Music Library search returns no result. Force app close fixes

I’ll take a butcher’s next time it happens. I think this sometimes happens whilst Sonos is actually playing music stored on the NAS so it would be bizarre if it then “claimed” it didn’t receive a timely response! Perhaps it’s overly sensitive and needs to wait longer or try again?

It’s on a Synology RAID NAS. I spent nearly £1,000 after my previous NAS stopped working due to sudden deprecation of SMB1 so I’m a bit sensitive about not receiving search results as you might imagine.

Hi @Stuart_W 

That would indeed seem to be somewhat ridiculous, but as it is a speaker playing ML, and the app checking for ML, the two are independent. It may well need to be programmed to wait a bit longer, yes - it does depend on whether this is the issue or not, of course.

Ok, thanks for the info. I assume it is connected with ethernet, rather than WiFi? I ask so I can discount one more possible cause of any delayed response.

There are quite a few issues reported by your system that need addressed - the speakers have not been rebooted for 22 days, interference is detected, audio drop-outs are reported, SonosNet is overlapping channels with your WiFi, low bandwidth (local, not internet) is reported and surround speakers are channel-hopping due to interference.

For starters, you should probably put your WiFi on channel 1 or 11 - SonosNet is on channel 6, and those are the only two channels that do not overlap with channel 6. Your WiFi is currently on channel 4, which overlaps with channels 1 through 8.

In addition, it looks like you might have a BT Smart Hub 2? In my opinion, I think you might be over-loading this router that was made at the lowest possible cost so it could be handed to you for free. There are some settings on it that might be able to be adjusted to improve things for you, however (put it in Mode 2, if I recall correctly). A reboot of the router (turn it off for at least 30 seconds) may help - I also recommend that you repeat this several times a year as a matter of course.

I understand that you have been in touch with our support team already, but it looks like some more time could be spent with them clearing up these issues - the issue you report may well disappear when these are all addressed.

I hope this helps.

The NAS is wired to the router via ethernet  and Sonos is wired to one of the TP-Link extenders. The BT router is set to Channel 11 (2.4 GHz) but the TP-Link which provides the network to which Sonos connects does not allow configuration of the wireless channel as it dynamically changes it. I have looked in the past at whether or not another router would help but there’s lots and lots of mix messages (The TP-Link extenders were purchased as a result of Sonos connectivity issues). Furthermore your higher level support teams told me the network throttling was happening at the Sonos unit - The ARC hence they told me to wire that. Doesn’t make any sense to me why the router would be bandwidth limited since I never have more than one stream.

Probably is worth doing a system re-boot even though it is quite a pain in the backside to do and yes I have had a few recent drop-outs of the surrounds when listening to music and fixed by switching those on and off.

Does the TP-Link Range extender have more than one Ethernet port? If so I’d try connecting the NAS to that alongside the wired Sonos speaker. Or if you have a small 4 or 5 port switch, connect that to the range extender and then the Sonos and NAS to that. 

Hi @Stuart_W 

Bingo! I think we might have a winner!

WiFi extenders are unsupported as they do not do a good job of passing all network packet types (something Sonos is more sensitive to than the average device). They also work in half-duplex mode, so half the available bandwidth (which on 2.4GHz is not that high to begin with). Please wire Sonos devices to a router, to a network switch connected to a router, or not at all.

I can 100% guarantee that they did not mean for you to wire the Arc to a WiFi extender.

I appreciate that you bought the extenders to improve Sonos reliability, but you honestly could have done little to make things worse than to use one. If your WiFi does not reach all areas of your home, we recommend the use of a mesh WiFi system as they are far more robust. You may also find that a third-party router will broadcast a stronger signal than your free one does, from the get-go.

Not only do I recommend that you do not wire any Sonos products to your extenders, I recommend that you turn them off all together - you don’t want one to be between the app and your Sonos system either (as in, if your phone connects to router while system connects to extender, or vice versa). At the very least, just for testing - I would be surprised if you do not see instant improvements somewhere at least, if not with the issue you’re reporting here.

I hope this helps.

Edit: @Ian_S’s idea above has some merit, but I’d rather see the extenders gone completely, to be honest.

@Corry P:

 I’m using an Xfinity extender ( POD ) with great success.  It has no Ethernet port so all is WiFi.  Would there be a difference in the way Xfinity extenders work such that I encounter no issues?

The TP-Link is a wi-Fi mesh as far as I know. Don’t have access to its details as out now but Sonos should have a record of it. 
Also we didn’t wire the ARC to the router because of logistics. I can do it but it’s rather tricky.

Hi @MoPac 

I don’t know - I am not familiar with those devices.

If they pass multicast packets and work full-duplex (presumably using a different band for the backhaul), perhaps.

If they are actually mesh nodes (and work in concert with an Xfinity router), then there should be no issue. This page seems to support this idea.

Ultimately, if it works, it works - I won’t argue with that!

The price may be a half-decent indicator - if they cost significantly more than your average WiFi extender, there may well be a positive reason for that.

I hope this helps.

Hi @Stuart_W 

Ok yeah - I see from your most recent case that you have a Deco mesh. It would probably serve your network better than the BT router, so I’m wondering if it is in AP/Bridge mode or not - if it is, it is running the network. If it is not, it is allowing the BT hub to run the network, and that could be part of the problem. If your BT Hub does not connect to the phone line, it might just be an idea to get rid of it altogether. If the BT Hub does connect to the phone line, it’s less simple, as the Deco will not provide a landline connection: you’d need to disable all routing functions on the BT Hub to prevent it from getting in the way of the Deco mesh’s operation.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, I don’t recommend doing this without assistance - our technicians are not supposed to assist with this kind of issue, as, if they get it wrong, the internet goes down and they can then no longer help you fix it. You may find one who is willing to assist anyway (I used to, back in the day, as I knew people were unlikely to get help anywhere else, but mum’s the word). I don’t think BT will help directly, but you may find additional help on the BT support pages (here is a linked discussion, but you may be able to find a better one: https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-setup-Wi-Fi-network/Tp-link-deco-help-needed-please/td-p/2283383)

Note that if you have a landline telephone that connects to the BT Hub, you’ll need to keep the hub connected. 

This page will tell you how to find out if Deco is in AP mode or not: https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/1842/

If you let me know the entire current state of affairs for everything I mentioned above, I may be able to come up with some steps to follow, but please be aware that they would be untested!

You’ll recall my advice was to not wire the Arc to ethernet - with the BT Hub out of the way, this may work better than the last time you tried.

In either case, we still don’t recommend wiring Sonos devices to secondary mesh nodes, as that will still rely upon a wireless connection that we cannot monitor for transmission success rates - it may work, but if it does not, we can’t tell if that link is the issue or not).

I hope this helps.

I think a list of network kit that is plugged in and what has WiFi on or off would be a helpful thing here. If there is a Deco mesh system here rather than range extenders that’s a very different scenario… The BT Home Hub routers are as they say here, utter bobbins.