Question

Room Speaker Grouping Problems...

  • 4 November 2016
  • 7 replies
  • 1016 views

Hi. I have 3 Sonos Play:1 speakers, each located in different rooms around the house. I like to run my system with a 3 speakers/rooms grouped together in Party Mode. This works fine most of the time, but whenever i have a network problem with my Virgin Media UK Superhub Router, the Sonos system fails to start when the Play button is pushed on any of the speakers - i get the dreaded red LED light flashing.

It is easy to fix this by going to any of the controller Apps that i have (IOS, Android & Winsows PC) and 're-grouping' the rooms/speakers, then selecting the chosen media to play again (usually a Tune-In radio station).

So, my question is, why does the Sonos system 'ungroup' my rooms/speakers whenever my incoming broadband fails or the router is rebooted? I can recreate the problem every time. Thanks for any assistance.

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7 replies

I'm not sure there is much you can do where we are talking about router reboots, except to find an ISP or router that doesn't require frequent reboots of the router. Can't remember when I last needed to do that. I can't think why an interruption to the internet connection should have this effect though.

Just possibly having a Sonos component wired to your router would help (if you don't have this already) - you could easily experiment.

Just possibly, assigning fixed IP addresses to the Sonos components would help.

I wouldn't put a lot of money on either of those to be honest.....
Hi John. Thanks for your input. I have actually tied both of your suggestions. I currently run the system using the Sonos Bridge that is wired direct to the Router. I have also tried with a completely wireless setup (no Bridge) and had the same room 'un-grouping' problem with both fixed (specified on the router) and dynamic local IP addresses for the Play:1 speakers. Very frustrating.
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Hi, Derek. Welcome to the community. I am unsure of what the issue you are describing is, as far as the precise problem with your router/home network. My main concern at the moment, is with the ailment rather than the symptom; why is your home network failing with such regularity? Can you please describe the issue with the router and your WiFi network? I'm happy to offer advice where I can, naturally. Worth noting, if the router is getting rebooted, this could result in your speakers requiring a re-group. We may also get some mileage out of a diagnostic of your system. Could you please provide the confirmation number when you have one? Look forward to your response.
Hi Edward. The problems i have been having with my Virgin Media broadband service have been identified as a faulty router, which was replaced with a new one yesterday. However, i have been having the Sonos speakers un-grouping problem for some time now and i am not convinced it is a router related issue. As the router was replaced yesterday i have taken the opportunity to reset my Sonos system and start again from scratch, this time without using a Sonos Bridge. All 3 Play:1 speakers are showing correctly as individually connected to the router, and all 3 are grouped correctly in 'party mode' within my Sonos App. I will get back to you if/when the un-grouping problem happens again. That said, are you saying that if i switch off or reboot the Virgin Media router you would expect the speakers to un-group? If so, why? Surely the Sonos configuration in the apps should know that the speakers should be grouped? Regards, Derek
Grouping is not persistent. It doesn't survive a reboot of the Sonos units, nor if they lose their connection and are forced to re-request an IP address.

Bonded stereo pairs, bonded SUBs and the PLAYBAR home theatre setup are persistent arrangements which automatically re-establish themselves.

By the way, the controller apps store virtually nothing other the ID of the system and a few controller-local settings.
Thanks for that Ratty. If you are correct about grouping 'working as designed' by not being persistent, then maybe i should raise a suggestion/enhancement ticket with Sonos. On this occasion i have assigned each of the the Play:1 speakers a STATIC local IP address in the router, so dynamic/changing IP assignments should not be a problem. Lets see if that helps.
Reserved IPs won't help. If a player loses its connection it drops into Auto-IP, via a soft restart. It keeps polling for a DHCP server, and when it gets a fresh IP will soft restart again.

A short-term loss of wireless connectivity may not be enough to push it over the edge, but switching off the router will surely do so.