Prodigy II

My Sonos Controllers disagree over how many zones I have

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
September 4, 2018
18 replies
563 views

Stumbled across odd behaviour, wonder if anyone else has seen this.

I have 4 Sonos units, and everything up to date at v9.0.1. All my Sonos boxes are on and playing music. My iOS controller thinks I have 4 Sonos zones. My windows 10 desktop thinks I have 4 zones. My other windows 10 desktop thinks I have only 2 zones (but play/pause controls all the zones, even the ones it doesn't know about). I got into this situation by briefly switching off a Sonos box.

I have gone through switching off everything, re-booting the router followed by turning on each zone. I reset the confused desktop controller app instance. I even reinstalled it, and it still sees a very different Sonos network from the one in my house. I assume it's not firewall-related as the controller app can control the Sonos.

Any ideas for how to fix things?

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Keith N

Sonos Staff

Hi there, Alan_6. Sonos should have an update available to v9.1. Please update your Sonos Controllers and let us know if the problems persist. Thanks!

Building community is like building a garden. You build the frame, till the ground, plant the seeds, feed the plants & sometimes you gotta pull the weeds.

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Alan_6Author

Prodigy II

Just installed the update. And... same problem. Four zones. Two copies of Sonos desktop, both with a different idea of how many of the four zones actually exist. Oh, and as a bonus, now my iOS controller has lost zones!

Only thing I can think of is that different Sonos hardware units behave differently (the Connects are fine, but the Play speakers are missing).

Stanley_4

Grand Maestro

Try assigning your Sonos devices static/reserved IP addresses from your router's DHCP page. Power down the Sonos, reboot the router and controllers then power uo the Sonos about a minute apart, start with any wired units then the closest WiFi ones.

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Alan_6Author

Prodigy II

Well I'll try that. Although I can't see how that explains different controllers talking to the same Sonos unit and that Sonos unit randomly reporting how many zones are on its network. Unless each controller talks to a different "master" Sonos unit.

For info: all my Sonos units are wired, controllers are a mix of wifi and ethernet connections. Only started seeing this issue yesterday.

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Alan_6Author

Prodigy II

...and now, without doing anything, my controllers are reading Windows machine #1: 4/4 zones, Windows machine #2: 2/4 zones, iOS: 3/4 zones. Time to try more re-booting and IP address reservation to get back to what I had a couple of days ago...

Stanley_4

Grand Maestro

Mumbles and hand waving... "Sonos mesh, changing DHCP assignments, software getting confused."

So yes, I don't have a good explanation for what is happening but for a lot of folks reserving IP addresses makes it stop.

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Alan_6Author

Prodigy II

Update: after a load of reserving IP addresses and rebooting everything, it's almost fixed. Apart from the two Windows 10 machines still disagreeing over whether there are 3 or 4 zones in the 4-zone network they're both controlling, everything is almost back to normal. Another round of random rebooting might do the trick. Still a bit confused, but as I work in IT, not completely surprised.

Thanks for the help.

Stanley_4

Grand Maestro

I don't do Windows but isn't there a way to flush their networking information cache?

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Alan_6Author

Prodigy II

I don't do Windows but isn't there a way to flush their networking information cache?

Think so. But... the controller app (on iOS or desktop, both have misrepresented my Sonos zones this week) repeatedly asks my Sonos network “which zones do you have?”, and the Sonos network replies with either the correct answer, or a variety of misleading answers. I’m pretty sure the issue is not two identical copies of an app on two Windows 10 machines performing differently, but rather my Sonos network getting confused because of some as-yet unresolved issue. I know this works. I’ll get it working again. It might just take another few rounds of rebooting things...

Stanley_4

Grand Maestro

If it is an IP address based problem with the Sonos getting confused it is best to get the Sonos Net completely down before bringing it back up. Same situation on your DHCP server in your router, if it is caching old IPs and reauthorizing them instead of issuing the new static ones it isn't helping. Cached IP info in the controller's systems can also confuse things. So many possible versions of all the bits involved it is difficult to guess which is the issue.

I haven't seen any IP issues survive a Sonos power down, router and controllers reboot and then bringing the Sonos gear back up at one minute intervals giving SonosNet time to stabilize. If you did that and the problem persists you may have additional issues that a diagnostic sent in and the number posted here for Sonos staff to look at may solve.

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