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JohnG666
Enthusiast II
May 25, 2022

Planet Rock unable to play unless select again from My Sonos stations

  • May 25, 2022
  • 45 replies
  • 735 views

I have the proper Planet Rock plugin (or whatever it is called!) for Sonos and it seems to work every time on my Roam, but on the lounge speakers, if I don’t play it for a day or so, when I then press play on the Lounge it is never able to play - it comes back with “can’t find Planet Rock station” or something like that.

I then have to re-select it from my radio stations on My Sonos and then it plays fine. It does the same thing no matter which app I use - I have it on an iPad Pro and on an Android phone. They both have the same issue.

 

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45 replies

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Corry P
Corry P
Sonos Staff
June 3, 2022

Hi @JohnG666 

Thanks for your post!

I took a look at your diagnostics and potentially found a not-uncommon issue with your Virgin Media Super Hub 3’s DHCP lease time. Please log into your router and check the DHCP Lease time and check whether it is 864,000 or 86,400 seconds. If it is the latter, then your Hub very likely has a fault as every Sonos device is reporting a lease time of 864,000. I recommend switching it to modem mode and purchasing a third-party router, just as I did when I found I had the exact same problem. An alternative would be to get a replacement, more up-to-date, router from Virgin Media.

I’m not sure if this issue is causing your reported problem - not after @Ken_Griffiths has been able to reproduce it - but the some of the error messages seen in the diagnostic do often relate to DNS. The others are Resource Not Found, indicating networking problems. Even if it doesn’t fix this particular problem, the increase in stability will be worth it. The Super Hub 3 does not cope well with more than about 10 devices.

In the meantime, please reboot your router every 12 hours by switching it off for at least 30 seconds each time.

I used to see this issue a lot when I was on the support phone lines, and had this pre-prepared for anyone who suffered from it:

Basically, when a device connects to a router and asks for a unique IP address, the router gives it one, and specifies how long it's valid for. This is called the DHCP lease time. The default setting on Virgin routers is 1 day, or 86,400 seconds. The speakers are reporting that the lease time is 864,000 seconds, or 10 days. This isn't in itself an issue, but the router thinks it's saying 1 day, and it's this discrepancy that causes a problem. After half of the time (12 hours), the router expects the device to get back in touch and confirm it's OK to continue using the IP address. When the device doesn't - because it's waiting another 4.5 days - the router un-assigns the IP address, and the device cannot communicate with the network.

If you do replace your router, I'd recommend you spend at least £50 - £70, and go for a known brand, like Netgear, Asus, TP-Link or D-Link. If your WiFi coverage is a little lacking, then there are mesh options from Tenda, Google, Linksys, and others, though these tend to be around the £200 mark.

When adding a new third-party router, please disconnect anything that's wired into your current router. Log in to the Virgin router setup page (http://192.168.0.1) and switch it into modem mode. The router (or modem, now) will reboot and you'll get a red/orange light at the bottom - that's it ready. Next, connect an ethernet cable going from 1 of the 4 ports on the modem to the individual port on the new router, usually labelled as Internet or WAN. Don't connect to a port labelled LAN on the new router. All of the ethernet cables that used to plug into your Virgin router should be plugged into your new router, using the LAN ports.

Turn on the new router.

Your router manual will come with a card or manual telling you the default IP address it will use. Type this address into your browser and log in using the details on the same card  (you'll need to connect to the new WiFi first). If you want to change the name of your WiFi network, you will be able to do so on the Wireless pages. This won't be strictly necessary, but if you want to avoid reprogramming all of your WiFi devices, you can make the name and password match what they were on the Virgin router exactly.

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
    JohnG666Author
    Enthusiast II
    June 3, 2022

    Mine is definately set to 86,400 seconds - I remember it was that figure because I worked it out to 24 hours.

    If I try and change that value in the router it won’t let me set a value above 604800 so it can’t be set to the higher value you mentioned.

    Why are the Sonos speakers getting the wrong value from the router as a matter of interest?

     

     

     

    Corry P
    Corry P
    Sonos Staff
    June 3, 2022

    Hi @JohnG666 

    Why are the Sonos speakers getting the wrong value from the router as a matter of interest?

    Because your router is faulty ☹️

     

    "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
      JohnG666Author
      Enthusiast II
      June 3, 2022

      Typically the TP-Link AX1800 I’ve been looking at on Amazon has now gone back up to £87…. it was down to £59 the other week!!

       

      Corry P
      Corry P
      Sonos Staff
      June 3, 2022

      @JohnG666 

      I have a TP-Link Archer C6 AC1200 that I am very happy with - it’s currently £45, not sure what I paid in 2020. I do have a small flat though, and no family-sized amount of WiFi devices.

      "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
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