Can't add sub and surround speakers to beam

  • 11 August 2018
  • 5 replies
  • 6620 views

Hi there! Sonos newbie with a problem here :)

I got a Play:3 less than a week ago and instantly got hooked, so I went out and got myself a beam, sub and two Play:1s for my TV.

I hooked them up yesterday, getting the sub up and running took a few tries but it worked fine all yesterday evening. So far, so good.

When I woke up today only the beam connected to my TV worked. Even my kitchen's Play:3 had disappeared.

Went online in search of a solution and tried a few things:

1) Removing the sub and surround speakers from the living room zone in the Sonos app.
2) Re-adding the sub and surround speakers to the living room zone. The speakers didn't "pop up" immediately when pushing the connect button like yesterday, instead the app was just searching for them for a long time until giving up and asking me to check if it was connected to the power outlet.
3) Connecting the Beam to the router via ethernet cable
4) Changing wireless channel (tried all three)
5) Disconnecting the router and all Sonos speakers
6) Plugging in router and allowing it to establish the network again
7) Plugging in all Sonos speakers one by one, starting with the Beam, giving them time to connect to the network

This brought back my kitchen's Play:3 and one of the surround speakers. This was now a separate zone with the same zone name as my Beam ("Stue"). I renamed it something else ("Tull").

The sub and the other surround speaker where still in the same state. So i tried

😎 Doing a factory reset on sub and play:1
9) Adding them to the surround system

The difference this time was that when trying to add them they did in fact "pop up" right away. But when pressing the "configure speaker" button the same issue persist - roughly translate from my native norwegian: "Setup error for surround. There was a problem adding the surround speaker. Make sure the surround speaker and your Beam is connected to power".

What am I doing wrong? Is there a solution? I could go out and get a Boost, but I'm not sure if that's my problem, seeing as the Beam is connected to the router via ethernet cable.

Thanks in advance for any help you might have :)

Edit: after writing this post I tried adding the missing speakers one more time. This time they didn't pop up, so I'm back to square one it seems.

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5 replies

Userlevel 7
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Hi there! Sonos newbie with a problem here :)

I got a Play:3 less than a week ago and instantly got hooked, so I went out and got myself a beam, sub and two Play:1s for my TV.

I hooked them up yesterday, getting the sub up and running took a few tries but it worked fine all yesterday evening. So far, so good.

When I woke up today only the beam connected to my TV worked. Even my kitchen's Play:3 had disappeared.

Went online in search of a solution and tried a few things:

1) Removing the sub and surround speakers from the living room zone in the Sonos app.
2) Re-adding the sub and surround speakers to the living room zone. The speakers didn't "pop up" immediately when pushing the connect button like yesterday, instead the app was just searching for them for a long time until giving up and asking me to check if it was connected to the power outlet.
3) Connecting the Beam to the router via ethernet cable
4) Changing wireless channel (tried all three)
5) Disconnecting the router and all Sonos speakers
6) Plugging in router and allowing it to establish the network again
7) Plugging in all Sonos speakers one by one, starting with the Beam, giving them time to connect to the network

This brought back my kitchen's Play:3 and one of the surround speakers. This was now a separate zone with the same zone name as my Beam ("Stue"). I renamed it something else ("Tull").

The sub and the other surround speaker where still in the same state. So i tried

😎 Doing a factory reset on sub and play:1
9) Adding them to the surround system

The difference this time was that when trying to add them they did in fact "pop up" right away. But when pressing the "configure speaker" button the same issue persist - roughly translate from my native norwegian: "Setup error for surround. There was a problem adding the surround speaker. Make sure the surround speaker and your Beam is connected to power".

What am I doing wrong? Is there a solution? I could go out and get a Boost, but I'm not sure if that's my problem, seeing as the Beam is connected to the router via ethernet cable.

Thanks in advance for any help you might have :)

Edit: after writing this post I tried adding the missing speakers one more time. This time they didn't pop up, so I'm back to square one it seems.


Hi there,

It sounds like there is some sort of network communication issue preventing your speakers from being set up properly. Please submit a diagnostic report, reply here with the confirmation number, and I'll take a look.
Another newbie here (non technical). I hooked up a Beam to my television yesterday and, although the beam works fine with the television, I cannot link my two Sonos One speakers to provide left and right surround sound channels. When using surround sound set up, the speakers cannot be found and eventually a message is displayed "There was a problem adding the surround speaker. Make sure the surround speaker and your Beam is connected to power". Like "waaktaar", I have tried various configuration changes but to no avail.

Both Sonos One speakers work fine on their own or as a stereo pair.
Userlevel 7
Badge +20
Another newbie here (non technical). I hooked up a Beam to my television yesterday and, although the beam works fine with the television, I cannot link my two Sonos One speakers to provide left and right surround sound channels. When using surround sound set up, the speakers cannot be found and eventually a message is displayed "There was a problem adding the surround speaker. Make sure the surround speaker and your Beam is connected to power". Like "waaktaar", I have tried various configuration changes but to no avail.

Both Sonos One speakers work fine on their own or as a stereo pair.


I'd like to see some data from your system to understand why this happens. Please try again to pair the speakers are surrounds, then submit a diagnostic report and reply with the confirmation number.
Conf number - 2097351147
Selected room with beam
Selected add Surrounds.
Plugged in left speaker and waited for flashing green. Speaker was flashing white.
Flashing white turned to solid white but slightly dimmer.after 2 mins.
Select white light option and pressed the center and right hand buttons (looking towards speaker from in front of it.
After 2 mins, message displayed “there was a problem........”
ISSUE RESOLVED.

Performed a factory reset of the two speaker Ones and re-installed them. During the installation, there was the option to add them as Surround speakers which worked.

I plugged the left speaker into the mains and and added it as the Left surround speaker but as there was no Right speaker plugged in, it would not save the surround setting. Plugged the the right speaker in to the mains and added it as the Right surround speaker and now, as the left speaker was plugged in to the mains, it was available to be added as the Left surround speaker.