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I’ve been building out my Sonos system in my home a bit at a time.  I started with a Connect amp to power bookshelf speakers in my study and living room; next I added a pair of Play1 speakers in my family room. Then I was gifted a Sonos Move by my kids for Christmas, and subsequently added a Sub to the living room.  All of these work well together and separately.  They all appear in my iOS app as well as in Sonos Controller for PC (Windows 10).  The problem is with the last two additions: a pair of Sonos Play 1 speakers, one in the master bedroom and one in the spare bedroom..  Having carefully and successfully added these two speakers (after resetting and updating both to work with my Sonos2 controller), they periodically cease being able to access my music files on my computer and disappear from the PC controller (though they still appear on my iOS Sonos app and can access SiriusXM).  Any help would be greatly appreciated; getting them to reconnect to the rest of my household Sonos system is a royal pain!

My thought is that the PC is having network connectivity issues, particularly because your SONOS system is having intermittent difficulty accessing music files stored on the computer. As the PC SONOS controller starts up it attempts to discover all of the SONOS units by sending a “who’s there” type of broadcast. The controller is impatient and if all of the units haven’t replied before the timeout, they don’t exist. The new PLAY:1’s might be at a more distant, harder to reach location.

Is this PC used for anything other than SONOS control and music storage? If so, how are the other tasks (assuming they use the network) functioning? If you have the means to do this, check for duplicate IP addresses.

Describe your system and network for us. What is wired? Wireless? Router model? WiFi mesh points? WiFi extenders? Network switches?


Whoa!  Thanks for the prompt and very helpful reply.  After I typed out my question, I happened to reboot my three Almond routers; and, bingo, as that happened the two “missing” Sonos Play 1 speakers in the bedrooms appeared in my PC Controller!  So network connectivity may be an issue.  In looking online to see whether my three Almond routers form a true mesh network or simply function as slaved extenders, I read a review that commented that Almond routers are actually pretty slow, way slower than my fiber optic Verizon cable is delivering to the modem (on a good day after rebooting both the routers and the modem, I might score a wireless speed test of ~300Mbps down and ~200Mbps upload, but more typically I’m looking at ~50Mbps down and 45Mbps up).  Verizon tells me their remote test of the modem shows gigabyte service to it.  Your network connectivity diagnosis is spot on!  It’s SLOW.  So time for an upgrade from Almond to Orbi!  Thanks for the suggestion (and Happy Holidays!)...