Arc Ultra Surrounds/Sub Disconnect Almost Daily

Since you aren’t willing to consider it possibly being an issue with Sonos interacting with your network I can’t help. If you are open to suggestions on that topic at a later date let us know and there are options to explore.

I agree with ​@Stanley_4 you need to be open to suggestions. Here’s one… Remove the SonosNet. Make sure that WiFi is enabled for all speakers in the App. Place all Sonos onto your WiFi. That’s a starting point.

There are other possibilities involving the AiMesh. I know of what I speak as I use an Asus AiMesh WiFi 7 setup. 

Do you have a Guest Network enabled?

There have been previous reports where surrounds/sub disconnect when a guest network is enabled.

Definitely happy to make additional network tweaks or check router/Sonos logs! What do you suggest?

However, the Asus<->Sonos network links are rock solid. Arc Ultra, Era 100, and Roam don't have any issues on the main Wi-fi network, don't fall off, and all features work as expected. The challenge is that the Sonos<->Sonos network links (between Arc Ultra and surrounds/subs) consistently fail and remain failed until the Arc Ultra (not the surrounds/subs) is hard power cycled.

If a hard power cycle of the Arc Ultra alone can fix that Sonos<->Sonos network link, how do I diagnose what's cause the link to fail in the first place? Seems like a stretch to assume that my Asus network is reaching in and breaking that link by itself. Is the problem a software issue in Sonos' networking stacks? A hardware issue in the Arc Ultra PHY? Environmental interference that Sonos isn't resilient enough to self-repair without a power cycle?

Thanks. I’ll try removing SonosNet entirely.

To ​@Mr. T, I do have a guest network enabled, though obviously am not using it for the Sonos speakers themselves. Can try disabling it. Though, were those previous reports about a problem that only occurred every 24-48 hours? Or immediate symptoms as soon as guest network was enabled?

I could also force the guest network to 2.4 GHz only. The links between the Arc Ultra and bound speakers are 5 GHz only, right?

I don’t know the timings, but it was previously reported here:

There are several good suggestions so far. I agree that the difficulty probably lies with the Arc or the Sonos 5 gHz link between the Room's members.

I don't suspect the router's radio or the channels it is using are part of the problem, what may be an issue is the Arc switching the wifi connection between the hub and remote AP. You can look at that by checking the BSSID the Arc is connected to when working and when failing. A possible issue there would be IP address related, some small number of users see issues that may stem from when the router's DHCP server assigns random addresses as the networking path changes or as scheduled. This is very hard to diagnose but a simple workaround exists, assign all Sonos (not just the iffy ones) a static/reserved address from the router's DHCP Settings page. Power down all Sonos Reboot router and controller then power the Sonos back up. 

Edit, forgot you had tried this.  It would be interesting to try power cycling one of the surrounds or Sub and seeing if that triggered a reconnection.

Not related to your issue, but I noticed this while looking at possibilities, in the networking section of the settings the BSSID on the Sub or surrounds isn't changed to the Arc's hidden one when playing 5.1 content, but still shows the wifi's BSSID.

Thanks ​@Stanley_4 . Unfortunately, I’ve had static DHCP assignments for all speakers for years, so that’s already been ruled out as a solution.

I tried power cycling one of the surrounds when the 3 speakers went offline last night - it did not bring anything back online. Maybe I needed to try power cycling all 3? As usual, power cycling the Arc Ultra itself did bring things back online.

For now, I’ve disabled all guest networks and removed SonosNet from the equation by turning off wifi in the Symfonisk Lamp that was generating SonosNet. Will see if this solves the disconnects.

I’ll look at what BSSID the surrounds are connected to as well.

For whatever it’s worth, I had previously test driven a non-Ultra Arc in this same space and with this same network (though with Symfonisk Bookshelf Gen 1s rather than the Gen 2s I now have; same Sub Mini). The non-Ultra Arc did not exhibit these issues. It does kinda tempt me to return the Arc Ultra and just go back to an Arc.

Hi ​@shutter41 I have the same issue with a Beam that disconnects from 2 x ERA 100 and a Sub Mini, this started when the system automatically upgraded to the latest firmware. All of these are on the “latest” product stream.

This does not happen to an older setup that I have, PlayBar, 2 x Play:1 and Sub. All of these are on the legacy product stream.

As I only have to power off/on the Beam to get everything working I have decided to live with the issue and see what happens when the next firmware release is delivered. If the problem persists after that I’ll call Sonos support, assuming that the queues are not too long, to see what they say and what is required to fix the issue permanently. 

When its ‘working as expected’ is the source TV (eARC) or streaming music?

Arc can only connect to a 2.4GHz network, Arc Ultra can use 2.4 or 5GHz, so even though it was in same location, it would be possibly connecting to a different band (network)

https://support.sonos.com/en-gb/article/supported-wifi-modes-and-security-standards-for-sonos-products

Thanks for reporting this. It’s both encouraging (maybe they’ll fix it!) and discouraging (come on, Sonos!) that it started after a software update for you. I had set up my Arc Ultra right around the time of the latest software update, so wouldn’t have noticed a difference.

How often does the disconnect occur in your setup? And what is your home Wi-fi configuration?

Either. Both eARC (from Samsung Frame) and streaming music (usually Spotify) play sound as expected from the Arc Ultra itself, but nothing is heard from the surrounds or sub.

People are always quick to blame a firmware update for their issues. If there was an inherent issue with the last firmware update, there would be a lot more users complaining about the same issue. In the absence of such posts, the culprit lies elsewhere.

​@Mr. T if you read my response properly you would see that I was clear that:

• For me this problem started when the firmware update
• My chosen course of action is to wait and see if this changes with the next firmware update

That’s not blaming the firmware it is simply making the facts of my scenario available to another user who has a similar problem so they can decide the best approach for them.

There are now 3 or 4 threads covering similar issues what they definitely have in common is they are current Sound Bars on the latest firmware. The other reason for my approach is that It does not  happen with the ”legacy” firmware on my PlayBar setup on the same network.

I know from personal experience that Sonos has fixed firmware bugs that impacted my system but not other users, it happens and I am grateful to the Sonos programmers who recognise that this is a possibility and investigate these issues so they get fixed.

All of the impacted users may, of course, have the same network issue but personally I’m not going down that rabbit hole just yet. 

​@Gaham - sounds exactly like you are blaming the firmware.

​@Mr. T certainly seems plausible that a firmware update could have caused the issue only for certain network situations, and that ​@Gaham and I apparently have one of those network situations.

For what it’s worth, Sonos Support’s recommendation (after looking at my diagnostic) was to hardwire my Arc Ultra. The explanation given was “there is a DHCP proxy failure that causes a connection issue to the surround speakers”. I’ll try hardwiring (via a new AiMesh node) and see if that resolves it.

Support also suggested that SonosNet (or lack thereof) wouldn’t have an impact in this situation. They did not suggest anything about guest networks, but we also didn’t delve into my home network details.

​@shutter41 just saw your questions.

The disconnect happens most days for me but has never happened twice in a day.

My network is a Sky Hub 4.2 and we have Sky Q with 2 Sky Q minis which creates a mesh ensuring good WiFi coverage. 

I wondered if the speakers switching between the different BSSIDs might be causing this but checking in the App I could see that all of the speakers were on the same BSSID whether the system is connected or not.

Because this was a bit tedious to check I submitted an enhancement request to add the BSSID details to the About My System page of the App.

​@shutter41 - like I said, people are always quick to blame firmware updates.

It’s not surprising that support asked you to wire the Arc Ultra as that is the standard response whenever there is a connection issue with surrounds/sub.

Also not surprising that SonosNet is not a factor as Arc Ultra is not compatible with SonosNet.

Have your surrounds/sub dropped since disabling the guest network?

​@shutter41 did you ever get to the bottom of this issue in your system.

FWIW mine has been rock solid since the latest firmware was installed on the “newer” speakers in my system a few days ago. This may be a COINCIDENCE but if you are still having issues and the latest firmware has not yet been installed it could be worth trying 😉

I wonder if you have the Sonos system linked to a Google Home account? That was the cause of the same problem for me. Google Home was messing things up. Just unlink your Sonos account if you have linked it. 

As soon as you assume that the issue must be [ … ] or cannot be [ … ] you are likely to be blindsided.

For many years I have reserved IP addresses. At one point I rearranged my network slightly and updated reservations. Sometime later I started having intermittent issues with a very old NAS drive. Due to its age, I was not shocked, but the issues were not exactly what I expected from a failing drive. They seemed more like address conflicts, but … I’m too smart for that … right? Finally, I swallowed my pride and checked addresses … darn! ,,, . I had forgotten about a palm sized, seldom used device hidden in a cabinet that now duplicated the NAS address.

I ended up getting another AiMesh node and setting it up right next to the Arc Ultra, which allowed me to wire the Arc Ultra via ethernet. Doing that seems to have resolved the problem.

I may try switching back to Wi-fi after the latest firmware to see if that resolves it, but that would just be for curiosity’s sake.

​@shutter41 This is a known problem and I have been working with Asus directly for a number of months on this. The culprit to this is the Guest Network Pro feature, it changes the way in which DHCP leases are issued by the router. 

Asus sent me a beta firmware to test yesterday which seems to have fixed the issue for me. They are looking to get as much feedback as possible, if you would like to test it, please let me know. 

Here is the ongoing thread about it

I am also having the same problem. I have sonus arc, 2 era 100s and sub mini. It works for a couple of days then the eras and sub just seem to drop off. I have to reset my whole system and set it up again to get it to work. With the amount of money spent on something thats meant to “just work” its a lot of hassle. Its really put me off sonus. The system is great when it works.