has nothing to do with signal strength of your network, it is merely an addressing issue, making sure the packets of data are being sent consistently to the correct device. 

However, if you’re still having trouble, I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it. But don’t post the resulting diagnostic number here, they get sensitive about GDPR.

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

Thanks for your advice. I’ve given a number of my network devices fixed IP addresses, so I’ll try and fix all the Sonos devices too and see if that helps.

Certainly can’t hurt. 

Thanks again for the advice,

I’ve given all my Sonos devices fixed IPs and I can see that there are no IP conflicts on my network.

SonosNet Channel is set as 1 (my home wifi is 6 and my neighbours is 11)

I don’t have any other wireless devices that could be causing interference.

Unfortunately I’m still getting the issue, I thought it was only with content from BBC Sounds - as I’d not encountered issues with Spotify or my local NAS media library, but I’ve tried various sources and Mixcloud is also giving me issues.

I’ll try and find some time to send a diagnostic and give Sonos Support a call when I’m not working.

While there’s no guaranty that you’re not getting some interference on SonosNet, either internally or externally, it seems like a good choice for now. And not all interference comes from a wireless device, unfortunately, but I hope you’ll find out the information necessary to help your situation when you contact Sonos Support. 

I certainly had an issue several years ago with a microwave spilling interference in some kitchen installed speakers. But of course it was only while the microwave was on, as in your thread. It took a while for me to mentally make the connection, but the simple fact is any electrical device can leak WiFi interference. And what makes it worse is that WiFi signals can be affected by simple materials, such as marble. Or, for heavens sake, people, which isn’t quite intuitive either. I suspect a lot of this is why Sonos wrote the wifi interference FAQ.

But of course, Sonos devices are networked devices, which goes beyond ‘simple’ WiFi, even wired systems can be subject to issues like duplicate IP addresses, and others. 99% of folks will never need to deal with these issues, but the folks who end up on this forum tend to be having issues. 

Yes it can be surprising how many factors can adversely affect these things.

I am still sceptical that it is an interference issue.

Everything had been working fine for years and nothing (that I can think of) that is significant has changed in the past month.

To reiterate / summarise:

• Spotify and my local NAS library are absolutely fine, no issues with playback
• BBC sounds will play fine once it’s going, but fails and gives an error message about 50% of the time when I tell it to do something.
• Mixcloud - I can browse but unable to play tracks.

As I said, I’ll send a diagnostic and give Sonos Support a call, but I need to set some time aside for this.

Thanks, Martin

That’s the problem with networks. There are just too many variables. 

Based on your summary, I’d think possibly a combination of issues, from a potential DNS issue causing interruptions, to the issue covered in several other threads regarding MixCloud’s change on their servers to a format for their content that isn’t recognized by S1. And given that Sonos isn’t / can’t update S1 (no space left), I suspect the last issue won’t be ‘fixed’, at least by Sonos. Maybe by MixCloud. They’re the ones who made that change. 

 I hope the diagnostic tells the Sonos rep what’s going on with the BBC Sounds issue, though. 

Yes, I appreciate that it’s needle in haystack stuff, and can only be solved by ruling things out.

I spent some time on chat with a Sonos support earlier and went through what I’ve already ruled out, I tested a few more things for them - demonstrating the the issue occurs with all devices in isolation. They asked me if I could get a LAN cable to one of my devices (2 were already are wired, so that will make 3 out of 6) and test that for a couple of days….it’s not resolved the issue yet. I might have some time to pick up with support again tomorrow. I’ll post back here as I make progress as it could potentially help guide other users who may encounter similar issues.

Thanks for letting me know about the recent Mixcloud issue with S1, I was unaware of that and it certainty explains that aspect of my problem.  Another headache for S1 users!

Note, there is a report in this thread:

that MixCloud has indeed fixed the issue with S1. 

Oh wow! thanks so much for letting me know.

I’ve just tried it and Mixcloud does indeed now work...no issues at all!

One down, one to go!

Well, it looks like my issue has disappeared today without me having to do anything.

Yesterday, whenever I tried BBC Sounds content, I would have the regular stops and errors.

This morning, it is behaving itself 100% of the time.

I removed the temporary LAN cable (which I was trying for one of my devices) a few hours ago, and have continued to test it thoroughly, and there are no issues at all.

I wondered if my router has reconnected /rebooted in the intervening time, but that has been up for 2+ days.

So as it stands I no longer have a problem, but I have no idea what caused it or resolved it!

One of my problems is I never know when my router receives an update. So the only times I’m sure is when I look at its status, or have a power outage (unfortunately too frequently here). But it gets updated fairly frequently (in my eyes) without my knowledge. I just wish there was some sort of confirmation on it, like ‘hey, is it OK to update’ or ‘Hey, we updated for you’, as I’d rather know. It would make some mysterious changes more understandable. Including the rare settings change, which have occurred to me in the past. 

It was the same for me, I’ve now turned off its default auto-update and restart functions. But it used to update automatically and once even restored factory settings after updating, without even letting me know!

Well, unfortunately my BBC Sounds issue returned yesterday and I’ve since had fails and error messages at least 50% of the time when I tell it to do something through the Sonos S1 controller.

It’s so weird that it was absolutely fine on Sunday all day.

I have reinstated the LAN cable for the additional device, but I really don’t think that has anything to do with this issue.

Again, I cannot think of anything at my end that I could put this down to.

🤔

I’m still having issues, so I thought I’d test swapping the router for an old one I have and have had partial success:

My current router is a Huawei H112-370 which accepts a SIM card and connects to the Internet over 5G. I have used this for a couple of years or so and only had issues with BBC Sounds on SONOS for a month or so.

I swapped it out and tested with my old Huawei B525 4G router using the exact same SIM card and found no issues with BBC Sounds playback at all….suggesting that my issue lies with my current router.

Being the same make of router, I have found the settings menus almost identical, so I meticulously compared every setting to see if there were any differences, unfortunately there was nothing significant. Aside from the fact that one connects over 4G and the other is 5G (with no options to change mobile network settings) so I have drawn a blank again.

I’m thinking about factory resetting the 5G router just to see if that does anything, if anyone has any other ideas I’d welcome any input.

Thanks