Youtube Music not playing, skipping through playlist

Ken, you’re a legend for all this help, however after trying all you’ve suggested, there is no change.

- I confirmed speaker that I’m testing on is on my Wifi and has acceptable SNR level of 33-40dB

- I tried 2.4GHz network with the settings you suggested, no change

- I disabled 2.4GHz network and enabled only 5GHz, no change

What are the download/upload speeds that you get from your ISP? Are you using any type of security or blocking software to protect your network? 

On the speaker for example in the bedroom, which would be the worst signal wise, I get 30-40Mb/s. But I have just tested this on my Arc that is hard wired directly to the router (they are located in the same corner of the living room), playing soley off of it and no other speakers in the group. I still experience the issue. Doing a speed test off the router I can see I am getting 500Mb/s minimum when hard wired, and goes up to 1Gb/s.

I thought you might be onto something with security/blocking, as I have DNS blocking set up via Adguard on Home assistant. However I disabled it, and re-routed my DNS server to 1.1.1.1. Still have the issue.

I have also tested this with different types of playlist, i.e. one I curated, or one generated by Youtube, and the issue happens on both. Although I have noticed it happens more frequently on the Youtube curated ones (inclining toward the presumption that this is indeed a buffering or caching issue). The issue is frustrating as for a time Sonos will play a song it ‘likes’ but then a few seconds later if I click it again, it no longer ‘likes’ it and skips through.

Note if the Arc is wired to the LAN and you have not disabled its WiFi then your setup is not likely using your WiFi network, as a wired Sonos player will invoke SonosNet. Also it’s best to not disable the WiFi on a Sonos Home Theatre product as the adapters are used for 5Ghz ad-hoc connection to any wireless surrounds/Sub. I would uncable everything for your testing and ensure the adguard is not playing a role. The cloudflare DNS you are using should be fine.

Hi Ken,

Also many thanks from me for your assistance in this. I am still experiencing the issue, did some changes to my Wifi as suggested by you and ran some standard network tests, all checks out fine. I have a Roam SL and a One SL that are both connected to my 5Ghz Ubiquity AP, SNR is 50+ on the One and 45 on the Roam so that seems fine too.

Streaming through the YTM  app (or any other streaming service) on my Pixel 7 Pro or Zorin Linux PC works a charm, but the Sonos app still nogo.

Best regards,

Erik

Hi Erik, 

I’m not that familiar with Ubiquity WiFi, but if relevant, have you setup your Ubiquity AP as mentioned on the manufacturers website here?

https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/18930473041047-Best-Practices-for-Sonos-Devices

Or is it just a wireless AP that’s extending your existing routers WiFi signal? 

Hi Ken,

It is setup as a 'full' AP not as a bridge or extender. My ISP's Wifi on the modem/router is disabled and the modem is running in bridge mode. I have my own firewall setup with an EdgeMax with the latest fw version and haven´t had any connectivity issues with my Sonos devices. I used to work in IT so I may not have the standard networking setup ;-). 

'All' Sonos devices are on Wifi and the Sonos app detects them all correctly and can use them all correctly.

Best regards,

Erik

Perhaps just as a test, would it be possible/easy to connect a Sonos product to your currently bridged router’s WiFi, by-passing the Ubiquity AP and EdgeMax, just to see if the YouTube Music service then works for you - obviously you would need to connect your mobile controller/App to that same WiFi network too and temporarily take the router out of bridged mode.

I ask as I am able to easily do that with my own, currently bridged, router as my own WiFi mesh AP’s switch automatically here between bridged and router modes, but I’m not sure if you would find it as easy to test these things with your own setup.

It would be interesting to establish if it may work in your case.

Hi Ken,

I fully agree with you, it would be interesting to see if I have the same issues with my network setup 'out of the game' so to speak.

Unfortunately, that is not as easy as it should be, my ISP has chosen to lockdown all settings in this modem, so getting it 'unbridged' and it's Wifi re-enabled would require a servicecall and a 24 hour leadtime. It's a shame that, besides this, this ISP is very good or this would have been a reason for me to switch ISP's and go from DOCSIS to Fiber.

Best rgards,

Erik

I guess I’m slightly lucky in that I can quickly switch the local ISP provided router myself between modem and router and swap a couple of cables and have my setup in either mode. It was just a thought to try.

Another option might be to try a small setup (controller & speaker) on a mobile hotspot to see if that works, but it’s likely not going to achieve anything more than me showing you that YouTube Music (via Sonos) is working okay here and not skipping tracks.

The one thing I would say is if it’s not happening for any of the other (Sonos) built-in music services, like Amazon Music, Apple Music or Tidal etc. then it must be something to do with the YTM  (via Sonos) locally where you are. However in that instance I would have expected to see far more reports about it here in the community.

I’m out of ideas, but maybe go back to Sonos Support and see if they may help to escalate the matter for you and perhaps speak to Google/YTM Support too and try to tackle the issue from both sides.