S2 App and Android 13 and Mesh networks

  • 21 November 2022
  • 9 replies
  • 268 views

I had problems getting my Playbar and Sonos One onto my wifi network. I had just installed a mesh network but hadn’t switched off the wireless from my router. I then had two networks running with the same SSID. After four very frustrating hours of failing to get these speakers onto the network, I called my ISP who ran some remote diagnostics to inform me that there was nothing wrong with my router or my network.

I then called SONOS support. We spent an hour and a half trying to get it to work. All these scenarios are with the S2 App and Android 13

  1. Factory reset SONOS, Wireless off, Ethernet connected and router in Modem / Bridge mode - no luck
  2. Factory reset SONOS, router in Modem mode (no duplication of networks) and Google Wifi Mesh network enabled - no luck
  3. Factory reset SONOS, router in Modem mode (no duplication of networks), Google Wifi Mesh network enabled and DHCP disabled - no luck

At this point, I’m thinking about selling off all my SONOS kit on eBay. And then as a last throw of the dice, I grab my son’s Android 11 tablet, download the S2 tablet and get both the Playbar and Sonos One on the network first time.

While I’m really appreciative of the support that was given to me by Sonos for an hour and a half today, However, I am disappointed with their app QA as it’s clear that they didn’t bother testing this. I hope they’re working on a fix for a release soon.


9 replies

Userlevel 7
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Hi @iambertrand 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Thanks for sharing your experience! I recommend you have a read of my troubleshooting article - it may help clue you in as to what is going on on your network, as I suspect the success might have been a random occurrence and something still needs to be addressed in your network configuration. Or perhaps your phone could simply benefit from a reboot?

I am glad to hear that you were able to finally get your products working!

S2 14.19 and Android 13.

In my experience, things don’t fix themselves randomly. It was replicated several times over the course of seven hours. Only by using a lower version of Android with Build 14.19 did I manage to get the speakers onto my wifi network.

Try it and see if you can replicate but I’m leaving this post here in case it saves anyone else from wasting several hours.

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @iambertrand 

When there are two devices on your network operating as DHCP servers, things can get pretty weird - it’s something you want to make absolutely sure of that you don’t have as it will result in two devices handing out IP addresses to connecting clients, resulting in two logical networks on one hardware layer, sometimes with the same subnet. It’s technical gobbledygook, I know, but it could result in exactly what you experienced. The support agent will not have left your system in such a state, so you should be good now.

If there was an issue with Android 13 and Sonos 14.19 in combination, I think there would have been a lot of topics here reporting it by now - I’m not dismissing it out of hand, but without other reports I have to assume it’s not the case. As soon as (if) there’s an obvious trend, it will be flagged for investigation.

I’m leaving this post here in case it saves anyone else from wasting several hours.

Absolutely - I wouldn’t remove the post, and I’m not sure you can, any longer (you get 1 hour after posting to make modifications).

Hello, 

I just had the exact same issue. We had a reboot on the network. We tried to reinstall the Sonos system... Wouldn't work with android 12 and 13 and works perfectly with android 11.

We just randomly tried my old phone and in 3 minutes it was in order. It has been 24h of trying everything! 

There definitely is a problem with these two! 

Hello, 

I just had the exact same issue. We had a reboot on the network. We tried to reinstall the Sonos system... Wouldn't work with android 12 and 13 and works perfectly with android 11.

We just randomly tried my old phone and in 3 minutes it was in order. It has been 24h of trying everything! 

There definitely is a problem with these two! 

 

To clarify, you’re not seeing issues with control a system with android 12/13, your issue is with installing and troubleshooting network issues?

And when you say you had the exact same issue as OP, you also added a Google mesh network with a duplicate SSID as your existing network?

For reference, I switched my network a few months back.  I was using the ‘wired’ setup, so I fully removed/unplugged my old network hardware, replaced with new new mesh network hardware (eero) using the same SSID.   I had no issues.  Perhaps I would have issues in a wireless setup, but since I kept the same SSID, perhaps not.  If I did, I think a full reboot of the router and all Sonos speakers would have fixed it.  I am on android 13 now, not sure what I was on back then.

 

 

 

To clarify, you’re not seeing issues with control a system with android 12/13, your issue is with installing and troubleshooting network issues?

 

And when you say you had the exact same issue as OP, you also added a Google mesh network with a duplicate SSID as your existing network?

For reference, I switched my network a few months back.  I was using the ‘wired’ setup, so I fully removed/unplugged my old network hardware, replaced with new new mesh network hardware (eero) using the same SSID.   I had no issues.  Perhaps I would have issues in a wireless setup, but since I kept the same SSID, perhaps not.  If I did, I think a full reboot of the router and all Sonos speakers would have fixed it.  I am on android 13 now, not sure what I was on back then.

 

Yes I do have problems with installing and troubleshooting network issues. 

It was working properly to control before we added a WiFi extender on the network. 

All Sonos entities are wireless. We were able to connect using Android 13 with an ethernet cable but unable to make it work with the WiFi until using Android 11. 

We also saw that under Android 12 (finalisation not possible) we were able to go a step further than what we could under Android 13 (could not pass WiFi preparation).  

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @Sophie's 

I think it likely that the Android 11 device was connected to the same extender (WiFi extenders are not supported by Sonos because, among other reasons, they block certain types of network traffic that Sonos depends upon) that the Sonos devices were trying to connect to, whereas the other devices were not. In a similar fashion to the original post, I think network issues made it seem like the Android version being used was making a difference.

I hope this helps.

I tried with and without the WiFi extender and it made no difference. 

I reset the Sonos s2 app completely and reset all the Sonos I possess to make a fresh install without the WiFi extender plugged in.

While using an Android 12 or 13 phone, Sonos wired or on WiFi, I could not finalize the configuration. It could only be done with an Android 11 phone.

Afterwards I reconnected my WiFi extender and everything is running smoothly.

The issue with my installation came probably from an update on my router firmware or WiFi extender detection.

But it seems that there is either a problem with Android 12 and 13 or a compatibility issue with Xiaomi 11 and Google pixel 6 phones or both combined.

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @Sophie's 

I’ll see if I can get someone to investigate. Thanks for the clarification.

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