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Trying at add a pair of Symfonisk bookshelf speakers as surrounds to my Beam. I set them up and confirmed they were working individually. Then I tried adding them as surrounds.

I go thru the setup and it fails saying “There is a problem adding your surrounds. Check the network connection and make sure your products are powered on. Try again.” They are powered on and network is working fine (could play music up until starting the setup).

Pressing “Try again” instantly gets the same error. If I exit the setup, the Living Room (where the Beam is) now says “Living Room (+?+?)” and I have “Remove Surrounds” in the rooms menu. I tried playing something in 5.1 but no sound is coming from them. The 2 Symfonisks are also now gone from my system and I need to factory reset them to get them to appear in the app again.

How do I setup the surrounds properly without error?

Ok, I tried to do what you suggested, but the same thing is still happening. My router is a Netgear Nighthawk MR60 mesh with one MS60 satellite.

If your router has ‘QOS’ enabled, then see if switching that off resolves the matter.

QOS hasn't been enabled. I thought maybe one of the speakers may be trying to connect to my satellite instead of my main router, thus causing the weird desync, but I'm not 100% sure it is.

In a bonded Sonos HT setup the wireless ‘surrounds’ connect directly to the main Sonos HT device (the Beam in this case) using an ad hoc 5Ghz connection - they are each controlled by the Beam and are effectively slaves to that device. It’s the link between the devices that is the issue, hence Bruce’s question asking if you may have switched off their radios, but sometimes external things, like QoS, or network multicasting, can get in the way of things.

I would next try wiring your Beam, or another Sonos device direct to your main router, but do not use the surrounds as a wired device, if that is practicable to do with your system?


It shouldn’t. When they change from ‘normal’ speakers to ‘surround’ speakers, they also switch from your WiFi normal  signal to a 5Ghz signal generated by your Beam. Which is why I asked you to check that the radio on the Beam has not been turned off. 


I had the same problem. I have one Arc + sub and have had two Play 1 as surround speakers for a long time. But those two just stoped working. I removed them and installed them again and as soon as I try to add them as surround it’s not working. Same error as mention in this thread. I also use mesh network but have been doing that all the time. Anyway, I got it to work again by connection my Arc with ethernet cable instead of wifi. Then added those two Play 1 again and it’s working.

So, what has changed? Software update? Why do I have to use the Arc with cable to add those two Play 1 as surround speakers? I haven’t change anything else.


Most likely a change in the firmware of the router. I would suspect the newer version  isn’t ‘happy’ with the concept of proxied IP addresses while on strictly wireless, but that’s a guess, of course. It’s the only logical explanation for why it would work while wired and not wireless, to my knowledge. But the surrounds are connecting to the Arc first, not your wireless signal, so the Arc has to get proxied IP addresses from the router that it then hands off to them. 


Restart your network. 
 

I had this same issue with both beam + Symfonisk  speakers and Arc + Ones. Restarted network and boom, all is back to normal. 


I have The same problem. 
 

 

Diagnostic 1746304754


I have The same problem. 
 

 

Diagnostic 1746304754

Have you checked that the Beam’s radio is switched on and that the two devices you are adding are not ‘paired’ - if they are paired, you need to remove the pairing before trying to add them as surrounds.


I have The same problem. 
 

 

Diagnostic 1746304754

Have you checked that the Beam’s radio is switched on and that the two devices you are adding are not ‘paired’ - if they are paired, you need to remove the pairing before trying to add them as surrounds.

The radio/wifi is enabled. 
I've reset the symfonisk three times still no go


I have The same problem. 
 

 

Diagnostic 1746304754

Have you checked that the Beam’s radio is switched on and that the two devices you are adding are not ‘paired’ - if they are paired, you need to remove the pairing before trying to add them as surrounds.

The radio/wifi is enabled. 
I've reset the symfonisk three times still no go

What router are you using and what mobile controller device? (version of operating system on the mobile?)


Hi @Knapstad 

From the diagnostic, it looks like your Beam is really close to your router/access point. Please separate them by at least 1m (3 feet). If they are not so close, I recommend you reduce the transmission power of the router slightly, if that’s an available option.

A reboot of the router, the Symfonisks and the Beam may also help, if it still doesn’t work after separating the devices.

Also, how far away from the Beam are the Symfonisks?


I have The same problem. 
 

 

Diagnostic 1746304754

Have you checked that the Beam’s radio is switched on and that the two devices you are adding are not ‘paired’ - if they are paired, you need to remove the pairing before trying to add them as surrounds.

The radio/wifi is enabled. 
I've reset the symfonisk three times still no go

What router are you using and what mobile controller device? (version of operating system on the mobile?)

I'm using a netgear  nighthawk and my os is iOS 14.7


Hi @Knapstad 

From the diagnostic, it looks like your Beam is really close to your router/access point. Please separate them by at least 1m (3 feet). If they are not so close, I recommend you reduce the transmission power of the router slightly, if that’s an available option.

A reboot of the router, the Symfonisks and the Beam may also help, if it still doesn’t work after separating the devices.

Also, how far away from the Beam are the Symfonisks?

The router and beam are quite close. I'll try moving them. The symfonisk are about 3-4 meters away from the beam


Hi @Knapstad 

The router and beam are quite close. I'll try moving them. The symfonisk are about 3-4 meters away from the beam

Great - the Symfonisks are well within range, and you should see a significant improvement once you separate the Beam and router.


Hi @Knapstad 

The router and beam are quite close. I'll try moving them. The symfonisk are about 3-4 meters away from the beam

Great - the Symfonisks are well within range, and you should see a significant improvement once you separate the Beam and router.

I moved The router and The system added an update to my speakers. And now it works 😀


Hi @Knapstad 

Fantastic! Glad to hear it - thanks for updating us!


Wow - does it seem crazy to anyone else that we have to be network admins to figure this out?  Not OK.

 


Hi @ngkay.

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the community!

I appreciate your detailed post outlining the issue, let me help and try to figure this out.

To better understand what's happening, kindly reproduce the issue then submit a diagnostic through the Sonos app and reply with the confirmation number, I'd start by reviewing your system to see if there's anything that might cause this issue.

For reference, you may also check this article that provides guidelines and limitations of surround speakers in a Sonos home theater setup.
 

Please let us know if there’s anything else that we can do and we’d be glad to help.

Hi Annazel, I’m having the same problem with my sonos beam connecting to my 2 Play1s.  They used to work fine until I noticed that one side was not connecting.  In the process of troubleshooting, I hard reset all three units and still could not connect the surround.  I submitted a diagnostic and the confirmation number is 335332480.


Hi @kojikabuto, welcome to the Sonos Community!

I had a quick look at your diagnostic, and it looks like the phone you’re using is connecting to a Guest network, and isn’t seeing the Sonos system.

Mind double-checking that you’re connected to the right network, and trying once more to add the surrounds back on? It may also be worth “forgetting" the guest network from your phone, as the phone switching between networks could potentially cause issues.

If you’re still having trouble, feel free to send another diagnostic over :)


Hi @kojikabuto, welcome to the Sonos Community!

I had a quick look at your diagnostic, and it looks like the phone you’re using is connecting to a Guest network, and isn’t seeing the Sonos system.

Mind double-checking that you’re connected to the right network, and trying once more to add the surrounds back on? It may also be worth “forgetting" the guest network from your phone, as the phone switching between networks could potentially cause issues.

If you’re still having trouble, feel free to send another diagnostic over :)

I don’t have a guest network in my house.  However, I do have a 2.5 and 5ghz set-up.  does it matter which account it is logged in to?


Which network can matter, if your router doesn’t fully merge the 2 and 5 GHz networks you will have issues.

Rather than fuss with the router just hook up to the 2.4 until things are sorted.


Hi - I’m having the same issue with two Play:Ones and a Beam. 


I restarted my last night router which temporarily solved the issue, but overnight the entire system started throwing up errors (very annoying when I use the bedroom Sonos for my 4 month old sleep sounds) and it has continued to be problematic through this afternoon.

I don’t understand what else I need to do to try and rectify the issue - I’ve hard reset both surrounds, power cycled the beam, reset the WiFi and all combination of the above. It seems to me that the surround ‘slaves’ just aren’t connecting properly to the Beam ‘master’ and I can’t understand why that could be. I can’t even see the two surrounds on the list of MAC addresses connected to my router, which is stranger still.

Even more frustrating, I can’t submit a diagnostic on S2 as that keeps throwing an error at me too!

I’m using a virgin media hub 3.0, TP-Link AV600 Powerline adapters for extended WiFi and all Play:1s apart from the Beam


Finally got the diagnostic to submit - 711268792


Hi @Mattxjones, thanks for sharing that diagnostic.

Unfortunately I’m not seeing any surrounds in the diagnostic, however I suspect that the powerline adaptors are causing issues here - would it be possible to either test with the powerline adators disconnected from power, or with a Sonos device (not one of the surrounds) connected directly to the main router via Ethernet cable?

Let us know how you get on :)


Hi @Xander P

The powerlines are in different rooms to the beam and surrounds - they’re in the same room as the main router, so I’m not sure if they are an issue. I will turn them off and attempt to reconnect.

Unfortunately I can’t connect anything to the main router as it’s in a cupboard - hence the power lines outside of the living room.

And of course you’re not seeing the surrounds, that’s the problem!


Hi @kojikabuto, welcome to the Sonos Community!

I had a quick look at your diagnostic, and it looks like the phone you’re using is connecting to a Guest network, and isn’t seeing the Sonos system.

Mind double-checking that you’re connected to the right network, and trying once more to add the surrounds back on? It may also be worth “forgetting" the guest network from your phone, as the phone switching between networks could potentially cause issues.

If you’re still having trouble, feel free to send another diagnostic over :)

Hi Xander,
 

I did what you suggested. I did the “forget network” on my wifi then reset both my Sonos. I noticed that everytime I try to set it up, the wifi disconnects and shifts to LTE. I tried to turn off my LTE but setting up the play 1 still disconnects from wifi.
 

Any other suggestions?
 

Dan